Waveform Cache files

I'm in the process of media managing and archiving 200plus gigs of stuff. I've created self contained project folders with media files with the media manager, but there are no waveform cache files there.

What are these files anyway? Now that I'm media managed, can I throw away the old waveform cache files? I reason I ask is that there are no new waveform cache files saved with the new media managed stuff.

Waveform cache is simply the graphical representations of the audio tracks when you have waveforms selected in your sequence settings (CMD+OPT+W). FCP has to draw those and update them when you make changes to them. Those files are saved in the waveform cache folder in the same directory as your capture scratch. Essentially they are the audio version of thumbnails for video.

In short, to answer your question...No you don't need them. They can always be rebuilt in a few seconds.

Andy

Ditch them. Also ditch Thumbnail Cache and render files. When archiving, archive project files and non-recoverable (ie. non-batch-listed, non-timecoded) media.

OK that's great. Thanks. I didn't want to ditch anything that could come back and bite me later.

If you're not used to backing up files, you might want to bring in somebody experienced to do it for you and show you exactly what to keep and what not to. Archiving is not something you want to do by "gut feeling".

It's not gut feeling with me.

I've done a lot of reading on it. My three favorite papers that I keep referring to are:

Media Management in Final Cut Pro 4 by Andrew Balis

Technique: Using Media Manager to get rid of unused media by Larry Jordan

'I Said TRIM, dang it' by Charles Roberts


So far it's gone very smooth.