Can’t play down sequence

[Don Greening]

[Beth Segal] “7. I took my media hard drive and project to a friend’s house to see if it worked on his system. He has the exact same set up as I do except he has 2.5 Ram on his system HD. “

How did that work out?

[Beth Segal] “Using 400 Firewire cable as I don’t have 800 capability on my G5. “

This might be part of your problem but keep in mind that the highest EX picture quality is 35Mbits per second, which is only 10Mbits more than MiniDV, so I don’t know if using just FW400 is all that important if you’re only trying to play back one stream of video. Playing back 2 streams might, though. What might be more of an issue is if you’re editing in the EX native codec which is pretty processor intensive because it’s MPEG2 long GOP. If your EX footage is also a full 1920×1080 then your graphics card may also play a part in the dropped frames issue (that’s just a guess).

If you’re using DVCProHD for the P2 stuff then you can convert the EX files to that for editing, as that codec doesn’t use as much processing power as the EX long GOP stuff does. But then DVCProHD runs at 100Mbits per second as opposed to the EX at 35Mbits, so now you’re back to trying to play 2 streams of 100Mbit video from a FW400 hard drive. Not as processor intensive but FW400 transfer rate intensive.

As far as getting the most performance from your existing G5 try using a tune up application like Cocktail on a weekly basis to keep your cache and log files cleaned out. Bloated log and cache files have a direct influence on programs like Final Cut and will slow performance of the program, especially when you’re trying to make do with your existing setup. 1.5G of RAM is just barely enough these days, what with the Leopard OS probably taking up almost half of that. I can’t remember what the minimum RAM requirements of today’s FCP is but I’ll bet you’re riding right on the edge.

Can’t think of anything else at the moment.

– Don

[Beth Segal]

Hi,

A few answers to your questions:

1. When I took my media and project to a friend’s house, the project worked fine which is why I ruled out any problems with project/media. Just an assumption which could be wrong? He had a whole gig more of Ram than me, otherwise it was the same system. He also had more apps on his OS than I did….

2. The P2 footage specs are:
960 x 720 23.98 fps DVCPRO HD 720p60

The SXS footage specs are:
1280 x 720 23.98 fps XDCAM EX 720 p24

The SXS footage is already converted to XDCAM EX as I could not figure out how to import the original natively. And finally reminder that I have not yet mixed these different formats in the same seq and am still having problems but only with the XDCAM. Might need some guidance on importing the SXS as DVCPRO HD as I had to drag the footage into my browser as all the options for Log and Transfer for the SXS were grayed out (i.e. not available).

3. I will try Cocktail as I have never cleared out my cache or even thought to do this and get back to you. But maybe the rest of the info will shed some light?

thanks,
beth

[Don Greening]

[Beth Segal] “Might need some guidance on importing the SXS as DVCPRO HD as I had to drag the footage into my browser as all the options for Log and Transfer for the SXS were grayed out (i.e. not available). “

You don’t need to re-import the footage to change the EX files to DVCProHD. Just drop the EX stuff into a DVCProHD 720p sequence. If you create a new sequence with this codec FCP will ask if you want to change the sequence settings to match what you’re dropping into it. Just say no.

Or you can drop the EX footage into the same sequence with your existing DVCProHD footage. FCP will play both back in the same timeline, although the EX footage will have a green render bar because it hasn’t actually been changed to DVCProHD yet. But once you render everything out it will be changed/transcoded into DVCProHD.

– Don

[Rob Alexander]

Beth,

from what you describe you ARE editing the SxS natively – the SxS is the card, XDCAM EX is the format.

You don’t mention whether you’re using any video cards (blackmagic/AJA etc). If you are I’d suggest uninstalling the drivers then reinstalling. Also trying to play your sequences with external video off to see if it makes a difference. You should try trashing your FCP preferences too.

The suggestion to drop your EX footage into a DVCPRO HD sequence will work as long as you render all the clips, if you’re still editing then you’re going to be rendering every time you make a change and will end up with a huge amount of render files. Leaving the clips unrendered will likely INCREASE the load on your processor. However to convert your EX clips to DVCPRO HD you should select them and then use media manager to transcode to DVCPRO HD, then work in DVCPRO HD sequences. As stated before, the demands on your FW400 connection will be higher but seeing as you’re using DVCPRO HD from your P2 cards without issue should be OK.

RAM does look like the probable cause of this though.