FCP X on Lion vs. Snow Leapord

Apple Final Cut Pro

FCP X on Lion vs. Snow Leapord

Posted by T. Payton on July 20, 2011 at 7:19 pm

Installed Lion on a partition on my client computer (Mac Mini 2.4 ghz, 2 GB ram). It’s no speed demon at all, just an extra Mac I can play with.

FCP X background rendering off. Video Display set to Better Performance. Warn on Dropped Frames.

Test 1
—————
15 second 1080p prores clip. 1 primary color correction, 2 secondary with vignette. Sharpen filter on about 6.5.

Snow Leopard
Playback in Viewer: no dropped frames
Playback Full Screen: Dropped Frames throughout
Render: average of 6:15

Lion
Playback in Viewer: no dropped frames
Playback Full Screen: no dropped frames
Render: 6:15

Test 2
———-
12 second 1080p h264 from 7D. 1 primary color correction. Split at 6 seconds. Cross dissolve added.

Snow Leapord
Playback in Viewer: dropped frame at cross dissolve
Playback Full Screen: dropped frame at cross dissolve
Render: 1:29

Lion
Playback in Viewer: no dropped frames
Playback Full Screen: no dropped frames
Render: 1.31

What can I conclude from this? Lion seems to have better graphic drivers to do the full screen playback in some instances. But it doesn’t appear to slow down FCP X.

Your milage may vary.

– T.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

Emiliano Tidona replied 14 years, 5 months ago 6 Members · 8 Replies
8 Replies

Tom Wolsky
July 20, 2011 at 8:36 pm

Thanks very much for that.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX”
and “Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press
Simon Ubsdell
July 20, 2011 at 8:41 pm

Nice test, thanks very much!

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
T. Payton
July 20, 2011 at 9:51 pm

Lion apparently has built in video encoding/transcoding.

Right click on a movie in the finder and choose “Enclose Selected Video Files” and you’ll have options such as h264, and ProRes.

Very cool.

– T.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque
Matthew Schickler
July 20, 2011 at 11:21 pm

But does it know how to decode native AVCHD files!?!? Lack of native support for an extremely popular video format is so perplexing to me… I don’t buy the argument that you need the metadata in the camera archive directory structure. Tools like handbrake can open, play, and transcode the raw (MTS) files with no trouble and the results are perfect.
Rick Lang
July 21, 2011 at 12:30 am

[Timothy Payton] “Right click on a movie in the finder and choose “Enclose Selected Video Files” and you’ll have options such as h264, and ProRes. “

I installed Lion but don’t see this option when I right-click on movie files. Could you post a screenshot of the pop-up? Thanks.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
T. Payton
July 21, 2011 at 1:10 am

Make sure you get all the updates in Software Update:

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque
Rick Lang
July 21, 2011 at 1:48 am

Thanks, Timothy.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
Emiliano Tidona
November 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Thank you very much Timothy, really useful test!
What about the color shift issue between fcpx and compressor?
Is it solved in Lion or not?
(Compressor shows a darker image than fcpx in Snow Leopard)

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