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After a couple of weeks of FCPX trial…
Hi,
I’ve always been a PC user but I’ve recently bought a maxed out retina iMac. I want to escape from Adobe as I’ve always found Premiere buggy and slow. I’ve been trialling FCPX for the last two weeks and completed a whole project. The experience have been quite positive however there are a few concerns:
– This is a MAJOR concern. At first when the project was nearly empty everything seemed to flow really nicely and fast however as soon as I reached a certain point (+ 15/20 mins of edited footage) the whole program seemed to slow down quite notoriously to the point of making the editing experience rather ‘unusable’. Why is this? I’m currently editing with the footage on a RAID 0 USB 3 WD drive so it should be quite fast? should I upgrade to Thunderbolt?
– Also jumping from Project to project (to copy clips for example) seemed rather clunky and there was always a few seconds delay?
– Skimming is great but after a few hours of editing, it can drive you a bit crazy (if you know what I mean). I know that I can turn it off (S) but that also turns OFF ‘browser skimming’. This basically means turning Skimming ON and OFF all the time. Is there a way to switch Skimming only for the Timeline?
– RGB curves??? what no curves??
– The magnetic timeline was hard to understand at first but then it clicked and it was great. However, I don’t understand how to deal with connections, they drive me mad! any tutorial you recommend?
All in all I think FCPX is a great piece of software but it feels as if it needs developing more. I also love the whole organising media, the keywords are great, etc….
Anyway, thanks in advance!!!!
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10 Replies
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Getting all your settings right at the beginning seems key to having a smooth FCPX experience. You don’t mention what codecs you’re working with, or what prefs you set for the import, but these have a lot to do with speed issues. For example, working with optimized versus proxy versions of the original media.
If you can share more tech details about the footage and project settings, perhaps others will suggest helpful things.
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Agreed on the format question.
I work 99% with R3D files in RAW (no optimize) at all times.
The last two big projects was a full feature and a 30 min webiposode.
Now of course Im using a 2012 Mac Pro with SAS GTECH eS Pro RAIDs and a ROCKET card.
My local is an 512 SSD and all Libraries reside on a SAS RAID.
Now to put things in perspective, we do the same thing on MacBook Pro Retinas, GRAID mini but with optimized to Pro Res 4444 at 4K.
Same with our Avid MC OFFLINE system. -
Thanks for the answer guys.
Most of the footage that we work with comes from various Canon C100 (avchd) and DSLRs (5D) so it’s all heavily compressed stuff. For The project that I just finished, I chose to work with the native stuff and I didn’t create any proxy or optimised media. I guess that i just wanted to test what FCPX could do first? All the footage lives on the WD RAID 0. And the media cache it’s on a SSD on an enclosure connected through usb 3 as well.
With these settings should I create proxies before starting to edit?Thanks
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https://www.ubermediahd.com/blog/?p=353
describes some tips for changing clip connection points. FCPX also uses the tilda ~ key to “ignore clip connections”. Larry Jordan and Ripple training are also great resources.
Optimizing does help, it speeds up your export as well. I’ve found that stabilization, multicam and the auto syncing of clips works much better with optimized. We just mostly xdcam which is nativly supported (doesn’t get re-rendered to prores).
They also suggest closing the inspector when not needed. I think some of the sluggishness comes from having to update the inspector when you’re hopping around between clips.
Also, you can hide the audio waveforms when not needed. They take time to redraw, especially w non optimized. -
Is FCPX slowing down operations after, say, an hour or two of editing, or right from the start of the session? If the answer is after some editing, then usually a quit a relaunch of FCPX solves the issue.
Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4 -
You can turn off skimming in the timeline and not the browser by clicking on the transform button on the lower left of the viewer display.
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I didn’t see a specification for the amount of RAM. At least in the earlier days, not enough RAM caused slowdowns. I have 16 GB, but many use 32 GB.
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This is odd.
Last night I cut a friends (okay ex-gf) wedding video she was involved in.
For the heck of it I went Optimized ProRes 444 at 4K UHD.
After about an hour and maybe a 4.5 min timeline, I started experiencing the gripes folks have expressed here.
Now this is the first time Ive used ProRes 4444 and usually stay at at R3D RAW.
For the fun of it, Ill take the same project and delete the optimized files and redo with HD res and see if I can choke it.
Files reside on a SAS R680 GTECH eS Pro 12TB system running of a 2012 Mac Pro with 32GB and 512SSD as host drive.
Again never had this issue with super long format edits.
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People are always saying close the inspector, the fx window, the meters, the audio waveforms, etc. to keep it running well. I don’t notice much difference and what are these people editing anyway? Those windows are pretty much used with every edit I make. Every time I close them I’m almost immediately having to open them again.
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I can’t offer specifics, other than your concerns (the major one especially) are not an issue on either my 2012 (?) rMBP or my 2014 MP. Other than when it’s rendering waveforms, or some other not-really-background task, I’ve never had an overall slowdown. Especially jumping between Projects. Skimming, it’s just another keystroke you’ll use constantly. Keystrokes don’t slow me down – using the mouse does. RGB curves = various plugins. The one from Graeme Nattress is quire good.
All that said, what DOES slow me down is the %$#*@ filters/generators/etc display. Yeah, I may have a few, but so what? I shouldn’t have to wait while X draws a couple thousand filter thumbnails and the app beachballs. OFFER A TEXT ONLY DISPLAY OF FILTERS. (did I yell that loud enough?)
My #1 enemy in X.
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