FCPX performance, XAVC and my ever running fan

[Noah Kadner]

Lots of decoding math required for those. If you want no fans- convert them to ProRes first.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training

[Mark Morache]

Thanks Noah.

I’m still curious about why QT plays the files with little or no effort.

QT plays my xavc-l footage with about the same effort as it plays xdcam.

In FCPX I stacked three xdcam clips, gave them each a crop and the three streams only got my cpu up to about 150%. Still less than a single XAVC-L.

Anyone else using XAVC-L on a MBP??

And if I’m going to transcode everything anyway, I think I’d just as soon create proxies so I can delete them later, and archive the smaller original files. Meanwhile I’m going to push through using the original files and keep an eye on my cpu heat.

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Mark Morache
Evening Magazine, Seattle, WA

[Joe Marler]

[Mark Morache] “I’m curious about the performance of my MBP and my XAVC footage…I now own a Sony PXW-FS5, and I’m shooting 1080 XAVC-L footage, and simply playing clips in the browser starts heating my MBP and getting the fans to kick in….when I play one of my clips in Quicktime, activity monitor indicates QT is using about 6-10% CPU. That makes me think that playing these clips isn’t a big problem for my mac. However when I play a clip in my browser, my CPU jumps up to about 200% CPU….Can anyone explain why it requires so much more CPU in FCP?…My render bar is clear since I have raw clips in my timeline right now – not even any color correction – and just hitting play starts making my fan kick in….Maybe there’s something else going on. I’ve had more freezes and crashes of FCPX, and maybe I should do a clean install?”

I played some 50 mbps XAVC-L 1080p test material on my 2015 MBP using both Quicktime and FCPX 10.3.2, and it plays OK with low CPU utilization on both. This was a native camera file and imported to the library without proxy or optimized media, and playback monitor set to full screen and “Better Quality”.

I also tried removing the MXF file from the folder tree and importing with “leave files in place” — same result: plays good on FCPX without high CPU.

If you wanted to ensure we’re using the same files, you could download one of these and try it. I used the HD Log version: https://zsyst.com/sony-4k-camera-page/sony-fs5-sample-footage/

The only time I’ve seen high CPU consumption just playing back an AVC/H264 file is on Premiere.

[Mark Morache]

Thanks Joe. I downloaded your clip. I feel like I’m getting the same results. Your clip played with a slightly lower cpu than mine because your clip is 24p and mine is 30.

I did a clean install of FCP, and I feel like my clips are playing a bit better now, but they’re still up around 150% CPU, compared with 8-12% when playing directly in QT. Activity monitor showed my cpu running about 130% with your clip in the browser, and 8-12% in quicktime.

I downloaded one of your 4k clips. They ran the cpu up to about 250%

If you’re getting lower CPU usage on your MBP, I wonder if the processor or the video card has changed significantly since I got my mac. Is your cpu about the same when playing your clip in FCP vs QT? Just curious.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Mark

My mac:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

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Mark Morache
Evening Magazine, Seattle, WA