External Scratch disks between FCE and FCP
 

Hi!

Does it work to capture and use an external harddrive with Final Cut Express and then edit on another computer with Final Cut Studio? (and vice versa?) I am buying a new computer (MacPro with Final Cut Studio) and have an old G4ibook with FCE HD and was wondering if they were intercompatible.

Thanks for any help

The only problem with using an external hard drive is the possibility of a slow down in processing speed. This has everything to do with the limits of Firewire. It can't always provide the data fast enough. Keeping display information minimized, like not displaying audio waveforms in the timeline, can help a bit. I ran into this issue when I tried to use an external HD as a scratch disk in tandum with my internal second drive. Forced me to switch to safe RT from Dynamic RT, which meant a lot of waiting for renders on effects. If you are working with short projects, this may not be an issue. A colleague of mine does this all the time. My projects typically run an hour or more with extensive color correction and other types or renders applied to long clips.

FC Studio will read FCE projects. FCE won't read FC Studio projects, unless you export the project as a QT movie and import.