FCP 7 workflow slowdown

[Brian Stokes]

Are your other projects that load/play fine in DVCPROHD 1080p as well?
Have you done other projects similar to this?
Do you have tons of effects or processor/RAM intensive things going on?
What are your drive speeds? Working off internals or external drives?
What iMac and what processor, etc?

For a 3 minute video, you should have no problems unless your iMac is very old and you are using some very processor intensive procedures.

Let us know,
Stoker

iStoker.net

[Phil Snyder]

“Are your other projects that load/play fine in DVCPROHD 1080p as well?” Yes.

“Have you done other projects similar to this?” Yes.

“Do you have tons of effects or processor/RAM intensive things going on?” Not really. Just some titles and one composite that is 4 layers and one that is two.

“What are your drive speeds? Working off internals or external drives? WD 6 TB Firewire external drive 800 MB/sec.-used only 25 GB. 1 TB internal HD-used only 76 GB.

“What iMac and what processor, etc?” 27″ iMac (mid 2011) 3.4 Ghz Intel Core i7, 20 GB RAM

It’s not big or complicated project. Maybe rendering will help.

[Brian Stokes]

I was going to say delete your renders and try again. Looks like you havent even rendered yet.
Technically, you shouldn’t be having an issue, but you are.
So not sure.
I have only gotten that preparing video for display when i first load up a project with like a billion photos in it or just a massive project.
Have you checked your Activity Monitor in your Utilities folder?
Maybe something else is going on?
Have you tried all the basic stuff like restart, trash prefs, etc.
That used to work back in the day with FCP.
I have had a good running system for a while now so it is sort of hard to diagnose problems cause i rarely have them anymore.
Sorry i cant be more of help.

iStoker.net

[Phil Snyder]

I just rendered everything and it made no difference. And yes, I trashed preferences, etc. I did check the Activity Folder and it seemed fine. I just installed 16 extra GB of RAM but of course FCP uses only 4.
Never had this before either.

[Brian Stokes]

Just curious, i know you said DVCHD but is it just footage or do you have a bunch of photos in the sequence too? If so what resolution are the photos?

iStoker.net

[Phil Snyder]

It’s footage shot with the Panasonic HVX-200A.

[Brian Stokes]

Maybe another stupid question, but the footage doesn’t need to be rendered when dropped into the sequence, right? Make sure the footage settings match the sequence setting exactly.
I saw some orange in the sequence. Maybe you had some effects on the clip or something.

The sequence settings are DVCPROHD? Footage as well?
No photos that are like 6000 x 4000, etc. I always downscale my photos in a batch if they are huge like that. I hate when FCP tries to match my photos or footage to the sequence, etc. (I have always disliked any warning signs that FCP gives you when editing whether it be data rate warning or anything)

Try using MPEG Streamclip or 5DtoRGB for your footage and export it to Apple ProRes LT or something similar and see how that works in a new sequence, maybe?

iStoker.net

[Phil Snyder]

I used CS Lock & Load (scene stabilizer) and Magic Bullet on some scenes. But that would cause this.

[Brian Stokes]

I am not sure about the CS Lock and Load, but i have had Magic Bullet Looks do some weird stuff on me actually quite recent. Not sure to your extent though with the beach ball for 25 sec, etc.
But try turning that stuff off and get back to just your normal footage and try to see what it does.
Take off any effects, delete renders, and make sure all of your footage never needs to be rendered when dropped in the timeline.

iStoker.net

[Phil Snyder]

So I copied the sequence into a new project, removed all the Lock & Load effects. Still had the problem. Then, I took a bunch of scenes, made a quick random assembly from scratch, applied L & L to about half of them and nothing bad happened. It played beautifully without any hesitation. I’m flummoxed. Go figure.