Choppy Playback

Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

Choppy Playback

Posted by Gary Madison on July 10, 2011 at 5:31 pm

Hi

When I ingest files from my 5D, FCP will not play camera pan shots or shots of objects (for example cars driving down the street) smoothly.
It appears to stop playback and then catch-up to the scrubber locator in either Canvas or Viewer.
How should I have FCP set up.
Using latest version of FCP 7.x.x. Snow Leopard 7.6.8. Files to be imported are 5D Raw, Fidelity, Max Quality.
Mac Book Pro 2.2 Santa Rosa. 4 Gig of Ram. Two PCI Express 34 500 gig drives on SeriTek dual port card. 30″ Dell Monitor.

Thanks

gary

Gary Madison replied 14 years, 9 months ago 5 Members · 8 Replies
8 Replies

Steve Eisen
July 10, 2011 at 6:32 pm

Transcode those h.264 files to ProRes and you’ll be good to go. Maybe time consuming but you will be glad you did.

FYI, this question is asked a million times a day.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group
Chris Tompkins
July 10, 2011 at 8:25 pm

Please post settings too.

Format of clips in the sequence?
Sequence settings?

As Steve mentions, search.

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC
Michael Gissing
July 10, 2011 at 10:03 pm

[gary madison] “Files to be imported are 5D Raw, Fidelity, Max Quality.”

Confusing terminology here. When the 5D shoots images in RAW format, they are stills. So a timelapse can be RAW but in movie mode, the 5D doesn’t shoot raw but h264 as Steve mentions.

So the search for H264 will answer the movie questions but if you do indeed have RAW timelapse still frames so make into a movie, then the RAW files need to be pre processed and converted into a tiff or png sequence before being loaded into FCP. You can load tiff sequences into Quicktime pro and make a ProRes422 movie.

With the Canon cameras there is software to load RAW, do some color balance etc and then create your tiffs.

Best advice before you erase your CF cards is to watch this tutorial from Shane Ross –

https://library.creativecow.net/ross_shane/tapeless-workflow_fcp-7/1
Vikash Autar
July 14, 2011 at 11:42 pm

You will need to convert your footage to ProRes 422 HQ or LT. The codec your 5D shoots in is not an editing format it’s a distribution codec (hence the choppy playback). Use MPEG StreamClip to convert it to ProRes 422 and you’ll be sweet to edit, grade etc.
Gary Madison
July 15, 2011 at 12:29 am

Hi

Have done that, playback is better but still not smooth.
Still choppy but 80% better than it was.

Thanks

gary
Gary Madison
July 15, 2011 at 8:19 pm

Hi

Thanks…
did that 80% improvement but still not as smooth as playback from camera LCD.

Only the Best to You,
gary
Gary Madison
July 15, 2011 at 8:24 pm

Hi

Thanks

1920 x 1080, auto set by placing clip in timeline.
Transcoded with MPEG streamclipd to Pro Res 422.
80% better but still not as smooth as 5D display playback.

Only the Best to You
gary
Gary Madison
July 15, 2011 at 8:30 pm

Hi Thanks

New to the photo side,my bad.
converted to ProRes 422 via MPEG Streamclip.
80$ better, still not as smooth as playback from 5D display.

Only the Best to You

gary

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