FCP Out of memory

[David Roth weiss]

It sounds as if your system is painfully bogged down by loads of unnecessary processes running in the background. Did you upgrade your system over the top of a previous version of either the OS or FCS?

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.

[Wendell Davis]

No the systems is from scratch with whatever Apple upgrades have come along. New system last February 2010.

MacPro 2.26 Quad-Core
12 gig ram
ATI Radeon HD 4870 video card.
over 40 TB online storage 16TB RAID Areca SAS controller

It has always done this. No other programs running.

Thanks.
Wendell

[Ben Holmes]

Hi Wendell

This is issue has been reported here before – a search for ‘out of memory’ should turn a few up. It appears to have nothing to do with RAM, drive space, other processes etc. It just seems to be an issue with some projects. I’ve noticed over the years that nested sequences make it more common. I’ve always imagined that it must be down to bad data somewhere (in renders, or project files) causing a sort of ‘divide by zero’ error for FCP.

Fortunately, whilst this used to kill a project completely, now (as you say) a restart generally cures this – rather than having to roll back to a previous autosave. It seems Apple have improved the robustness of FCP surrounding the issue.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

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[Wendell Davis]

I agree Ben. I’ve read most of the memory error reports. Never came up with a “great” solution until last night. Just tried my solution under frustration. It doesn’t matter how much ram you have. FCP just doesn’t use it.

I find I do not need to do a FCP restart. Just close the sequence, open the clip, then open the sequence. Little bit of a pain but better than total crash. I also make sure I save the sequence before closing…. SAVE frequently.

The project I’m working on at the moment has 6 background layers with motion – dissolves, changes in opacity- color – you name it – then 6 moving layers on top of that with all the similar effects and titles. Built the background first, saved as a clip, then layered on top of the clip. There would be no way that I know of to do it otherwise. BUT then I not a guru like some.

I do a lot with historical documentaries never knowing what I’ll get for footage, stills etc. Stills especially if you want moves on them are a memory hog/pain.
Wendell

[Federico Urdaneta]

It’s always the stills. I’m not sure what the exact limit is, but I think anything over 5000 px drives FCP to the edge.

[Wendell Davis]

OH yes… the stills. I used to make my stills huge (8-10 times larger than video size) when I edited in Avid – even did a demonstration at AVID and Boris offices – Used Boris for the moves.

That way I could do huge moves – or just pull sections of a still as needed – even show the grain/texture in a painting. Didn’t have to resize each picture. FCP just doesn’t handle them very well. Now I usually make the longest side a max 4000 pixels but usually less than 3000.

It’s like all things – love hate relationship. I loved my AVID – hated AVIDs attitude and $$$$. Love FCP – but dislike some of the way it handles things. IE: stills, borders, text…… but you can say that about most things. Example: Love my iPhone hate AT&T.

Thanks
Wendell

[David Roth weiss]

Wendell,

A system that was new in February of 2010 is no longer new. At a minimum, hookup a FireWire drive and do a ground-up install of both the OS and FCS (and all updates), then try your current project from the new drive. I’ll bet you don’t encounter the same issues…

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.

[Wendell Davis]

Dave; When I have a couple of days I’ll give it a try.
Thanks
Wendell

[John Heagy]

Federico is right… It’s always the stills.

What file format are they?

We’ve had good luck with .tifs You might want to try converting them all to .tif and relinking.

[Arthur Zepeda]

How about selecting just a portion of your sequence, then clicking on Sequence – Render Selection – Video and see what happens?

I have done this a few times and it seems to work ok. I only select small portions i relation to the size of the entire sequence. Its a pain but some patience goes a long way!

Art
artsvdo.com