FCP 7 XDCAM EX woes…still…

[Jim Blokland]

Hey David:

Thanks for your note. I figured it was just your North American humour rubbing Sam the wrong way. : > )

Me, I’m from the frozen north, and up here in the chilly climes of Toronto, I’m busy transcoding to ProRes!

And then a super-clean run-through my system, just to cross that off the list.

Then hopefully smooth sailing after that.

For the record, my gut feeling is that the issue involves XDCAM and a mixed media timeline — and it may be compounded by the fact that on the Westmere Octos, we’re now in 64-bit. But this is all just a guess for now…

Best, JIM.

Snow Leopard 10.6.4
Mac Pro Octo Westmere
14 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 5870
Matrox MX02 Mini
Seritek 4 TB RAID
AVID MEDIA COMPOSER 5 // FCS3

[Dave Jenkins]

Hi Jim, I don’t have any experience with the Westmere systems except I bought an ATI 5770 graphics card and added it to my 2.8 2008 OCTO and it started crashes every hour or so. Pulled the card and put back the stock card and everything was fine cutting XDCAM EX footage. Your issues could be related to the Westmere system but that is a wild guess on my part.

Dajen Productions, Santa Barbara, CA
MacPro Two 2.8GHz Quad Core – AJA Kona LHe
FCS 3 OS X 10.6 QT 10

[Jim Blokland]

Yeah, it’s a tricky one to diagnose. So many links in the chain. I tried not using my Matrox MX02 mini, but experienced crashes just the same. As for video cards, I upgraded to the 5870 and I don’t think the 5770 would work any better/worse regarding this issue. Probably uses the same driver…

Once I get through the next 8 hours of transcoding, I’ll be able to test and see if going ProRes solves the problem. I sure hope it does.

Best, JIM.

Snow Leopard 10.6.4
Mac Pro Octo Westmere
14 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 5870
Matrox MX02 Mini
Seritek 4 TB RAID
AVID MEDIA COMPOSER 5 // FCS3

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Jim,
in this article there is very useful info about the 32/64b and FC.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Jim,
in this article there is very useful info about the 32/64b and FC.
https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2010/09/what-should-apple-do-with-final-cut-pro/
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Andrew Gurney]

Hi Jim,

Yeah the Pro Res proxy looks great, I don’t think anyone outside of the online editor would even notice the quality difference between the codecs.

We are doing a 26 episode series so I was reluctant of doing any sort of transcoding due to space/time issues, but the difference working with the system is night and day so certainly worth it.

Hopefully it works out for you.

andrew

[Jim Blokland]

Thanks Andrew. I’m working with the ProRes files now, system is much more stable. Still a few kinks to work out, but overall much better.

Thanks again for your advice. Very helpful.

Best, JIM.

Snow Leopard 10.6.4
Mac Pro Octo Westmere
14 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 5870
Matrox MX02 Mini
Seritek 4 TB RAID
AVID MEDIA COMPOSER 5 // FCS3

[Justin Benn]

I’m having the same problem – and it’s driving me mad.

It’s made worse (if that’s possible) by having been recently been given a brand new replacement Mac Pro by Apple but finding that DW can’t be used on it. I’m waiting for my 09 MacBook Pro to come back from repair so I can load DW on that and fire up the MP in target disk mode.

MBP 09/8GB | MP 2*2.93/12GB/HD4870/HP4322

[David Roth weiss]

[Justin Benn] “I’m waiting for my 09 MacBook Pro to come back from repair so I can load DW on that and fire up the MP in target disk mode.”

Or, you could just buy the upgrade to the latest version of DW, which you really are going to need at some point.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Justin Benn]

Which I, and many who have 2010 12 core Mac Pros will do, when it can work with the latest editions. As you may well know, DW has not yet received the necessary details from Apple to enable them to do this, meaning that folk like me who have a copy, cannot directly use it on their machines.

To quote Alsoft’s reply to me yesterday:

“You will need a DiskWarrior DVD with a more current operating system to
start up this computer.

When Apple releases new hardware, a newer version of the operating
system is required to support all of the hardware features that have
been added.

We are awaiting delivery from Apple of the updated operating system with
which we can create an updated DiskWarrior disc. We do not have a time
frame for this release.”

So far, I have run the Disk Utility from the Install DVD and checked the SMART status (was fine/verified), repaired the disk (was fine), and repaired permissions (usual low-level mish-mash).

Am just about to rebuild the B-Tree files with iDefrag.

We’ll see what happens.

MBP 09/8GB | MP 2*2.93/12GB/HD4870/HP4322