Did I use that clip already?

Continuing their exploration of new features introduced in the 10.1.2 update to Final Cut Pro X, this week on MacBreak Studio Steve Martin and Mark Spencer from Ripple Training demonstrate the expanded capacity to filter and build smart collections of used and unused media.

Back in the December 10.1 update, a feature was added that allowed you to view used media ranges: when enabled (from the View menu), orange bars would appear at the bottom of each clip in the browser for the section of those clips that are contained in the currently open project. While useful, this feature was limited because you couldn't view those sections of clips in isolation.

Now this limitation has been addressed: viewing used and unused media is as fully functional as other filter criteria. Specifically, “Unused” is now one of the options in the filter menu, and has its own keyboard shortcut (Control-U).

While it's great to be able to quickly filter browser clips in this way, the real power of this feature comes into play in the Filter HUD. Click the magnifying glass next to the filter menu to open this HUD. Click the “+” menu to view the list of filtering options, and Used Media now appears along with the previous choices like Ratings, Type, Media Type, and Keywords. Select it to reveal a pop-up where you can choose Used or Unused.

By combining this new filter type with others, Steve demonstrates how you can build useful filter criteria to quickly reveal which clips you've used, or haven't yet used, in your project. And by saving the filter as a Smart Collection, it's always a click away – and is easy to copy to other events.

There's one more new feature: used media indicators now work on all clip types, including synchronized clips, compound clips, and multicam clips. Remember that the indicators are valid for the currently open project; this means they will change as you open different projects.