• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Advice for FCPX novice

  Posted by Matt Sayles on December 23, 2011 at 9:17 am

  Hi

  I’m new to FCPX, a complete Novice, but really enjoying playing about with videos/slideshows of holidays etc.

  I’m really struggling however with speed issues, FCPX stutters horribly when I play my projects back and seems to take ages ‘rendering’ (not that I really know what that means – I am a COMPLETE novice!). I’m using a brand new iMac which I’m led to believe should be up to the task. I’m mainly doing photo slideshows with the odd video thrown in plus titles and the odd effect.

  One of the things I’ve heard is that it might be better to use an external hard drive. I actually need to buy a 2TB external hard drive for backing up my computer anyway, but I’m wondering would I generally be ok using the residual space on this backup drive for video editing or should I get a second external drive? Either way I’d really appreciate some advice on a suggested external hard drive to buy? Don’t want anything too expensive, think I need a Firewire 800, but other than that I’m not sure if there’s something specific I should be looking for?

  Any advice anyone could offer would be really massively appreciated!

  Many thanks

  Matt Sayles replied 14 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Alan Okey

  December 23, 2011 at 1:32 pm

  An external FireWire 800 drive for your media is a great idea. It’s generally not recommended to use your system drive for media, as it can slow down the performance of the system.

  You might consider loading up your iMac with RAM, as FCPX in particular can take full advantage of more RAM.

  For FCPX-specific advice, post in the FCPX techniques forum:

  https://forums.creativecow.net/fcpxtechnique

  This forum is for FCP 7 and earlier.

  Good luck!
• 

  Matt Sayles

  December 23, 2011 at 4:19 pm

  Thanks for your advice. Much appreciated.

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