What do you mean by Fast?

[Mike Jeffs]

[Jeremy Garchow] “So, surely you must know from using it, that there’s an intangible quickness to X. .”

I would say that when I first intially started testing FCPX in june, yes I thought there was something there, but over time as I had started to test the other NLEs, thats when I notice they are all Fast just in different workflows, which is my whole complaint/question. What do people mean when they say “fast”? It seems that in your case I’m guessing that this is what you mean by fast? but to someone else this fast isn’t relevent

Mike Jeffs
Video Coordinator
BYU-Idaho

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Mike Jeffs] “What do people mean when they say “fast”? It seems that in your case I’m guessing that this is what you mean by fast? but to someone else this fast isn’t relevent”

Of course fast is a relative term. I listed what goes much faster for me, and yes maybe the entire process moving faster isn’t important to everyone. For some of us, we appreciate it as I’m sure your students will appreciate Avid for all that X lacks in certain functionality.

[Tony West]

Thanks for the info Mike.

It’s not as high as I thought it would be.

I’m happy to see that.

[Andy Neil]

I’ve always felt that when people talk about FCPX being fast, they’re really just comparing it to FCP 7, not necessarily Avid or Premiere.

I haven’t really played with the newest version of premiere, but it’s been 64 bit for awhile now, making good use of the mulitple cores. Avid has always felt fast from an editing point of view (with the exception of loading the project, and drawing waveforms).

I could get good performance out of 7, but really that’s due to best practices rather than an inherent speed in the program. You learn to work without waveforms, or filmstrip view, or too many sequences. You break up projects to keep down project bloat and keep load speeds down.
In FCPX, filmstrip view and waveforms are on all the time and it still feels pretty snappy overall.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Helmut Kobler]

I’ve actually been frustrated with FCP X because it doesn’t feel very fast to me. I love the magnetic timeline, the metadata tools, the auditioning, and the reduced toolset that still lets you ripple, roll, slip clips, etc.

BUT….I’ve noticed that the timeline gets laggy when my projects get to 3-5 minutes, with lots of edits. FCP X needs a second to think when you ask it to zoom in or out of the timeline. Scrolling feels laggy. Sometimes, FCP X needs a second to highlight a single clip I’ve selected. And then there’s sending my project to Comrpressor for output….God, that’s slow. Not the rendering, per se, but when you literally choose the “Send to Compressor” menu item in X, you get a spinning rainbow for 10, 15, 20 seconds before the project appears in Compressor. And then, if you want to set In and Out points for your encoding, there’s another spinning rainbow for about 15 or 20 seconds.

Anyway, FCP X’s tools and interface can make the organizational and creative process of editing faster, but the app’s performance gets bogged down too easily. I’m really hoping Apple has been working on these performance issues, along with the multi cam editing and broadcast monitoring features due in early 2012.

By the way, I have an 8 core 2.93GHz Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM and an 8 drive miniSAS raid, so my Mac’s specs are not the problem….

——————-
Documentary Camera in Los Angeles
http://www.lacameraman.com

[Mark Morache]

[Helmut Kobler] “I’ve noticed that the timeline gets laggy when my projects get to 3-5 minutes,”

Keep an eye on your file size for the CurrentVersion.fcpproject file. I found that there are some practices that can balloon your project size, and slow down the application.

I’m working on a 4 minute video now, the timeline index shows 185 items in it, including a bunch of compound clips. There are effects, transitions, lower thirds and other text effects, many connected clips and secondary story lines. The project file is about 25mb, and things are still snappy.

I can point you to the thread if your project seems much larger than that.

As far as using compressor, yes, it’s awfuly slow. I’ve been having better luck using “Export using compressor settings”. It sends your project to compressor fairly quickly without actually opening the application. As far as exporting just a portion of a project, I’d be tempted to delete the parts of my timeline I don’t want exported, exporting what’s left with compressor settings (rendering in the background) then hitting undo to get your timeline back. (Of course before deleting parts of my timeline, I’d make a copy of my project with no renders, just in case the program crashes before I performed my undos. ) This goes much more quickly, and duplicating the project with no renders goes pretty quickly as well.

———
FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.

Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Andy Neil]

[Helmut Kobler] “when you literally choose the “Send to Compressor” menu item in X, you get a spinning rainbow for 10, 15, 20 seconds before the project appears in Compressor. And then, if you want to set In and Out points for your encoding, there’s another spinning rainbow for about 15 or 20 seconds.”

The secret to recovering some speed from the Send to Compressor command is to open compressor on it’s own, and then hiding the preview window. The majority of the lag comes from that.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Helmut Kobler]

Thanks for the tips, Mark. I double-checked my 4 minute project’s size and it’s 120MB, so I will look into ways to cut that down. But it really is egregious that a user has to jump through hoops to keep their project file size down rather than just editing. It’s supposed to be easy.

As for you tip about exporting to Compressor, I might try that, but it’s such an awful kluge, and can easily lead to losing work because you forget to undo after an export. Again, jumping through hoops.

I really do appreciate so many of Final Cut’s elegant solutions and tools, but right now, all that’s being suffocated by Apple’s rushing FCP X out the door. So unprofessional. For a company that prides itself on being filled with “A players” and making “great products”, it’s especially appalling.

——————-
Documentary Camera in Los Angeles
http://www.lacameraman.com

[Helmut Kobler]

Thanks Andy. I tried that but it didn’t help. I opened Compressor on its own, closed the Preview window, and then went back to FCP X and chose Send to Compressor. Same interminable delays (spinning beach ball) before the project shows up in Compressor. Thanks though.

——————-
Documentary Camera in Los Angeles
http://www.lacameraman.com