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Large projects
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[Andrew Richards] “Maybe at some point prior to FCPX’s release there were two products in the pipeline, but I’d be pretty surprised to see something beyond FCPX coming down the pike. Maybe they merged the products and the heavy duty stuff is what is being added in incrementally. “
That’s what I meant and not that we’d eventually see two products. I think the capabilities will get ramped up, but still within this magnetic/trackless/metadata paradigm.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “The comparison of DAMs was as compared with Avid Interplay or CatDV.”
CatDV does have much more in terms of asset manipulation for the end user. FCSvr was great for the admin (me). I’ve never used Interplay.
Best,
Andy -
[Oliver Peters] “That’s what I meant and not that we’d eventually see two products. I think the capabilities will get ramped up, but still within this magnetic/trackless/metadata paradigm.”
Agree. I hope the practical shortcomings of the magnetic timeline are being addressed in parallel to the spec sheet upgrades that are coming. They really need to let you explode audio tracks out from a clip for manipulation without detaching them and risking sync loss, for one thing. Role-based mixing would be handy too, though it is probably be easier said than done.
Best,
Andy -
OK, so let’s forget large projects for a second. Here’s a very simple experiment I have just tried.
New Event, new project – import one 2 minute clip (1080P ProResLT 23.98fps), drag it into a matching timeline. Project file size is 401K. (Note that I did this a few times and the intial file size with exactly the same paramters is erratically different, but that’s another matter.)
Next I bladed the clip 20 times (nothing else, no markers, no effects, nothing at all). Project file size is now 3MB – every edit significantly increased the filesize by getting on for 100K. (And I get a comparable result when using the range tool to select and cut 20 portions of the same clip.)
This is not good.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Andrew-
Great points. Excellent feedback.
You are much more familiar with database issue than I am. It is especially noteworthy that you pointed out that there are many simulations queries required. However, it seems like the issue could be resolved without having a SSD, but instead cache the entire DB to RAM, and instead of writing DB changes to disk, it would write to RAM, and then in a CUE to make changes to the disk. Just my 2 cents.
[Andrew Richards] “We don’t know what is getting stripped out along the way from FCPX Project to FCPXML to AAF to FCP7 project, so judging them strictly by file size isn’t really telling a complete story.”
Actually I was more concerned with what was being added when importing a FCPXML into FCP X. Hence the 40 fold increase in the amount of data. Does that make sense?
I’m gonna run by the Apple Store today and I’ll try my FCPXML import on the fastest Mac I can find.
——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
[Timothy Payton] “However, it seems like the issue could be resolved without having a SSD, but instead cache the entire DB to RAM, and instead of writing DB changes to disk, it would write to RAM, and then in a CUE to make changes to the disk. Just my 2 cents.”
That would be much faster. One technique that might work would be to queue transactions to RAM and commit them to the database the same time background rendering kicks off (idle mouse). Maybe that is impractical given other requirements we’re not privy to with respect to how everything under the hood of FCPX works, but if it could be done it would certainly be an effective workaround to low IOPS storage.
[Timothy Payton] “Actually I was more concerned with what was being added when importing a FCPXML into FCP X. Hence the 40 fold increase in the amount of data. Does that make sense?”
I’m certainly curious what is being accounted for in all those MBs.
[Timothy Payton] “I’m gonna run by the Apple Store today and I’ll try my FCPXML import on the fastest Mac I can find.”
Seek ye an iMac with the SSD option installed. Not sure if those are common in Apple Stores. The only Mac that is guaranteed to have an SSD is the MacBook Air.
Best,
Andy -
Another experiment:
Loaded 57 minute aiff into new project.
Placed on primary storyline, put into compound clip, opened compound clip.
Project about 150KB in size.Added 10 markers at 5 minute intervals.- showing 10 markers.
Cut aiff file into 152 clips. Exported XML showing 1520 markers.
Deleted markers. Exported XML showing 1520 markers. Project size about 6MB.
On primary storyline cut compound clip into 10. Exported XML showing 15100 markers.
Project file around 60MB. XML file 1.9MBCut compound into 30 separate clips. Exported XML showing 45300 markers. Project file now 175 MB. Takes a minute to load.
There are no markers in the project. The audio exported from the project hasn’t changed. The project file is over a thousand times its original size.
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I think your point about markers – which you have been trying to get people to recognize for a while – is a very good one. But your experiment is pointing to an even more basic problem which is the monstrous rate of growth of a project when all you are doing is splitting a clip into pieces on the timeline.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Agreed.
And it puts a dampener on one of the potential strengths of FCPX – versioning in the timeline.
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It’s a fundamentally significant issue – it’s extraordinary that it’s not being picked up on more. Thanks for trying to keep the ball in the air on this one as it’s something people should really be aware of and be lobbying Apple about as much as possible.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
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