Multiclip project – moving it from single SATA to RAID 0?

[Jeff Meyer]

I’m not very fluent with multicam, but I’m thinking the throughput of two drives is what you’re looking needing more than the combination of two drives. For the sake of this singular project I think simply moving two camera angles to a second (non-system) drive will get it working. Obviously there are other reasons to go with RAID, but it is also a pain to have to clear off a drive. Food for thought.

You can copy/paste the clips – no need to recapture. Be sure to use Reconnect Media in Final Cut Pro. Do this by right-clicking on the media (Browser or Timeline) you want to point to the other drive. This is how you tell FInal Cut to look elsewhere for the media. If the media is no longer where it was Final Cut will bring up the Reconnect Media dialogue when you launch a project with offline media.

If your deliverable (where the footage is headed) is 1920×1080 and you have some 1920×1080 I think it would be wise to make the HDV 1920×1080. If you work in 1440 you’re scaling the DSLR footage down to edit, then back up to export. If you’re on a deadline work with the 1440. If you have time go back and make it all 1920×1080. If the higher bitrate of 1920 gives you playback problems on multicam you can always make ProRes Proxy copies, then after your multicam edit reconnect with the higher quality ProRes422 copies.

[Robert Esmonde]

Thanks Jeff.

It never occurred to me to divide the footage between two Capture Scratch drives. It sounds like a great idea, and, since I’m not likely to be doing any more multiclip stuff in the near future, a better bet than being tied into the risks of RAID 0. I presume I can just move the files and ‘Add’ the new Capture Scratch’ drive in FCP7.

Good to hear I can just Copy/Paste the clips if I do go either route. I’m too new to FCP to have yet used the ‘Reconnect’ option so glad to hear it’s so straightforward.

I have a kind of deadline for the concert edit, but not for any longer-term documentary use, so I think I’ll try to keep going, and, if the need arises later, recapture at the higher resolution.

I really appreciate your clear explanation of my options.

Regards.

[David Roth weiss]

[Robert Esmonde] “It never occurred to me to divide the footage between two Capture Scratch drives. It sounds like a great idea, and, since I’m not likely to be doing any more multiclip stuff in the near future, a better bet than being tied into the risks of RAID 0. I presume I can just move the files and ‘Add’ the new Capture Scratch’ drive in FCP7. “

Sorry, but that’s not right. You don’t need more space (two single drives), you need more throughput for your 5-cam multi-clip edit and so your initial concept of two drives at RAID 0 was a better idea.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1

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Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Robert Esmonde]

Thanks David.

And it was beginning to look easy 🙂

If I divide my Capture Scratch footage between two drives so that one has e.g Cam 1, 2, and 3 and the other drive has Cam 4, and 5, will that not spread the load sufficiently for the 5 camera angles multiclip to play without issues? One drive can already cope with multiclip playback from three angles, so what am I missing by providing an extra source drive for the other two camera angles? Isn’t it similar to having RAID 0, except that I manually ensure that the load is spread for this project.

Regards.

[David Roth weiss]

[Robert Esmonde] “will that not spread the load sufficiently for the 5 camera angles multiclip to play without issues?”

No, because the drives will still play back through a single FW bus. Two single drives on one FW bus will not increase throughput. However, throughput nearly doubles when you stripe two drives together in a RAID 0 config.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Robert Esmonde]

Hi David.

But my two drives are internal SATA drives inside my Mac Pro.

Isn’t that faster than FW?

[David Roth weiss]

[Robert Esmonde] “But my two drives are internal SATA drives inside my Mac Pro.

Isn’t that faster than FW?”

Oops, my mistake regarding firewire… But still no change. SATA is faster, but you still have just one bus, so two single drives are only as fast as the slowest drive. Stripe the same two drives together and you get almost 2X the speed/throughput.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Robert Esmonde]

Thanks David.

So it’s the RAID route then….

Regards.

[Robert Esmonde]

David,

Just checking further on my multiclip storage issue, it seems that the Mac Pro devotes an independent SATA 2 Bus to each of the internal drives.

Do you know if that is true?

And, if it is, wasn’t Jeff’s suggestion a valid one – splitting my Camera Angles between the two drives and almost doubling the throughput?

While on the topic, how does e.g. an external RAID 0 pair of drives manage to increase throughput if the data is being fed into a single eSATA connection? Or is this something to do with ‘Port Multiplication’. If I went down the external RAID route would I be able to use Apple Disk Utility’s built-in RAID utility for those external drives, or have to use a separate RAID card with ‘Port Multiplication’?

Thanks,

Robert.

[Roman Pridyuk]

im in the similar situation i got 3 to 4 camera angles multicam project every week and i got 2 macpros one has 3 drive software raid and one has 2 drive hardware raid, but when i load them in i sometimes run into playback problems. Usually much less if im using prores422LT. So im wondering 2 things;

if i was to make a 3 drive hard raid would make things better?

or if i was to dedicate a separate drive for each camera angle would that be better? since on raid 0 data is scattered all over and drives gotta work harder to pull all that off the drive. (my average project is over 2 hours long)

also sometimes i run into an issue of ram, wonder if its normal and should i switch anything?

it starts good, goes often smooth but free ram keeps getting smaller and inactive ram gets bigger and once it maxes out it starts to jerk. i pause it and it dumps some ram and press play again and plays fine for like 2 min and fills up again and jerks. ((

any thought appreciated.

thanks