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I have a scene in my film Final Cut Pro X HATES
Friends,
I’m at the end of my rope. There’s a scene in my film that Final Cut Pro X just hates. For months I’ve been dealing with this.
The scene is about 4 mins long, and 2 mins into it, a person has a spotlight blasting on them, which begins to pulsate and get quicker, and then strobe blasts begin. So there’s a ton of cutting going on in this scene, as well as a lot of sound design. Though the cutting is very economic and the sound design is all grouped together into compound clips– and still, there’s usually about a 5 sec delay on every step I try to do. Even clicking the Arrow key once right, to advance a frame, causes the spinning pin wheel. And trying to play what I’ve worked on, either crashes the system or freezes it for sometimes up to 5 mins (seriously).
This is a 5K project, but even at 2K (in its own Project), this sequence is impossible to work with. It’s gotten to the point that I have to do all my work blindly (without being able to view anything) and then output the sequence so I can watch it outside of FCX on my desktop.
Any ideas what could be causing this? I can provide a system report of the crash, as well as a screenshot of the timeline if it helps.
Thanks.
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Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com -
15 Replies
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[Dennis Widmyer] “This is a 5K project, but even at 2K (in its own Project), this sequence is impossible to work with.”
When you say this, do you mean that you have encoded the 5K footage into 2K sized quicktimes or are you saying that you’re putting 5K footage into a 2K project? Because if it’s the latter, you’re not going to get any relief from your problems because FCPX is still accessing 5K files.
Since it’s a 5K project, I’m inclined to think that you’re just stressing your computer, particularly if you’re not using Pro Res files (ie: using r3d files). Have you tried transcoding your media to proxy files and working with them?
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Hey Andy,
Yeah, I think you nailed it. Yes, it’s Red footage (in 5K project). I have it set to use ProRes for Playback. But I didn’t create Optimized Media upon importing it. So that must be what’s stressing it– particularly because there’s so many damn shots and edits in this sequence.
How would I use Optimized Media for just one Project? (and not the entire Event?)
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Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com -
Hey Andy,
The only option I’m getting when I right click the clips and select ‘Transcode Media’ is to create ‘Optimized Media.’ The ‘Proxy Media’ option is dithered out.
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Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com -
Usually that means that proxy media has already been created for your media. Go into your preferences and choose Use Proxy media from the playback section. It’ll switch to using proxies instead of original files.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Just to support what others are saying, in X – the program is designed not just to play back, but to composite, render, and generally retain the highest quality possible across its processes. So when you ask it to calculate the composite states of two HUGE rasters of pixels – as those change frame to frame – that’s exactly what it tries to do.
And asking it to do that is silly. Because X is designed to allow you to effectively edit with alternate resolution referenced files for efficiency – and then output with master Rez finals – one time – at the end.
You’re metaphorically trying to boot and keep the nuclear power plant on-line, just to test the wiring and lightbulbs in one house. You have a couple of capable gas powered generators in the garage (optimized and proxy workflows) so its time to read up on how X does things (metadata and references) and get your head out of the past standard when working with high Rez meant having to have clog up everything by stuffing high Rez through all the pipes.
Trust me, it’s much, much better this way
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Hi Andy,
Yeah, I have ‘Use Proxy Media’ selected for my Playback Preferences. But I think you’re right: I think this particular scene (as well as others) wasn’t transcoded upon Import. We had an assistant editor start bringing all the footage in, back while I was still directing the film. And I’m not sure that every file was properly transcoded. Here’s why I think this: Some scenes have clips that will let me right click them and ‘Reveal in Finder,’ in which case, it points me to the Proxy Files folder. But other files won’t give me that option. It too, is dithered out– which tells me it’s because there IS now Proxy of said file.
If that’s the case, should I reimport these clips and transcode them as Proxies on import? It’s weird that it won’t give me the option to create Proxies out of them once they’re in the Event. The only option they’re giving me is to Create Optimized Media.
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Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com -
Update: It’s because in some cases, I was selecting multicam clips, that it wasn’t allowing me to see the Proxy File location in Finder. But yeah, all of the shots in this particular sequence DO have Proxies already made… and I have the Preferences set to use them for Proxies. So now that we know I’m editing this scene with proxies, what else do you think could be causing all the problems?
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Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com -
What’s your computer config? Also, take a look at the proxy files and note how big they are resolution wise and overall file size (for example, are the files long?).
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Computer config is a maxed out 2013 iMac 28 inch.
3TB Fusion drive. (event files and project files stored locally. raw files stored on an external RAID drive)
32GB of RAM
Processor: 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7It’s running the latest version of OSx 10.8.5. I purposely didn’t upgrade to Mavericks yet, because I saw some people giving caution in a FCX thread, about bugs they were seeing on the new OS. And since I’m days away from locking picture on this feature, I don’t want to mess with anything till it’s outputted and off to the Color Correction and Sound Design phase.
So really, my system should be able to handle this. The actual files (in this particular scene) are long, but not overly long. I’m mainly pulling from two separate takes and inter-cutting them with a spotlight blast and some quick 1-2 frame subliminal shots.One of the takes is 3 mins long. The other is 7 mins long.
And really, there’s a lot of scenes in this film with a lot of editing and sound design going on, that are easy to work with. But this scene is a nightmare. Again, I have to wait 5 mins to even view what I’ve done some times. And there’s sometimes a 5 sec delay on every step I try to perform. And if the pinwheel isn’t spinning, the system is just crashing.
So I think I’m looking for some other issue that can be causing this. Any other ideas?
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Dennis Widmyer
http://www.parallacticpictures.com -
It’s possible that some clip in that scene is causing the problems. It’s going to be difficult to figure anything out without being in front of the computer. You could try lifting the scene out of the project and working on it in its own project. You could try reimporting the clips used in that scene in case something went wonky when they were initially injested/created (but I’d hesitate to do that unless I could demonstrate the clips were at fault). It’s possible some effect being used is over-stressing the program in that scene.
These are only shots in the dark because I can’t sit down at the computer.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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