“AVOID XDCAM like the PLAGUE for editing on timeline!”

[Philip Owens]

It’s not the system – this is a widely reported problem, and might be limited to Octocores since you and others report no problems on laptops and G5’s – my assistant has no crashing problems on his Dual G5, for example. Search XDCAM+crash here or on the Apple forums, and elsewhere for a rich mine of threads.

And when Michael was referring to “chunkier”, I’m sure he meant ProRes is simply larger file sizes…about five times larger by my calculations.

[Rafael Amador]

Yes Philip, must be a software/hardware combination that is causing those problems.
But as you have see only Octocores had complaint. However I heard now less complains and In the SONY XDCAM forum people do not post because these issues.
Any way still making me wander why only the highest performance machines shows this problem.
I really hope you find a solution. Working like that is not funny.
Best,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Michael Adante]

In my experience, the codec is fine for smaller project. (Under 30-40 mins) 15-20 hours of material. (That was also on Dual G5.)

This project has 100+ hours.

BTW: Raf, the project is perfectly fine on the Macbook Pro (Intel 2.5 Duo, 4GB ram), no crashes, nothing.

The Quad (PPC) and Ocotocore (Intel) seem to be having problems. Which is weird cause of their specs, they should eat it up.

HDV, XDCAM, all Long Gop codecs have traditionally had problems in the offline stage (at least in my experience), but like Walter pointed out, it’s a Cost vs Quality issue.

Again, In my opinion (heavily swayed by the recent crashes) XDCAM is a great cost effective acquisition format. But nothing beats the stability of 1-frame codecs. (Prores, etc) for cutting.

BTW: It seems like I spoke too quickly about our system.. the crashes are back. 🙁

Michael

[Philip Owens]

I concur. I’ve got 250+ hours of material, and a three hour sequence, and it’s a frightener. Gimme the I-Frame codecs any day.

But ProRes does work superbly, and all processing on such clips is properly multiproc-aware. Here’s one plan I had Michael that you might consider. I’m considering transcoding my selects sequences to ProRes over a series of nights, and then using them to cut with. Or, as sections of the cut approach lock, transcode those and work from there. I simply don’t have the space on the RAID to transcode all of the material.

[Rafael Amador]

[Michael Adante] ”
HDV, XDCAM, all Long Gop codecs have traditionally had problems in the offline stage (at least in my experience), but like Walter pointed out, it’s a Cost vs Quality issue.”
Again, sorry, I don’t agree.
i agree that is more burden to process GOPs than Intraframe (you must decompress full GOPs, no single frames).
It shouldn’t be no problems in the for offlining. TC, field order , size and pixels aspect is always more clear in MPEG-2 than in any QT codecs.
About the quality, High data rate MPG-2 are virtually Uncompress, even if Walter doesn’t like it.
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Michael Adante]

Hi Raf,

This has been my experience with long gop. I do agree with you that this is no way to work, especially with deadlines and release schedules.

Hence, we’re now transcoding to ProRes422.

We would like to thanks everyone on the COW that commented with their suggestions/experiences. Walter, Phil, Steve.. thanks a lot guys.

If anyone finds a solution to this problems, we’d be very interested..

Thanks,

Michael

[Michael Allen]

“We just don’t know how to get around this”

Capture to prores 422 through your capture card. I know it is not ideal, but it should stop your problems.

Mike

[Nicholas Bierzonski]

I am currently cutting two Broadcast campaigns using XDCam 1080p30 (35 Mb/VBR) with no problems.

I’ve been with working with ProRes 422.

-Nicholas Bierzonski
Senior Editor/DVD Author/Java Boy
http://www.finalfocusvideo.com

[Jason Porthouse]

Just to add my ‘2 pennorth’ in this debate.

I too have experienced random crashes with XDCam, both in 35 & 50, CBR & VBR. The main culprits are:

Opening bins with Icon view – redraw gets so far through and ‘poof!’ no more FCP.

Scrolling aorund the timeline – again, no warning, no rhyme or reason – it’ll be fine for a while then gone.

As others have stated, turning all icons/thumbnails off has helped, but not cured the problem. This has happened in my suite (fairly beefy and utterly stable in all other formats from DV to ProRes HD) and in 4 other suites located at a production company I edit for. Their editors have had the same too.

So yes, I’m inclined toward something broken in the way FCP handles the codec. This may be the fault of FCP, or it may be something more to do with XDCam. The cynic in me wonders whether Sony owning Vegas has something to do with it!

I’m trying to move away from the codec ASAP, but for the company I freelance for I think that would be a process too far. For the moment, coping strategies are the only way forward. Taking the steps we have done have reduced crashes from 10 or 20 a day to 1 or 2, but it’s still a PITA. It’s a real shame because I think some of the images gleaned from relatively humble cameras like the EX1 and 3 are excellent.

It’s also odd that many have had no probles at all. Is there a correlation between PAL (or more accurately 50i/p) users and increased errors?

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Walter Biscardi]

[Jason Porthouse] “The cynic in me wonders whether Sony owning Vegas has something to do with it! “

Not sure if that’s everything to do with it, but Sony is definitely not offering open support to Apple and AJA as they do to their own editing software. There are definitely issues getting all the necessary information to make XDCAM work as smoothly as it should which is surprising given how open Panasonic has been with Apple to make the P2 / AVC-Intra codes so easy to work with. You would think Sony would want to make XDCAM as easy to work with to sell more cameras to FCP users…..

It really should be as easy as P2 and if Sony would work more closely with Apple, AJA and others, there’s no reason it can’t be in an update to FCP.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
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