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HD rendering time
I just bought a mac pro dual quad core ghz with FC pro Studio.
I am an Avid editor who is new to FC. I imported some native HD footage shot with the sony ex-1 and am shocked by the very limited # of realtime effects and the rendering time when I do add an effect to a clip. Way longer then on Xpress pro running on a dual 1ghz G4.Am I doing something wrong. Is this normal? Is there a mode in FC that give you a low res render so that you can at least quickly see the results of what you are doing? Is there a proper workflow that i should follow?
Rick Magder
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5 Replies
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Where is this footage stored? Drive speed plays a large factor in this, especially since the EX1 footage is Long GOP MPEG2, which is very processor intensive. HDV and XDCAM don’t offer many RT effects do to this hinderance. Other HD formats like DVCPRO HD offer better performance.
Avid offered better performance as you most likely captured to an Avid codec…whereas FCP most often captures to native files. when it can.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
http://www.LFHD.net
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I configured the mac pro with 3- 1 terabite drives. The footage is stored on one of them which was newly formatted.
DO you have a suggestion as to how to get better performance with ex-1 footage?
Thanks,
Rick Magder
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I feel your pain – I have found the same thing, coming from Avid. In Avid, as things are all captured or managed in native Avid codecs, it does, in my experience, offer better and more efficient realtime performance.
One of the things I really miss from Avid and haven’t yet found an alternative for in Avid is the ability to play through complex effects in non-realtime – For example in building a layered effect with a glow, colour effect and warp or something. Avid won’t play them all realtime perhaps, but if you hit play when editing the effect it will at least play through the effect and show you what’s going on. In FCP on the same sort of effect I have trouble even moving across the effect frame by frame. Obviously the complexity of the effects is a huge part of it, but I’ve never known Avid not to be able to give me a reasonable preview in that scenario.
An FCP reseller I was talking to the other day gave me the ‘and with FCP you can mix all sorts of formats on the timeline and play them all in realtime without any rendering’ – I laughed at him, that certainly hasn’t been our experience, I believe it is technically possible in some circumstances, but certainly isn’t the rule.
We are working with 1080i50 ProRes 422HQ material of internal and external SATA drives arrays. There is probably room for improvement on disk speed, but the should certainly be able to manage it. We can play realtime DNxHD 220 on the same system with a variety of realtime effects.
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When you import your footage, go to ProRes instead of XDCAM. MPEG-2 stinks for realtime fx and exporting.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Kaleidoscope Pictures
Provo, UT -
[Dylan Reeve] “One of the things I really miss from Avid and haven’t yet found an alternative for in Avid is the ability to play through complex effects in non-realtime – For example in building a layered effect with a glow, colour effect and warp or something. Avid won’t play them all realtime perhaps, but if you hit play when editing the effect it will at least play through the effect and show you what’s going on. In FCP on the same sort of effect I have trouble even moving across the effect frame by frame.”
Take a look in the RT menu on the timeline and turn on PLAY BASE LAYER ONLY.
[Dylan Reeve] “An FCP reseller I was talking to the other day gave me the ‘and with FCP you can mix all sorts of formats on the timeline and play them all in realtime without any rendering’ – I laughed at him, that certainly hasn’t been our experience, I believe it is technically possible in some circumstances, but certainly isn’t the rule.”
Depends on what you are mixing, and how fast your drives are. If the codecs you are mixing are in the Easy Setups, and you DON’T use firewire drives…but rather eSATA or Fibrechannel or other similar types of drives, then yes, you will get this type of performance. I do. Others do. I am mixing DVCPRO HD, DV, uncompressed 8-bit and XDCAM in some of my timelines.
Telling us all the things you miss about Avid will turn this into another AVID/FCP pissing match. There are lots of things Avid does that FCP doesn’t, and lots of things that FCP does that Avid doesn’t…each has an advantage over the other in certain areas. And what I always say is if you like a certain edit system…use it. Moving to another editing application then complaining about what it can’t do isn’t productive. Either get used to the differences and work with them, like I do, or stick to Avid.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
http://www.LFHD.net
Read my blog!
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