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FCPX UI instability- is it just me?
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[David Powell] “Check the inspector first though. That’s the usual suspect of this problem.”
That is very true, as well as the timeline index. Great point.
command-4 toggles the inspector open and closed.
Timeline index is command-shift-2.
Still, though, even with these closed, the beach ball comes out at halftime.
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[Oliver Peters] “To work with the C300 footage you have to install their FCP camera plug-in. When you do that, X rewraps the XF codec (basically the same as XDCAM) from MXF to MOV. This rewrapped media is placed into the Library bundle. The codec itself is unchanged and you cannot force a transcode to ProRes. FCP X sees the XF codec as optimized, once it’s rewrapped.”
Yes it does, but I had a project from the XF305 (same codec) that was a very poor editing experience (basically, anything you did to a clip would not playback smoothly until it was rendered). FCPX seems to handle AVCHD much better than XF, so I would recommend a proxy or ProRes transcode like it’s 2010 again.
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[Bill Davis] “Just curious as to why you aren’t using the preferred workflow of Optimizing to ProRes (and/or proxy) doing all your editing with speed and ease in the mezzanine codec, then simply moving the pointers back to the original files when it’s time to export your high rez masters?”
For me proxy is pointless as it doesn’t support alpha channel. Depends on the project of course but I’m usually doing multilayered stuff mixing in multiple elements rendered out ProRes 4444 from After Effects.
Personally I can’t see the difference in performance between ProRes 422 and the Canon h264 .movs I often edit with. I generally don’t ever transcode. But I do see the beach balls or sluggishness once and again. Those are definitely not due to using h264. If they were they’d be a constant. Either the system can perform or it can’t. If a system can scrub smoothly and be super responsive for 4 hours or so and then suddenly become sluggish and flaky, then there’s a code issue or a plugin issue. The biggest problems I’ve had is with Motion templates in the timeline. Often they utilize very large files to have scaleable effects. They’re a memory hog and when things get sluggish, I’ll go check the memory monitor and wow, suddenly I’m using all 32gigs for FCP X, sending it beach balling or crashing. I think there are some massive memory leaks in the app.
Mixing all sorts of crazy codecs in Premiere doesn’t even phase it. FCP X, should be able to handle it too. It has it’s issues, but I’m not sure that’s one of them.
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Thanks for all the pointers. It’s interesting because they’re repeating faults but not consistent, which makes me think sloppy code rather than workflow – but I’m open to being wrong. I’d rather not transcode but will try and see if that makes a difference.
Here’s another – just cutting in a sequence when the spacebar refuses to ‘play’ – and then the Play key, and icon on screen does too. I can skim clips but the sequence is ‘stalled’ and I have to load another then reload the one I’m working on to be able to play it.
Again this is stuff I’ve had with multiple formats across multiple systems, so it’s not just system optimisation. I will report them as I’d love to get these and others fixed, just to have that solidity of editing experience.
Mindy you – cutting on Avid last week and I had maybe 2 crashes a day where the app just disappeared – no warning message, just cut to the desktop. That in a major London post house too, so no excuse in the setup.
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
IMHO, nobody’s going to settle for image sequence workflows unless there’s no other option.. And I think Apple gets that.
How is the editor going to leverage X’s ranging and keywording if footage is all stored in image sequence bundles?
Or have those evolved beyond folders of discrete images like I’m accustomed to working with in the annimation arena? The grail in the labs has to be a video codec (or perhaps a “grading” ProRes extension) that preserves the latitude and deeper color that RAW stills have today – but in a motion stream.
At NAB 2013 at the Quantel booth, they were doing essentially real time deep color grading in multi 4k streams via flamethrower cards like the Covid Ultra. I’ve got to believe that as GPU power continues to increase we’ll move in that direction. (more grading access within bundled streams.)
The market really wants it.
And that’s always been Apple’s brand. Simplify the human interface while still giving the user access to as much “deep power” as is practical. Or maybe the X “content pool switching” concept covers this? ProRes for editing, switch to “grading Rez” for CC? That would be interesting.Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “Or have those evolved beyond folders of discrete images like I’m accustomed to working with in the annimation arena?”
No, you’ve got it right. That’s how the BMCC camera works when DNG files are used.
[Bill Davis] “The grail in the labs has to be a video codec (or perhaps a “grading” ProRes extension) that preserves the latitude and deeper color that RAW stills have today – but in a motion stream.”
That’s exactly what RED developed and on which they hold a patent. Other folks simply use a log gamma profile, such as ARRI (ProRes 4444, log-c encoding).
[Bill Davis] “Quantel booth, they were doing essentially real time deep color grading in multi 4k streams via flamethrower cards like the Covid Ultra.”
Quantel’s internal file structure for media is based on discrete frames, unlike most desktop NLEs. So even captured media from standard video files becomes image sequences under the hood when stored to their drives. I believe Smoke/Flame and Assimilate Scratch work the same way for their internal stores.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Are you sure about the Radeon graphics? I thought the 2012 iMac’s all had nVidia? Also the 20GB of RAM is odd – always best to have all 4 sticks be exactly the same if possible for proper dual channel memory.
If it’s an nVidia card – make sure you have the latest CUDA driver – in preferences.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
They didn’t switch to nVidia until the late 2012 (shipped in december) iMac. Which most people like myself received months later in 2013. The previous model was the Mid 2011, which was radeon. If someone says 2012 I assume they mean 2011. There was a 2012 minor update in October 2012 as well, which was still radeon.
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Gotcha thanks – I also had the 2012-early 2013 iMac with nVidia.
I still wonder though if the older Radeon is just too underpowered for FCPX etc…
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
Both machines specs and performance are nearly the same Cuda doesn’t matter as FCP X uses OpenCL not cuda.
Heck, I’ve got Mavericks and 10.1 running on my 2006 MacPro 1,1. It runs pretty good all things considered.
I upgraded from the mid 2011 to the late 2012 just to have hardware accelerated support for ray trace in AE with CUDA. But I have hardly ever used it. With all the cool extrusions, lights, and 3D in AE nowadays, it still performs better if you use creative workarounds for extruding text and faking lights.
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