PROBLEMS DRAGING AND TRIMING CLIPS ON THE TIMELINE

[Josephine Healey]

Could you explain what your problems are? Do you have 3500 clips in one Timeline?

[Ibon Olaskoaga]

Thanks for your quick answer.

No, the 3500 Clips are only in the browser . On the timelines there are much less. The problem I have is a very long respond delay to any action of moving and triming clips on the timeline. I thought it was a problea of the Firewire drives but is not . The same clips in a much smaller project work perfectly.

Any idea?

Thanks

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Ibon Olaskoaga] “I thought it was a problea of the Firewire drives but is not .”

How do you know?
ARE the clips on FW drives?
It could be that a specific clip (or several) coming from a very full (and/or slow) FW HD is affecting the FCP timeline’s response.

You should also “Trash the FCP Preferences” and if that helps.

Click the following link for instructions on how to do this.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html

Another method is to use “FCP Rescue” a free Apple Script that will Trash the Preferences for you (and restore nearly all of your user settings afterward).
There are versions for FCP & FCE.

Download these free Apple Scripts at

https://fcprescue.andersholck.com/

[Will Macneil]

I think you’ll find this issue has been creeping up alot. Search for a thread about “Sticky Timeline” about two months ago. There are some workarounds, but no real solutions. I had originally thought it was a firewire issue, but I have heard of people having the same trouble on robust RAIDs. The only thing in common seems to be large projects – and yours would definately be considered large.

Will

[Ibon Olaskoaga]

Thank you ver much for your info. I will definitevily look at Sticky Timeline thead.

Ibon

[Bjorn]

I have had the same problems with a “sticky timeline”. The spinning beach ball appeared several times every time I tried to trim in the timeline using the ripple/roll tools.
I posted recently on this and got the suggestion to move the current sequence and the clips I needed to a new project.
And it worked! I just dragged the stuff I needed to a new project (Alt+drag to copy) and the new project runs smoothly.
It does not seem to be caused by large projects, since I had the problem before the project was more than a couple of MB large, and it doesn’t seem to depend on the complexity or size of the sequence, since it worked after I moved the sequence.
So my theory is that what causes the problem are projects with a lot of stuff/info in the browser.
The project I edited had about 8 hours of footage for a 20-minute film. I captured the video clips in large chunks, added markers for start and stop of each take, then created subclips from those markers. I imported the audio from BWF files. Then I synched video and audio and got new, merged subclips. So I had two or three copies of each video and audio clip in my ten or so bins. But when I moved the things I needed to a new project, I didn’t bring the original captured video clips, only the merged subclips. So, for instance, the new project has no large chunks full of markers. I think the comlexity of this information in the browser is what causes our problem.
Which sucks for someone working on fiction films shot on film or at least with separate sound that has to be synched.
Lets hope Apple has fixed this for version 5, or we will all have to switch to Avid where it works flawlessly even for feature-length projects! 🙂

2x1GHz G4, 1.5 GB RAM, FW, FW800 and soft-RAID IDE disks, FCP 4.5, OSX 10.3.8, Aurora Igniter X etc.

/ Bjorn in Sweden

[Will Macneil]

One thing caught my eye, Bjorn – merged subclips. I think anytime you have a clip referencing media from other clips, things are going to slow down a little. But I’m pleased to hear you’ve found a workaround.

I think this is something worth presenting to Apple. Anyone got a minute to write to feedback? I’d do it, but I think I’ve used all my favours!

W

[Bjorn]

I have sent in a report to FCP feedback at Apple.
Let’s hope they can fix this.

/ Bjorn in Sweden

[D]

Bjorn,

I am having the exact same problem! Have you heard from anyone who has upgraded to FCP 5 whether or not the Bug has been fixed?

I am also seriously considering going back to Avid.

Cheers,

-D