Split large movie files into little chunks?
 

This is a stupid question, perhaps - but if there's an answer it'll probably save me about 2 months of work.

Is there any way to use Final Cut Pro or some other Mac (or Windows!) utility to create multiple marker points in a large file (say, a 50 minute interview entitled "interview.mov") and create new files that break the large interview up into smaller chunks ("interview01.mov," "interview02.mov," etc.)?

If I can do that I can sort the interview questions by topic rather than searching through my transcripts.

One method- open your large file in Quicktime Pro:

- change in and out points using the handles
- choose Edit>Trim to selection
- Save As
- Choose either self-contained (larger file size, not always necessary) or a reference movie.

One way to break up your big file.

The method I use, Brian is to grab the interview clip in question, drop it into a sequence, use the blade tool to cut up the interview into statements and drag each of those into the appropriate bin. I'm currently working on an HD project that has 42 hours of material, of which 18 hours is interviews. This is the method I'm using and it's working well for me. Besides, this way you don't increase the amount of media on your drives. You're making LOGICAL files, not PHYSICAL ones.

You can DO that?

Holy crap, that's going to make my work SO much easier.

-- Brian.

As a variant to Shaun suggestion, that gets to the basically same final result, you could set markers in the clip, while in the viewer, where you want to trim it, and then select these markers and apply Make Subclip. This generates as many clips (better: subclips) as the markers you selected: you can then organize these "logical files" (but I still prefer to call them "clips" or "subclips") in as many bins as you like.

Piero