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Sticky Timeline Woes
FCP HD is not very responsive working on the timeline as of recently. Dragging, moving, trimming, slipping, rolling, etc. have become slow such that when I perform these operations it takes a moment (or three) for FCP HD to react.
I once read a remedy of turning off all of the options in the sequence settings for all sequences in the project. In a previous project that worke, but not this one.
Many have had this happen before including myself. Has anyone come across an explanation for this and how to fix it (every time).
My workflow is hampered obviously and the sighs from clients and coworkers over my shoulder demonstrate their uneasy patience.Below is a profile of my project/system
46 minute sequence/ DVCPRO HD media/ G5 Dual 2 GHZ (4 GB RAM)/ Apple 3.5 TB Xserve RAID/ Mac OS 10.3.8/ Apple 23″ and 17″ cinema, studio LCD displays
Tangier
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12 Replies
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Tangier- My first thought would be that some of the media was inadverntantly digitized to the Macintosh HD (system drive) and FCP is struggling to play the footage. Try Get Info on the MacHD. With all my software I still have 120 gb available on my system drive. If your system drive is loaded you have something on it that shouldn’t be there. The other issue might be too many applications open but I see you have 4gb of RAM so that shouldn’t be the problem. Hope this helps. Jerry
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1. Restart the Mac.
2. Mixdown your audio at certain intervals DURING the edit (you can do this without destroying any multi-track layer options).
Yes, audio has a profound effect on the speed that FCP can process. A mixdown will ease the burden.
Once there’s a mixdown, if you make any audio changes, they will only affect the small areas that you actually adjusted. So the next time you mixdown it will take a shorter time.3. In extreme cases, “slice up” longer timelines and edit shorter “sections” at a time and FCP should respond faster to each.
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No footage is on my system drive. everything sits on a 3.5 TB Apple Xserve RAID. The only applications I run while working with FCP are MAIL and iChat which have never caused problems before.
Tangier
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Tangier, Repair permissions first. If that doesn’t help trash prefs.
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I had this problem on a recent project. Though I can’t say I solved the problem, I did learn a few things that might help.
1st we did have a very heavy audio edit. So the advice above may well help.
2nd, the problem didn’t seem to be linked to the computer. We could move to a different computer (same drives though) and still have the issue.
3rd, I thought the issue might have something to do with the display of video during things like rolling and moving clips around the timeline, especially when it affected adjacent clips. The one workaround I did come up with was to use some alternative trimming techniques:
Instead of dragging sections around the timeline, use copy and paste, and instead of rolling out to extend a shot, use the extend feature. These two things seemed to work without delay.
If you do solve the problem please let me know!
Will
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I’ve been having these problems for an age. Ever since 4.5
It’s little use trying to fix it, I’ve tried everything.
I’m working with a 5 hour documentary split into timelines of between 15 minutes to an hour.
Any timeline even empty new ones in this project are really sluggish. Rendering and all other functions are fine. I’ve delete preferences. Copied the project and used a new one. Reinstalled the OS. Repaired permissions. Tweaked the RAM setting. Switched off every option in the timelines, nothing works. I don’t have internet in the suite so I’m not on the very latest version, but it still the last but one of FCP and QT. The project has been going on for 18 months and I’m down to the last few days now so I’m loathed to update the machine or reinstall FCP, although it will probably help.
Waiting for Tiger and V5 now please, Oh and I need a new HD camera?!Anyway, my solution has been to work differently…
Trimming and moving with the mouse is the real problem of course, so i am using numeric entry and the arrow keys directly on the timeline more and more. I had never simply clicked on a cut point and trimmed by just pressing the arrows before (and I’ve been using FCP heavily for since v2) I’ve always option clicked and used the trim tool, but it takes forever to open. To I’ve had to try to work this way on this big project which I really really hate. But I do love it when it works so well on other projects.Good Luck,
Duncan. -
You all have a currupt timeline.
This problem should simply NOT be happening, but it does, maybe its a Feature.
Go to File menu, make a new sequence (do not make a dup of existing timeline).
Double click the new timeline, so its loaded on the screen.
Go to the working timeline you are cutting with, select all, copy, paste into new timeline.
This issue has bugged be for the life of 4.5 it drives me crazy!!!
Yet, I may be wrong…
Chirs
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Hi,
I am sure it is a bug. But a very specific bug that happens with large projects only and with so few people on the earth. I tryed all imagine things to solve it and now I decide to wait for FCP5 and Tiger. What I can -
One of the primary causes for “sluggishness” in the timeline is having “dupe detection” turned on. Check ALL of your sequences. Even ones that aren’t open.
Turn dupe detection off. Also, if you have a “huge” project, turning off waveforms and thumbnails in the timeline may help.
Good luck.
Mark
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Everybody experiencing this problem should also check the size of their project file. If it’s above 10-12Mb (easily achieved on docs with multiple versions), you need to slim things down and adopt a different workflow.
Break the project down first into Media/Edits, then further down into chapters/acts/interviews, whatever seems most logical. Also weed out redundant edits by archiving them, keeping the project with your main edit up to date and as lean as possible.
There’s no problem for FCP to have multiple projects open simultaneously, you can copy, cut and paste between them.
Also, make sure that you regularly save your projects using the “Save As…” dialogue, forcing the whole file to be re-written from the ground up on a regular basis. Apparently months of saving to the same file is a recipe for corruption, and simply backing up a buggy file is no insurance against losing your work.
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