FCP 6 SLOWDOWN

Blackmagic Design

FCP 6 SLOWDOWN

Posted by John Moore on March 1, 2008 at 11:44 am

Hi,
I’m suffering from the dreaded slow down problem. When I start my machine in the morning it runs fine but after an hour or so it slows to a crawl. Cursor takes several seconds to respond. I note on the the FCP forum quite a few people seem to have the same problem.

I have tried various solutions but only one seems to work. If I replace my Black Magic Decklink card with a second video card to drive my monitor the problem completely disappears and the machine runs smoothly. When I replace the Decklink card the problem comes back. Slowdown after about 2 hours work. I have to quit and re-open the program to get rid of the problem.

I’d appreciate any suggestions because I like my decklink card but will have to junk it if I can’t solve this problem.

I am running a dual 1.25Ghz G4, FCP 6.0.2 , the latest Decklink software and I think Quicktime 7. OS 10.4.9

My system including the Decklink card ran beautifully on FCP 5 but this problem has arisen when I upgraded to FCP 6 to fit in with our new networked system. We run 4 FCP workstations.

Thanks

John Moore

Lu Nelson replied 17 years, 11 months ago 5 Members · 6 Replies
6 Replies

Callum Mclay
March 2, 2008 at 6:37 pm

Hi John

What model decklink are you running and what/how have you got connected to it? What type of footage are you working with?

Might be worth trying an earlier version of the decklink driver and see if the problem persists. They are all available on the Blackmagic website under the support tab. Click on “software downloads” and go right to the bottom where it says “more software.” Click there to get a full list of legacy drivers.

https://www.blackmagic-design.com

Cheers
John Moore
March 3, 2008 at 12:11 am

Hi Callum,
Thanks for your suggestion about running an older version of the Decklink software. I’d be interested to know which one you recommend.

In this computer which is a dual 1.25Ghz G4 we are running a Decklink Pro SD and its connected to a standard LCD monitor via the y out cable. We are cutting broadcast docos shot on DVC Pro HD but editing in Blackmagic DV for offline purposes which gives us the most flexibility for not having to render effects and will work with our network system.

Our network system is a 2 Gig dual processor G5 with gigabit ethernet operating as a server attached to a 5 TB Raid 5 array. We have three computers of various sorts attached to the server from a 1.25Ghz single processor G4 to a 2.7 Gig Dual Core G5 non of which have decklink cards and none of which are affected by this slow down problem. They all run fine. There is a Decklink HD in the Server and thats also working fine.

We still have the slow down problem when we disconnect the G4 from the server system and remove the gigabit ethernet card. take out the Blackmagic card and put in a second video card to run the monitor and the problem disappears.

I was thinking of trying Decklink 6.1 because I’m pretty sure that was working on the machine when we were running FCP 5.

Thanks John
Kristian Lam
March 3, 2008 at 2:44 am

Hi John,

We’ve been getting some reports about this and have also reported this to Apple to be investigated. May I suggest this workaround, when you run into this issue, hit the Cmd (Apple) – F12 key to turn your video output off and then hit the same combination of keys again to turn it back on again. We have found that this will help.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design
John Moore
March 3, 2008 at 3:58 am

Hi Kristian,
have tried that video output trick and it didn’t work unfortunately. I was most hopeful about it.

John
Paul De heer
March 3, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Hi John and Kristian,

My set has the same problem at the moment.

(G5, dual 2 ghz, 2,5gb RAM, Decklink HD extreme (6.6.2) FCP 6.0.2, QT 7.4.1. OSX 10.4.11

Disconnecting the decklink, or closing/reopening the project momentarilary solves the problem. Sending the video through firewire work as well and hints in the direction of the decklink driver/card to be the cause of the problem.

It starts slowly and becomes unworkable in about an hour.

I hope for a solution fast.

Best Regards,

Paul de Heer
Lu Nelson
June 2, 2008 at 2:35 pm

I too have this problem and switching preview on/off or switching preview types doesn’t seem to do it.

This is kind of a deal killer.

This is like when the DL Extreme PCIe model caused machines with more than 2GB to crash, and this lasted for over a year or something.

Come on BM

Lu Nelson
Berlin, Germany

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