Managing Projects and Media > Clip Libraries >
About Clip Libraries

Use clip libraries to store and organize the clips in your project. You can save individual clips, all clips on a reel, or all clips on the Desktopto a clip library. You can also load any clip, reel, or Desktopfor use in the current work session. You can delete saved items you no longer need from a clip library.

For each project, a clip library named Default is created. You can use the Default clip library or create your own. You can create one or multiple clip libraries per project. For example, create one clip library to save the clips used for a commercial spot and another to save all the clips used to produce an effect such as a warp. Each clip library you create is stored in the current project. Clip libraries support clips of any resolution.

Clip libraries can be displayed in two modes, Single View and Dual View. Single View is the default view and displays the contents of one clip library. Dual View displays the contents of two clip libraries, each in its own panel. Dual View allows you to use drag and drop functionality to copy and move clips, reels, and projects.

You can access clip libraries in other projects (either local or remote). See Copying Local and Remote Clip Libraries to Your Current Project. You can also access a special library, the Gateway library, which allows you to access files located outside a framestore. See Accessing Gateway Libraries.

Clip metadata is stored in clip libraries on your computer's hard disk in /usr/discreet/clip/ <volume name>/<project name>. The actual frames of managed media are stored either on the framestore or on the standard filesystem. Unmanaged media frames are not written to the framestore.

Clip metadata contains various parameters for the clip, including:

- A clip ID that is used by setups to retrieve associated clips and to optimize archiving processes
- Frame IDs that refer to the frames on the framestore or standard filesystem
- Timecode, keycode, and video or audio track numbers
- Audio tracks, if they have been linked to the clip
- Other metadata such as aspect ratio and scan mode

Each frame consists of:

- The image, which is composed of pixels
- A frame ID

You can load the same clip from a clip library multiple times onto the Desktop. This repetition of the original frames does not take up space on the framestore because what you actually load are references to the original frames. However, if you create an effect such as colour correction and then process new frames, the frames will be stored on the framestore. Information about current framestore usage is provided in the message bar.