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Editing BMCC’s RAW footage on MacBook Pro
Hi everyone,
I shot a band’s show using Blackmagic Cinema Camera’s RAW and am having issues with editing the footage on my MacBook Pro’s FCP 7. The odd thing is that everything seemed to be ok for the most part until I decided to do a complete factory wipe and start fresh by reinstalling all my old software on it to help boost overall performance. Anyway, when I went back to editing the project I mentioned earlier, the video during preview or playback from timeline sounds and looks like it’s running in slow motion.
I’m not sure why this happened as it was fine before on this same laptop. Could it be something with the settings? I tried using FCP X and Premiere and am suffering with the same issues there. When I playback the clips outside of the programs they play just fine. Also, if I export the video I’m working on from FCP 7 it also plays just fine. I tested some footage that was shot with ProRes versus the RAW and ProRes didn’t have any issues. Should I be compressing the RAW footage before even editing it? Or is it just something with my FCP 7 settings (which seems to carry over to Premiere and FCP X)?
Info about my MacBook Pro 15″:
2.66 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 288 MB
MAC OS X 10.8Thank you in advance!
Artur -
1 Reply
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The raw is not meant to be edited directly. You will need to do an offline workflow if you intend to shoot in raw. Furthermore, based on the specs of your laptop in your signature, the issues with playback are purely because the machine is underpowered for the workflow that you want to do. I have no doubt that these are issues that you would have run into sooner or later even had you not done the clean install. You are running a dual core CPU, with comparatively slower and less RAM than a modern machine, and integrated Intel graphics, not a discreet graphics card such as an NVIDIA or AMD. Also you need to have a fast disk array. The fastest you can possibly have is an eSATA RAID through the ExpressCard slot. You have the power to cut ProRes in FCP7 but not much more than that.
Above all, FCP7 was never built to handle CinemaDNG and at the time of the release of the BMCC, FCP7 had been considered legacy technology for well over a year. They expect that you are using FCPX, Premiere Pro, or Avid. None of these applications though edit CinemaDNG natively.
If you are looking to shoot raw and still use the laptop that you have and cut in FCP7, I would recommend taking a serious look at Cineform. They have instructions on converting the raw to useable Cineform Raw files that are far less CPU intensive. CinemaDNG requirements are basically unreachable without a desktop workstation.
Co-President at fourB Productions, Inc.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Production Premium CS6, Avid Symphony 6, Final Cut Pro Studio 3
The College of William and Mary
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