Stutering playback in FCP X, specs should be ok?

[Bill Davis]

It gets worse before it gets better. Then it gets MUCH better, IME.

There are a few dozen reasons you might be getting slow ups at various points in your workflow.

These can range from file format issues, to stack effects issues, to corrupt file issues, to many, MANY other things. And we can’t really tell you what you might be doing that contributes, since there are just way too many variables.

Remember, the NLE editing systems we learned on were largely built around the concepts of pre-limitations. You built a system to handle DV or HDCAM or perhaps Uncompressed – and when you had the hardware capable of doing that work- you just kept doing the same workflow over and over.

Now those old “consistencies” are largely gone. The market demands systems that handle everything from iPhone to DSLR to Red4k – and we expect it to all work as well as or better than what we worked on yesterday – because after all, it’s just VIDEO right?

But it’s not really “video” any more at all. It’s all just data. And data is growing and becoming more and more complex – and it’s harder and harder to manage – so these new tools are trying to allow us to do much, much more, with vastly more complex asset groups.

And it’s all a bit sticky that the moment.

All I can tell you is that after a year with X, I’ve learned hundreds of little things that have made most of the “pain points” recede for me. And I’m now editing faster and easier than I used to. But definitely NOT because I bought that particular brand of software.

It’s because like everything else in life, I’ve put in the time in the seat to figure out how to operate it efficiently.

That’s kinda where you appear to be.

It does get much, much better if you stick with it. Just not overnight.

But your observation:

[Diego Barraza] “but man, it is certainly no easy transition from FCP 7 to X.”

is probably even truer than you thought when you wrote it!

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Jason Jenkins]

[Diego Barraza] “recently got a new top of the range imac to start fiddling with FCP X. I am running it with 4GB Ram and a external 2TB Gtech Drive for media storage”

How did you get a top-of-the-range iMac with only 4GB of RAM? You need to get that up to at least 8GB; 16 is better. How is your storage connected?

Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!

Check out my Mormon.org profile.

[Steve Connor]

Firstly you need more RAM, 8GB is the absolute minimum you need, more if you can afford it. 4GB will certainly give you some performance issues. Also do you have background rendering ON in preferences? If you do switch it off and render when you need to.

Also check what your playback preferences are, make sure it is set to “better performance”

How is your external drive connected? Also make sure that your project or event hasn’t been set to your internal drive by mistake.

Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television

[Eric Santiago]

There was also topics where keeping it native as in not using Optimize footage to be a better workflow.
I wish I can do that but I work mostly with R3D > ProRes clips.

[Diego Barraza]

I can understand the premise that the more RAM the merrier, but then why FCP X spec sheet says “2GB RAM minimum and 4GB RAM recommended”?. I would say that is misleading advertisement on their behalf.
I can always buy more RAM, but in FCP 7 with 4GB of RAM you could easily crunch any HDV project with no problem.
The media is all sitting in a external Gtech Drive with FW800 connection.

Thanks for your concern and advise.

filmmaking-editing-dop-dad

[Diego Barraza]

Sorry, I flagged solution to the post when I was trying to use the like button instead. My mistake, have not found solution yet.

filmmaking-editing-dop-dad

[Eric Santiago]

Diego you will find that spec on most apps and they are at a min.
FW800 is also not viable as far as my experiences go with any HD and up Digital Video format.
That was fine for SD back in the day.
Do you have an eSATA option for that G-Tech?
I use a 1TB and 4TB GRAID eSATA to a MBP.
Formats such as ProRes422 runs pretty smooth thank to eSATA.
Even edit in 4K ProRes4444 but thats pushing it 🙂

[Steve Connor]

[Eric Santiago] “FW800 is also not viable as far as my experiences go with any HD and up Digital Video format.
That was fine for SD back in the day.”

FW800 is fine for HDV, I’ve been using FW800 with XDCam EX edits and haven’t found any issues and that’s a higher data rate

Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television

[Diego Barraza]

I have handled and edited a LOT of projects in HD-HDV and Pro res with 800FW and never had a problem with FCP 7 and bellow. I know that in today’s scene FW800 is a bit passe, but many editors out there and I can say that it has been tried and tested with successful results for many years. I would not say that my data bottleneck is in the transfer rate of FW800 in my case.

filmmaking-editing-dop-dad

[Michael Garber]

Diego, understood with your frustration, but it’s most likely the RAM. I’m running some 23.98 prores from an unpowered fw800 drive and it’s ok but can get a big sluggish. I made proxy files and it works great.

Not sure if this works with HDV (as FCP won’t make proxies of all codecs), but try making proxy files out of them. Select clips in viewer, right click, select transcode. See if you can choose proxy. I know, strange to make proxies from something that runs 3mb/s but try it and see (just a troubleshooting idea, not a definitive answer). You can switch back and forth between proxy in the preferences menu. Note – it’s global, so all projects play as proxy. Clips not proxy show up as offline.

One other thing – which video card is in your system? Is it the version with 512mb of ram or 1GB version? I had a 512mb card before I upgraded on my mac pro and it helped greatly.

If you up the ram, I recommend 16gb and it’s not that much $ from OWC. (It’s probably the RAM )

Trash the prefs. Do a permissions fix, bla bla bla. Hope that helps. Let us know what you do.

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company