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Trouble with old project on new Mac Pro and FC 5.1.1
I had a G5 die. Luckily it was still under warranty and after two months of trying to fix it, Apple replaced it with a Mac Pro 2.66. Unfortunately I was in the middle of a project. No media or data was lost but I’m having trouble with the Mac Pro and Final Cut.
The project was shot on HDV at 1080i60 and captured into Final Cut 5.1 on the G5. It was edited and sequences imported to Adobe After Effects 7 using Automatic Duck. Those completed EFX sequences were then rendered as Quicktime movies from AE using the HDV 1080i60 codec and imported to FC. The AE sequences dropped into the timeline, intercut and played perfectly with the original footage.
My problem is when I open the project on the Mac Pro with Final Cut 5.1.2, the sequences I’ve produced in AE and imported to Final Cut don’t play smoothly. When you try to play the AE shots, you’ll see a frame, it will stutter and then in a second or two display another frame further down the timeline. Instead of realtime, it will slowly jump through the shot displaying sporadic frames. Nor can you scrub through the shot using the timeline which you could on the G5.
While our one G5 was being worked on by Apple, I loaded Final Cut 5.1 and the project on a second G5, a Dual 2GHz with 2.5 GB of ram and a GeForce FX 5200 video card. The new Mac Pro is a 2×2.66 Ghz Dual-Core with 4 GB of ram and an ATI Radeon X1900 video card. Both computers have a two SATA drive RAID 0 for media files and are funning OS 10.4.8.
I’ve compared the Final Cut User Preferences, System and Audio/Video settings on both G5 and Mac Pro. They appear to be configured the same. (Could I have missed something stupid? Would be great if it was that easy to fix.)
I opened a new project on both computers and imported just an AE rendered HDV Quicktime movie. The exact files import/edits and plays perfectly on the remaining G5 running FC 5.1. Same problem on the Mac Pro with 5.1.2 as with my original project … the file won’t play.
I’ve compared the ‘Get Info’ from both the AE rendered shots and the original captured footage.
The AE shot:
Dimensions: 1440×1080
Codecs; HDV 1080i60The original captured FC footage:
Dimensions 1920×1080
Codecs; HDV 1080i60, Interger (Big Endian), Timecode.I’d appreciate any suggestions about the problem or what I’m doing wrong.
I’ve uploaded a sample of one of the offending files … a 19 sec. AE rendered clip at full rez to the public folder of my iDisk, starkproductions, in case anyone wants to take a look at a sample file. The name is SME Demo.mov
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5 Replies
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Try removing 2 gig of your RAM. It may work.
Check to see if your firmware on the Mac is updated. The Mac Pro seems to have some quirkiness about it right now… You’ll probably just have ti find your own combination to get it to work. I did…
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Thanks for the suggestions. My firmware is upgraded and I’ve tried it with 1,2 and 4 gigs of memory … no luch so far.
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Have you created a new project and copied all of the contents of your old project into it? Sometimes projects can become corrupted.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
I did create a new project on both computers and imported just a single file. It played on the G5 but not not the Mac Pro.
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[stark1952] “I did create a new project on both computers and imported just a single file. It played on the G5 but not not the Mac Pro.”
Ok…. you’ve stumped me.
My suggestion would be to finish your project on the G5, and start fresh on the Mac Pro. If that’s a problem, try re-rendering your files in AE on the Mac Pro and import those files into FCP. Keep in mind, AE is not a Universal version. Adobe will not create any universal version until next year according to them.
_______________________________
Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
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