Keep getting the spinning color wheel when editing

[Richard Doyle]

It’s a 2TB external Western Digital hard drive, connected by Firewire 800. Would it be better if I had the footage on the main hard drive of the Mac Pro?

[Richard Keating]

The speed of the drive may be the culprit. Is it a 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm drive?

Richard Keating
Editor, Co-Creator of ScreenLight
“Painless Video Review and Approval”
http://www.screenlight.tv

[Richard Doyle]

It’s 7200. I can’t seem to see a difference in the tech specs between this drive I’m using and a GRAID, which I’m told would be better.

[Patrice Freymond]

HQ on a single FW 800 drive is pushing the limit IMHO…

patrice

[Gary Askham]

Firewire 800 should be just enough for ProRes HQ. It’s pretty borderline though… and it won’t be a pleasant editing experience.

I think an additional problem though is the EX3 media. The Sony EX3 records to XDCAM EX. Have you transcoded this media to match your ProRes 422 HQ media or is it still XDCAM? XDCAM is a long-GOP format and can be a bit sticky – especially on slower drives.

(And you would have been fine transcoding your Canon 7D media to non-HQ ProRes or even ProRes (LT). ProRes (HQ) is overkill – especially if you knew you were going to be working on a low performance drive)

The G-RAID would have been a better option. They have two drive mechanisms RAIDed together (hence the name) and are designed and marketed for exactly this kind of editing.

————————
FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Richard Doyle]

Yes, I think I’ll go to Pro Res LT next time. There’s no way I’m buying another hard drive. I’m actually editing the HQ sequence right now, and there’s a spinning color wheel from time to time (actually, quite often), but it’s not too bad.

[Richard Doyle]

Thanks, Gary. I’ll go to LT next time for the 7D footage. I’m editing at the moment and it’s taking a bit longer, but it’s not the worst thing ever. I have a Pro Res timeline and I’ve just brought the XDCAM footage in. This works for me. If I have the same trouble with LT, I’ll buy a GRAID. Thanks.

[Nancy Kiang]

Hi, did you ever solve this problem? I’m wondering if it’s possible for a sequence to get corrupted, or just accumulate too many filters that it can’t process them all.
I have two sequences open in the Timeline. One is a copy of the other. The second copy has the added filter to deinterlace all the video, while keeping the text overlays interlaced. I also cleaned up two edits by clipping out 3-4 frames. This second sequence gets the spinning wheel of death for any click on anything. The original sequence runs just fine. Somehow, Final Cut does not seem to like the filters on the second sequence, I am guessing. I did the same think for a trailer that is half the length, and I don’t get the spinning wheel problem there.

I’m trying to adjust the RT settings in User Preferences and the dropdown RT menu in the Timeline. Even just clicking the RT dropdown menu produces the spinning wheel. On the original sequence, the RT dropdown menu selections are:
– Safe RT
– Playback Video Quality – Medium
– Use Playback settings

I cannot even get past the spinning wheel on the second sequence to change the RT settings. I think I’m going to try closing that sequence and making a new one and see if the same thing happens again.

[Nancy Kiang]

Hi, did you ever solve this problem? I’m wondering if it’s possible for a sequence to get corrupted, or just accumulate too many filters that it can’t process them all.
I have two sequences open in the Timeline. One is a copy of the other. The second copy has the added filter to deinterlace all the video, while keeping the text overlays interlaced. I also cleaned up two edits by clipping out 3-4 frames. This second sequence gets the spinning wheel of death for any click on anything. The original sequence runs just fine. Somehow, Final Cut does not seem to like the filters on the second sequence, I am guessing. I did the same think for a trailer that is half the length, and I don’t get the spinning wheel problem there.

I’m trying to adjust the RT settings in User Preferences and the dropdown RT menu in the Timeline. Even just clicking the RT dropdown menu produces the spinning wheel. On the original sequence, the RT dropdown menu selections are:
– Safe RT
– Playback Video Quality – Medium
– Use Playback settings

I’ve closed the second sequence and made a new copy of the first, and re-did the de-interlace filters. The new copy doesn’t get the spinning wheel problem. I’m guessing the spinning wheel problem can be also due to Mac and FinalCut software issues.