Confused About FCP Exporting...

[Mystikal]

Why did Final Cut Pro turn a 320mg file into a 5.3gb file? I dont get why FCP exports the files to be so massive. Another file I had went from 114mb to 1.89.

I went to a concert and took a video of a song. Just now, I went back and added music from the soundboard over the video. After exporting, the file size turned out to be 5.3 gigs. I chose "Quicktime Movie." Why are these files so massive? How can I make them smaller? Is there some codec I need installed?

Thanks for the help .

 

[simsaladimbamba]

As you probably recorded the event via some consumer device, the footage will be stored using a highly compressive MPEG-4 codec like H264.
Then as you imported the footage into FCP, by circumventing the Log & Transfer window I suppose, you still had the same files you recorded.
But as FCP does not work with MPEG-4 codecs (it works, but not as it should be), you may had to render a lot during editing, which means FCP transcoded the footage inside the timeline into .mov files either using the ProRes or Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC), depending on your sequence settings.
And as you then used the QuickTime Movie export feature, you exported the finished sequence using ProRes or AIC, two codecs suited for editing, which also means bigger files (no way around it, if you want to edit properly).

You could now use Compressor, included in FCS, thus you paid for it, or MPEG Streamclip or even Handbrake to transcode that .mov file into an .mp4 file using the H264 codec if you want. Compressor and Handbrake even offer templates/presets.

For more information you can also consult the FCP manual, available via the HELP menu.