I object to how FCP deals with render files

[Walter Biscardi]

[John Steventon] “Stupidly… I then clicked on ‘Easy Setup’ to get into HDV mode (as oddly, changing capture and deck control presets in Video/Audio settings doesn’t let me control the deck) – capture everything I need to – only to look at my timeline, and see it’s ALL UNRENDERED!

I can only assume this has something to do with changing the sequence preset when I did the easy set up thing – but – of course – setting it back to Blackmagic 10 bit Pal still leaves everything un-rendered.”

You have a mismatch of clips. HDV clips in a Pal 8bit timeline will require all of the clips to be rendered.

HDV clips which originated in a PAL timeline will need to be rendred because their scaling and distortion are off.

Open the PAL timeline.
Select All.
Copy.
Create a new HDV Sequence.
Paste All into that timeline.
Select All.
Remove Attributes > Basic Motion and Distort.

That should put all your HDV material back to “preset” and as long as you have the correct HDV timeline, all should play in realtime.

FCP does not deal with mismatched video right now in the timelines. You need to make sure everything is set correctly or FCP will not play stuff in realtime. We do this all the time with Avid SD Projects which are then conformed to HD. Timelines won’t play in realtime until we reset everything to an HD timeline.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Mark Maness]

All true, Walter. But I have noticed the smae concept without changing the presets under FCP 5.1.2.

I am working on a feature with my producer and if you make any changes to the timeline, sometimes FCP forgets all of the render files. This only started with FCP 5.1.2. Frustrating but the project is getting large and had to be split up into small chunks to aleviate some of the ills of this version of FCP.

Either way… you’re right about this situation but it is occuring with other workflows, too.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Walter Biscardi]

[Wayne Carey] ”
I am working on a feature with my producer and if you make any changes to the timeline, sometimes FCP forgets all of the render files. This only started with FCP 5.1.2.”

I’ve seen this since day 1 that I can recall. Anytime you change ANYTHING with a Sequence, FCP will lose the render files.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Mark Maness]

[walter biscardi] “I’ve seen this since day 1 that I can recall. Anytime you change ANYTHING with a Sequence, FCP will lose the render files. “

Well, my experience has always been that you loose the render files in the area you are working, which is understandable, but now, we are loosing throughout the entire timelines on occassions. That’s what I’m bringing up.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[John Steventon]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. I don’t know if I read your reply too fast Walter, but I think my explanation must have come off the wrong way round.

I have a 10-bit pal project, which will be output 10-bit PAL onto DigiBeta. Though the seuqnece was made up of a couple of hundred DigiBeta clips, there were also five or six HDV clips to be incorporated. I knew that I’d have to render, and distort etc the HDV clips to allow them to play on the PAL 10-bit timeline, but what I wasn’t prepared for was changing the settings in order to capture the HDV clips making all the render infortmation for the 10-Bit video stuff go offline.

I did a work-around by going into the autosave vault, and re-building the timeline using that – but it just really frustrated me how easily FCP drops its renders. I know it’s all about keeping the quality at full, rather than re-rendering renders – but this does make for some time-consuming re-renders, and (especially in my case) some very frustrating times sitting in front of the system.

I think I say this every time I ‘compain’ about something in FCP – I LOVE using it, I love what it allows me to do to the picture – it’s incredibly versatile and creative – but it’s just – well – annoying when it comes to the finer details.

Thanks for the post though Walter, I really appreciate your thoughtful – and importantly – calm responses to what really amounts to my rants being like a baby spitting out his dummy…

Although I still 100% hate working with Audio in FCP… but that’s another rant altogether…

John

John
Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

G5 2.7Ghz, 4.5Gb ram, Blackmagic Decklink/multibridge, 5.6Tb Infortrend storage, FCP Studio 5.02, Makie MCU control, Yahama 5.1 surround, JVC DTV multi-format monitor, 2x23inch Apple monitors – and a partirdge on a pear tree.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Wayne Carey] “Well, my experience has always been that you loose the render files in the area you are working, which is understandable, but now, we are loosing throughout the entire timelines on occassions. That’s what I’m bringing up.”

If you make a change in the Sequence Settings, such as from 8bit SD to DV for example, everything in your timeline that was rendered will now need to be re-rendered. That’s the type of change I’m talking about.

If you simply slip and slide a few elements in the timeline, then yes, you will only lose a portion of the timeline.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Walter Biscardi]

[John Steventon] “but what I wasn’t prepared for was changing the settings in order to capture the HDV clips making all the render infortmation for the 10-Bit video stuff go offline.”

Oh, well that’s not correct behavior. Just because you change your Capture Presets, that should not affect what’s already been captured and edited. In my case, we’re cutting a 1080i/50 show, but I have to keep capturing SD material in here. I have to keep switching my Easy Setup to NTSC 8bit, but that does not cause my media to go offline. That’s a head scratcher for me right now.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Mark Maness]

Well, that’s an HDV thing with FCP. For some odd reason Apple took the stance of adding HDV support to FCP but they did it in a way that HDV is a seperate function of FCP, therefore, mixing HDV with anything is really not a goo idea. Haven’t you noticed that the capture window is totally different from the standard window?

One way to deal with this is to capture your footage in HDV in its only seperate project and use Media Manager to recompress the video into your codec of choice. OR you could just batch capture your footage using your capture card to any codec. This is the method that I chose for HDV. I capture thru my Kona 3 into the DVCPro HD codec and I don’t have any issues with HDV.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Ben Holmes]

John

I agree that FCP is twitchy with regard to re-rendering, sometimes it frustrates me that razoring a clip to a certain length requires the whole clip to be re-rendered, whereas dragging the end of the clip in to the same point doesn’t require it to be rendered at all…

However, you could probably have avoided this re-rendering if a) you hadn’t altered the easy setup – you only needed to change the capture preset to HDV and b) you used the ‘undo’ key when you get this issue. Now, I can’t guarantee that Undo would have worked here, but it works in 95% of circumstances that lead to red render bars.

Let’s be clear about one thing though, capturing some HDV and dropping it into a timeline using a different codec will not cause the entire timeline to go unrendered – in my experience anyway. This should only happen if you change the sequence settings (which does not happen when you use an Easy Setup – this only effects sequences opened AFTER the setup is activated). However, since the HDV easy setup changes the A/V settings, including the device used for video output to firewire video, it may be that FCP requires the timeline to be re-rendered to accomodate this different external video device. At any rate, the method used here is equally likely to be the problem as the software you are arguing with.

HDV is a tricky little codec – and this could easily be a bug. Let us know how you get on. I would say that my own relationship with FCP has been like a marriage: The giddy euphoria of the early days together, leading to frustration and refusal to compromise when we started to find each other’s idiosyncracies and limitations – leading to a long, happy period of co-existance.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations. FCP systems just used on Sky Sports coverage of the Ryder Cup – live from the K Club.

“The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com

[Shane Ross]

Oh, and yes, the BROADCAST SAFE filter doesn’t work. As soon as you render, the levels jump right back up. No matter what codec you edit.

Annoying.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net