Alex Elkins
Forum Replies Created
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I use a single scratch disk and let FCP create the relevant folders for me. Like you, I really can’t see much benefit of having all of your media and render files in the same place as your project files, graphics etc. This has been discussed, and as far as I’m aware it doesn’t make any difference in terms of performance.
All of my media goes on the external RAID 5, and all of my project files, graphics, client samples etc go on my internal RAID 1, all arranged into corresponding folders. Final versions then go onto a second external RAID 5, arranged by date for easy reference.I find this system to work really well, but I think it’s down to personal preference. Your problem is that you work with other editors who are using a system you’re not comfortable with. I’m on your side with this one.
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Have you rendered your sequence? My guess is that Final Cut Express is just showing you a low quality version when you play back the unrendered video from your timeline.
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Thanks Mark, that sounds like it should work.
All the best,
Alex -
Did you try Compressor Repair from Digital Rebellion? https://www.digitalrebellion.com/compressor_repair.htm
I use that every time Qmaster misbehaves and it’s so far worked every time. -
[Mick Haensler] “What is this QMaster you speak of???”
QMaster allows you to set up various applications to make use of more than one of your processors. Compressor is one application that you can do this with, and it works really well if you can set it up correctly. QMaster also allows you to make use of the multiple processors of multiple machines that you may have networked, so for example you could be using the power of five 8-core macs to render something out of Compressor! Not something I’ve tried though.
Setting it up sounds harder than it actually is. If you open Compressor’s user manual, the front page has a sub-heading ‘Distributed Processing Setup’. Click that, and then go to page 53 and read up on setting up QuickClusters.
The QMaster control panel can be found under System Preferences. Just remember the simple rule that for every two cores you have in your machine, you can set up one ‘instance’ in QMaster. So 8 cores = 4 instances etc. The manual will help you more than my explanation will though.I’d also recommend downloading the free application, Compressor Repair, which will tell your computer to behave whenever QMaster stops working properly (which unfortunately in my case is fairly often). I’d also recommend searching Google and this forum if you’re still stuck with it. That’s how I learnt.
Good luck!
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I second what Shane says about converting in Compressor. As long as your settings are correct it should look a bit better, and will encode a lot faster too if you have a multi-core processor and can get your head around setting up QMaster.
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Edit in Pro Res, and if you have the patience, transcode all of your XDcam stuff to Pro Res to cut down on rendering.
If it’s just a fairly quick project I’d leave it as XDCam, but just ensure your timeline compression is set to Pro Res. -
Did you click ‘Save’ when you did your rotation in QT? That might have an effect.
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First thing – have you got your RT settings set at Full? If not, you might be simply viewing a half-res version of it, which would explain the out-of-focus look, which you may not have noticed just on your rushes.
Personally I would remove the de-interlace filter as scrolling text generally looks smoother when it is interlaced (unless this is for the web). Keep ‘Deflicker’ selected though.
Try changing your sequence codec to Apple ProRes 422, as each time you render to HDV it reduces quality slightly. -
Thanks Gary. I just got the same answer from AJA Tech Suppport and it seems there just isn’t a way to do it. Not to worry then, and thanks for your help.