I have a bunch of episodes that are about 30 minutes each that I want to put on the web for download. The file sizes are quite large, so i also want to offer smaller clips as well. Ideally, if an episode is 30 minutes long, i would like to break it down into 6 5-minute stand alone clips. Each 30 minute episode is it's own project in fcp. I guess i could just go into the project, create 6 more timelines and maybe copy and paste the 5 minute segments each into a new sequence, but is there a better and quicker way? Ideally I would hope there would be a way to just insert chapter markers into my main timeline sequence where I want the segmented clips to start and stop, and do a batch in compressor to export them all to the types of finished files i need, along with compressing the full size 30 minute clip, and just walk away for 12-15 hours while it did that.

So are either of these the way to go, or is there a different way?

I am using fcs version 5 if you need to know that.

Thanks for the time to look at this and offer up any advice

Couldn't you just set In and Out points in your timeline at the head and tail of each 5-min segment and then export them using the 'from in and out' instead of 'full timeline' option (I'm sure that's not really what the options are labeled, but it's something like that)

Upon re-reading your post, I see that part of the issue is that you want to do all of them in some kind of batch processing & compression function. With that in mind, couldn't you just compress the entire 30-min episode, then when that's done, open that already compressed version in FCP and then do the In/Out export or each section without having to wait for each segment to re-compress?

Sorry if I'm missing something here. I'm no FCP guru.

Upon re-reading your post, I see that part of the issue is that you want to do all of them in some kind of batch processing & compression function. With that in mind, couldn't you just compress the entire 30-min episode, then when that's done, open that already compressed version in FCP and then do the In/Out export or each section without having to wait for each segment to re-compress?

Sorry if I'm missing something here. I'm no FCP guru.

I guess i could do it that way. If i do this in/out export, it will just chop it and make them into it's own self contained quicktime movie?