1920 x 1080 HD in PRO RES : slow disks?

[Michael Kammes]

Is the media sitting on an internal drive or an external drive?

You should have it on an external firewire drive at minimum – no USB. Get a RAID if you can, and an eSATA or better solution. An internal drive may not have enough throughput or speed (depending on your hard drive) to play the media back.

You can always know your playback quality down as a get-me-by.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
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.: twitter: @michaelkammes
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[Adam Dewhirst]

michael,

the media is on a cd/dvd and is almost 5gb worth.

i’ll try running it from one of my external hard drives.

could you explain to me what a raid and an esata solution is as i only have a vague idea?

i tried to reduce the playback quality but it still didn’t work. how am i supposed to do this?

thanks
adam

[Michael Kammes]

HI Adam:

First and foremost, don’t EVER try and edit off of a CD or DVD disc. Data does not come off the disc fast enough to be of any use in an NLE…plus, if that disc is ejected, your media goes offline. ALWAYS edit off a hard drive, preferably a firewire or eSata (or better) array.

In short, a RAID is a collection of hard drives that are striped together to create a larger “drive”. This allows data to be written and read faster than off of a single disk. eSATA is a way a drive connects to a computer, like firewire or USB, although eSATA is faster.

Again, in short: FCP has 2 edit modes, Safe RT (Real Time) and Unlimited RT (Real Time). See that little round pill button on top of the timeline window on the far left hand side? Click that for a drop down. Unlimited RT makes FCP try and play back the media – by sacrificing visual quality and/or frame rate. Safe RT will playback your time at the highest resolution and frame rate possible. (This is overly simplified, but for what you’re trying to do, it makes sense)

IMHO, I strongly suggest you spend some time in the FCP Basics forum, as well as research elsewhere online and keep learning about FCP, as many of your concerns should be things every editor should know very early in their career. Ken Stone, Lynda, etc are all great resources.

Good Luck!

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Aleksandar Ljiljak]

Hello,
I’m preparing to work with huge materials (AppleProRes422 HD), and i don’t know does it possible editing with E-Sata external RAID 5 (8TB)?
Thnx
Aleksandar
MacPro Quad-Core Xeon
2GB 800 DDR2 FB-DIMM
AJA KONA 3 Box

[Michael Kammes]

A 8TB RAID5 should be an excellent choice for editing ProRes. Plenty of bandwidth.

You should be able to fit 50 hours of ProRes (for argument, let’s say 1080p 23.98 Pro Res 422 HQ) on your drive, and still have plenty of room for formatting, RAID5, and leaving 20% overhead for performance.

I think you’ll be fine.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .