• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  HD video “chugs” in fcp7 and I cant work out why

  Posted by Roy Jones on August 7, 2012 at 7:31 pm

  Hi,

  I edit 5dmk2/60d/550d footage ( lots of sliding and complex moves) in fcp7 naturally I convert the footage, I use Apple XDCAM HD 1080p24 converted via stream clip.

  the converted files are placed on a sandisk 240gb solid state drive and then imported to fincut which has its render/prodject /scratch folders set to same location. ( i only edit one project at a time with about 60GB to spare)

  the computer is

  Model Name: Mac Pro
  Model Identifier: MacPro4,1
  Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
  Number Of Processors: 1
  Total Number Of Cores: 4
  L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
  L3 Cache: 8 MB
  Memory: 12 GB
  Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s

  I have trim enabled on the ssd’s

  I have system files running on 120GB sandisk SSD and the usser files on the WD 640gb 7200rpm disk that cam with the mac.

  I also have a external 4 disk raid5 which i achieve my media on…with space available if this will help in some way.

  Thanks for your help.

  Roy Jones replied 14 years ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Shane Ross

  August 7, 2012 at 9:30 pm

  [Roy Jones] “in fcp7 naturally I convert the footage, I use Apple XDCAM HD 1080p24 converted via stream clip.”

  Wrong format. Whoever said to convert to XDCAM (Philip Bloom did this at one point) is WRONG! Wrong wrong wrong. Convert to ProRes. XDCAM is WRONG for DSLR video.

  Shane
  Little Frog Post
  Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
• 

  Roy Jones

  August 8, 2012 at 6:46 am

  Thanks Shane,

  I did use to use pro res a while back but read a article somewhere that it is better to use xdcam thanks for the advise,
  I have had problems exporting to dvd’s and blu-ays with out it chugging on high data rate points so this may explain everything. I’ll give a shot.

  Cheers,

  Roy
• 

  Andrew Rendell

  August 8, 2012 at 6:46 am

  XDCAM is a GOP format, so although FCP kinda works with it (better than it does with most GOP formats) I’d only ever use it for a short, simple, fast turnaround job, certainly not anything with effects in it.

  The one bit of information that I don’t see there is how your SSD is connected. If it’s an external drive the connection will be the bottle-neck, it needs to be Firewire800 at the very least and preferably faster than that.

  One more thing: 60Gb should be fine for headroom on your drive, but do keep an eye on it, it’s very easy for FCP to fill up space with tens of gigs of renders without you noticing.
• 

  Roy Jones

  August 8, 2012 at 9:45 am

  Thanks for the great advise

  All my ssd’s are internal … ill look at getting another ssd for rendering to once some more money comes avalible.

  Thanks again,

  Roy Jones

  Lightly Frozen Productions
  https://www.lightlyfrozen.com

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