“preparing video for display”

[Lu Nelson]

Hi,

the “Preparing Video for Display” is mainly a RAM thing. When you say graphics you mean Still Images in the timeline right?

If so, I can tell you it remains a problem even on my new MacPro Quad 2.66 with 8GB of RAM. With still images, if you start loading a lot of them in to the timeline it slows you down. Final Cut’s architecture isn’t really meant for it. Actually I haven’t heard of any editing prog that really does this well.

Working in an HD timeline however, on a G5 with only 2GB of RAM I’m surprised you’re getting much work done. Short answer: yes more RAM will help and you should have at least 4GB if you are editing in HD. Try that first.

[J. Tad newberry]

ah. more RAM. makes sense. when i first bought this system (2 years ago) it had 500 MB RAM, and my dealer quickly said that i should upgrade to at least 1.5 GB if not 2 GB. at that point, though, i wasn’t dealing in any HD content. the timeline i’m working in now is DVCPro HD…so i guess it’s time to upgrad to 4 GB?

yes, stills are mostly the problem…and namely, a sequence (“A”) which i am using inside of another sequence (“B”). “A” is a targa image sequence from Motion. anytime i alter the beginning or ending of “A” within “B”, i get a nice long “preparing video for display” window…

[Goward Horton ii]

Hello listen I am having an similar problem at the when I open Final Cut, my project keeps saying preparing video for display, but never opens what can I do about this?

[Lars Fuchs]

[Lu Nelson] “With still images, if you start loading a lot of them in to the timeline it slows you down”

As soon as I read this I cranked up the still image cache in the system settings to %75 (I have 10Gb in my MacPro), and I think that’s helped a lot. (goto the Final Cut Pro menu, then ‘system settings’ shortcut=shift-Q, then go to the ‘memory & cache’ tab and crank up the still cache a ways. Of course you need loads of RAM in your system, but seriously you can never have too much ram).