Apple Motion 4 - Manual (Page 232)

About Networked Disks and Removable Media
You should be careful when adding media files from a remote server to your project.
Although the File Browser sidebar allows you to easily access the contents of disks on
other computers on your network, doing so only places a link to that file in your project.
The actual media file remains on the remote disk where you found it. As a result,
whenever that remote disk becomes unavailable, the corresponding object in your
project goes offline. Furthermore, depending on the speed of your network, you may
experience performance issues when using media files on other computers. Ideally, you
should copy all media files you want to use in your project onto a disk that’s physically
connected to your computer, both to ensure the file’s future availability, and to guarantee
playback performance. If you do use media from a networked hard drive, make sure it’s
one that is always mounted on your system, and that you have a high-performance
network.
This is especially true for media from removable disks, such as CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and
removable hard drives that are frequently disconnected from your computer. Always
copy media files from such media to your local hard drive so that the media doesn’t
become unavailable when the media is ejected or disconnected.
File Types Supported by Motion
Motion can use the most popular multimedia file formats supported by QuickTime. These
formats can be broken down into the following categories:
• QuickTime movies
• Still image files
• Image sequences
• Layered Photoshop files
• PDF files
• Audio files
QuickTime Movies
Motion supports QuickTime movies using any codec currently installed on your computer.
Examples of QuickTime movies you can import include clips captured with Final Cut Express
or Final Cut Pro, stock footage from a CD-ROM or DVD collection, or computer-generated
animation from a 3D animation package.
232 Chapter 6 Creating and Managing Projects