Blackmagic Forum

I am trying to clean up my C: drive and have discovered that there are many files (13 Gb) in C:/ffmpeg which appear to be copies of files previously used in Fusion compositions.
Within the ffmpeg folder, as well as the ffmpeg components, the files are all in folders with names like W!!2015 Newsreel!!Stills for title. This particular folder for example only contains .jpg files. Other folders are large and contain .exr files.
Can anyone tell me why these files should be placed there and if I can delete them without compromising my Fusion Studio 16.1.1 compositions?
I don't see any configuration settings in Fusion which mention ffmpeg and I don't see why ffmpeg should need to be involved in processing the files that I mentioned above.
Thanks
John Epton

Hey John
If these are just optimized media files and render caches, you can delete them by going to Playback>Delete Optimized Media and Playback>Delete Render Caches>All. Assuming that you are done with editing and rendering your project and will not need to go back to re-edit the project any longer.

.exr files are generated in Fusion using the Saver node. These are very high quality files with large file sizes. I believe these are created by the user, and they can be deleted once you are composited them back into your project and dont need them anymore. Not sure if DR creates .exr files on its own in the background for any reason.

The DR 16.1 Manual has more info on how and when proxy and opt media files are created and how to manage them; check out page 206.

John's Films on Youtube has a playlist for working with optimized media, you can check out some of his videos as well for future research on the subject.

Regards
Sadi

It sounds like either your OS-level TEMP environment variable is pointed at that folder, or you changed the Path Map at some point. To check the former, open an Explorer window and enter %TEMP% in the path bar to see where it takes you. If you wind up in that ffmpeg folder, then that's the culprit.

If not, then in Fusion, check File > Preferences > Globals... > Path Maps and look for the DiskCache, LoaderCache, and Previews entries. I recommend resetting them to Temp:DiskCache because at least Windows polices that folder and will delete its contents when necessary (although obviously you can always delete them manually from time to time).

Fusion itself isn't very good about cleaning up its caches, so you may find material from months ago in there. In any case, it's perfectly safe to delete Fusion's caches. They will be regenerated as required.

Hey Bryan and Sadi
Thanks for your feedback. Most helpful.
Bryan. I discovered that my Loader cache was set to ffmpeg. I had thought some time back that this was necessary to ensure ffmpeg kicked in when it was needed to transcode odd codecs. Perhaps this is no longer the case.
Sadi. When deleting render files as you describe, does this only delete files that are associated with the current project?
Thanks
John

John Epton wrote:Sadi. When deleting render files as you describe, does this only delete files that are associated with the current project?

Thats correct, yes. You can delete caches and opt media files per project. Or you can also delete all of them periodically as Bryan explained.