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Clip length and performance, splitting clips and re-linking?
Hi everyone
I’m on a long form documentary, 35 hours + footage.
My questions apply both in general and for my particular case.
They might be naive or not so much, I used to work with Avid systems and my transition so far to FCP has been smooth and happy.Working on a powerbook G4 1.5 Ghz -1’5 Gb RAM. FCP 4.5
I know a G5 desktop would be a safer bet but I need this set-up for mobility reasons and, dammit, I know it can do it.
So far my footage was spread in 3×250 Gb Lacie external firewire as independent units (no raid) via pcmcia adaptor. I captured the footage in long takes, the whole 1 hr tape or in 2 half an hour chunks, sometimes 3 chunks (TC breaks etc)
The interactive performance of FCP is apalling, (dragging, slipping, moving, everything…) completely stalled. So the only option was simple cut and paste !
I worked recently on another project based on a Lacie Extreme 600 Gb (internal built-in raid 0) and it was pure fast smoothness.
I have therefore just bought the same model (1Tb size) and am copying all the footage in it.
Obviously it has to improve things, the footage coming thru a single FW800 channel spit out at raid performance but, my question is:
Does the length of the captured clips affect performance in large scale projects in any case, in other words you’d better have 1 hr tape in 4 chunks or more, rather than the whole hour?
Now if this was the case or just for any other reason you wanted to slpit your captured QT files in chunks via Quick Time Pro, being able to keep the TC info, in principle all you had to do then is re-link footage with a TC list in front of you (I know TC breaks would mean a bit of a hassle but…), am I correct?
In other words, would you be able to relink the footage keeping your sequences consistent via TC regardless of the length of the original clips?
Any response much appreciated
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1 Reply
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I don’t know (I doubt) that making the media files smaller will help performance, unless your talking about getting rid of media files to go from 90% full to 80% full.
If you want to, maybe you can use the media manager (was it called???) to break up the large clip into smaller ones. I read this in the manual where making subclips is discussed. It involves placing the large clip onto a timeline, shortening it, then draggin it back onto your bin. Then you’d need additional space for the new files when you use the media manager.
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