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Former Avid users, how has switching to FCP HD been for you?
I am a former Avid owner/user with over 10 years experience. I finally decided to go with FCP HD when replacing my 8 year old Avid. My new system consists of a G5 with 2.5G dual processor; 4G RAM; topped out compliment of XServe RAID drives along with a Black Magic Extreme I/O card. The only thing I held back on when I bought the system was the additional 4G of RAM I could have added. Anyway, I was told that this configuration would get me seven realtime streams of uncompressed video. Depending on what I’m doing, I don’t even get ONE. For example, if I have a background of any kind and then layer, let’s say, a tiff file with an alpha channel on top of that and then proceed to fly it around for even one pixel I have to render. I was stunned at this sad revelation, not to mention clients who comment on how much slower things are now! My 8 year old Avid, which runs at a “whopping” 233MGZ on OS8 no less, will fly the same tiff around all day long realtime with no problem. I’ve been over and over it with tech support and have basically come to the realization that that’s just how it is. There’s no doubt that the final product I eventually produce is far beyond my Avid’s capability, but I’m very frustrated with Apple’s far less than honest claims of “realtime effects”. The concept of RealTime effects is mostly a fantasy. I knew that I’d have to make some adjustments in learning a new system, but all of this computing power not being able to do something as simple as I outlined has me ready to go crawling back to Avid. So I’m curious. Has anyone else had the same experience in changing over? That is, after the learning curve, did you find that even an age old Avid still did many basic things much better than your new FCP HD? And most importantly, do you feel the Apple misled you as to just how “realtime” the effects would be?
BTW, I’ve encountered two other problems along the way which Apple Tech Support has been useless with. First, quite often when I digitize clips with sound, the sound plays back about 4-5 frames out of sync. Restarting a couple of times usually clears up the problem, but I’m hoping to find out what I might be doing to cause it in the first place. And second, I’ve had a few occaisions in which while making changes in the timeline, I’ll get the Psychedelic Beachball followed by the disappearance of media files. The files aren’t just disconnected from the timeline, they’re gone from the RAID drive. And when I hit “save”, it tells me that it’s an “Unknown File”! I only have FCP open and it tells me unknown file. So that’s it for now. Sorry for the bloated first post but I’m D-E-S-P-E-R-A-T-E. You have no idea how much I’m hoping that I AM the problem and that the system I purchased is only waiting for a competent operator! I’m looking forward to reading other “Avid to Final Cut Conversion Stories” and how they turned out.
Mark LoPresti, Buffalo New York
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16 Replies
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Hey Mark,
I have a similar configuration, less the raid and the Black Magic card, and do not seem to have the same problem. How much memory do you have, and is the memory from Apple. I assume you have tried different quality settings for the time line. Are you using any effects or transitions. Have you talked to the Black Magic people?
jmf
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Remember that what you are doing is mixing codecs in FCP when you add a native TIFF to video. When you do this in Avid, the TIFF file has been converted to 720×486 OMFI media first when you imported it. Try your tests with several streams of uncompressed 8-bit and add 2-D motion effects (No 3D, No shadow). This should give you results close to the claims with the XRAID drives. Remember that your RT is software RT generally for preview only, which is the same as what a new Adrenaline would do. Your 8-year-old Avid had effects processing hardware. That’s largely gone from most companies’ lineups.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
And don’t forget that FCP does not really play alpha channels in RT.
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The RT of Apple is hype. Sorry you had to learn the hardway. With the Cinewave you would have RT back to tape but not from the dual G5s. It would be the Cinewave doing the work. I have heard rumor that Avid will not support the Cinewave once they own Pinnacle. The new Avid systems should be RT back to tape like you like. The only company that can out put DV-25, DV-50 and some of the OHCI HD footage in RT at 100mbps with out hardware is Canopus.
I seen a dual G5 drop frames doing a PIP with just DV-25 fotage and an OHCI card. Edius with a genric OHCI port and a single 3.2 GHZ P4 can infact play 3 layers of DV-25 video in RT back to tape or the NTSC monitor. It is true RT unlike FCP and the G5s. Premiere and Vegas will also drop frames up the wazoo. They all seem to hype their RT except Canopus.
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[edition_5] “I seen a dual G5 drop frames doing a PIP with just DV-25 fotage and an OHCI card.”
Then you saw this on a system that wasnt working.
Michael Horton
lafcpug
https://www.lafcpug.org -
some of your problems sound familiar back in the day, what exact versions of software, drivers, quicktime, etc… are you using? Was it configured for you? Realtime, yes unfortunately, only refers to the native video format you are wokring in and any effects in the Effects tab that are in bold. No animation codec+alpha or anything like that. But yes, you CAN play back 8 streams of Uncompressed 10 bit at once (like an 8part picture in picture, with them spinning around, and maybe some color correction). …I know that the XRAID has been very buggy for people, I’d look around in the Blackmagic forum because they’ve seemed to found the specific working setup.
On your audio sync, are you listening to audio out of the Blackmagic SPDIF? We have a KONA card (same drivers as Blackmagic) and sound is ALWAYS out of sync on the monitor when you’re digitizing. But it will be in perfect sync once it’s digitzed. BTW, I don’t count this as a huge problem as our $250,000 Flame does the same thing.
The save problem is typically something I see if the project has been left open overnight/the CPU has fallen asleep/or you’re saving to a network drive that goes offline (even when you bring it back up, FCP doesn’t like to save). I keep a desktop folder for my project files.
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Well Cinewave was dead before the Avid purchase was announced.
Xpress Pro can go straight to tape with DV25-DV100 in RT without hardware- although you are limited by the CPU to 2-3 streams.
Although as much as I like Canopus, Edius’ RT comes with a hefty price – lack of keyframing. Even I would prefer no RT than lack of keyframes. At least you can render with non RT systems.
G5/FCP can do RT out as long as you have a dual CPU and adequate RAM – up to a point. Alpha will no go out RT. Only Cinewave was able to do that with FCP.
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Thanks all for the quick replies. Lots of great info to consider and apply to my problems. My biggest problem is that I don’t read manuals like I should and, just like my car, I only want to get in and drive, not worry about what’s under the hood. And just like buying a car, I committed the biggest sin. I believed the salesman! Well, thanks again in helping me with my much belated due diligence! I only wish I’d a heard of Creative Cow a few months ago instead of hassling with tech support.
Mark LoPresti, Buffalo New York
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[CharlieX] “I know that the XRAID has been very buggy for people”
Says who? What do you mean by buggy? The hardware controllers? My XSR hasn’t missed a beat apart from the ribbon cable falling off the on/off switch- but then again its flightcase did smash when it was dropped by cargo handlers.
Nobody else I know has had problems either, so I’m curious to know your source/s
Peter
In Paris editing The French Open for ESPN
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Michael Horton,
I saw the Final Cut Pro Guru at an Apple store demoing the system. I admit it was a little over a year ago. Things could have changed. The person demoing FCP said it would have to render to out put back to DV-25. That is what we were editing. I saw the frames dropping my self. For the demo I just had the guy take a 10 second clip and crop it and rotate it and flip it. It was jerky to say the least going back to the camera.
MPE,
I admit Avid may do it now in RT with out the Mojo. Back when Edius 2.0 was released none of them could do true RT with out hardware back to tape. Just between me and you I can get more true RT with Edius than I could get from a VGA preview with Edition or Premiere Pro. Most software vendors count a VGA preview as RT. With FCP and a dual G5 is it possable to do two layer of DV-25 flipping and rotating with CC in RT to OHCI at 720 X 480 and 60 fields per second for 10 minutes? I am not talking degredation but true NTSC DV out put. Can I play an MPEG 2 video with an uncompressed PIP and a DV-25 PIP to the OHCI port in RT. Edius can infact do this. I did not think it could squeeze uncompressed out the Fire Wire port but it can. How Canopus can let you combine formats with CC and PIP with OHCI and get RT is beyond me.
Can Avid Xpress Pro HD combine MPEG 2 and uncompressed in RT with PIP and CC to the Fire Wire port?
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