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Speed Difference in FCP
Forgive me if this is a stupid question…wait a minute, there are no stupid questions!
Anyway, I’m pretty new to HD. I’ve got a 720p project in FCP and I noticed (hard not to) that when I go to drag a piece of Boris Title 3D text from the canvas to reposition it, it’s taking forever. I’ll move the cursor, and the text will follow a couple seconds later. I opened an SD project that had some Boris titling in order to compare, and that text moves along with the cursor, which is what I’m used to.
Files for both projects are on an external firewire 400 drive. (Which seems pretty slow, regardless, but that’s neither here or there.)
I’m assuming it’s the HD that’s creating the time lapse, and actually, even a regular, small piece of text (not Boris) has some lag on this timeline. I guess I just want to double check and make sure it’s not something else that I can rectify.
Thanks.
David Bark
Lightshine Productions -
8 Replies
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FW400 = very slow HD performance.
Get a faster array = faster machine performance.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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It is much more likely that the codec is creating the slow response. What are you using?
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[David Bark] “You mean DVCPro HD 720p?”
If that is what you are using then I suspect you are seeing processing delays as the screen tries to redraw a compressed codec when you drag a text image on top.
Try it with a graphic with an alpha channel to make sure it isn’t Boris but your computers processing power.
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This is some weird stuff going on. And it is (for the most part) Boris. Although I still get some lag from the external drive every time I click on the timeline after a couple of minutes of being idle.
So anyway, I went into the same timeline with the Boris text and the normal text. Both still really lagging when I try to move them in the canvas.
I pulled in a huge tif with an alpha, and that slides around just fine. Then I created some simple text, not boris, over that, and that moves just fine.
Then I dropped some Boris on top, and everything started lagging. One thing I noticed, too, is that when the Boris was simple (no stroke, no bevel), it’s not nearly as slow. Anything I could do to tweak that, or just live with it?
Also, mentioned something about a new or faster “array.” You mean, like, a new machine, new 800 HD, etc?
David Bark
Lightshine Productions -
What you are seeing is not likely to be about your hard drive.
As a general rule a reliable FW800 external drive is minimum for HD formats like DVCPro100HD. Fast reliable external drives have been discussed here a lot so a search of this forum should answer your queries about drives.
The Boris issue is not something I have experienced. I am on the latest FCP 7.0.2 and Snow Leopard 10.6.3. Therre were some reports of Boris issues when Snow Leopard and FCS3 first came out. Are you up to date with software?
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Yep. 7.0.2 and 10.6.3
Just created a new project, dropped in a still image and some Boris text with stroke and bevel and it was moving a little choppy in the canvas.
Again, it only seems to slow down when the text is a little fancy, which I rarely do, but still, if this isn’t normal, I wonder If there’s a way to re-install Boris without having to re-install FCP?
David Bark
Lightshine Productions -
Do you have any other codec to check it with. I have been using mostly ProRes or Uncompressed and have not noticed Boris being sluggish. I have the ATI 4870 graphics card and 8 core 2.9 nehalem MacPro with 16gigs of RAM so nothing seems sluggish on this machine.
You could also consider contacting Boris to see if there is a know issue.
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