[Andy Bissonnette]

Thanks for the help. Would there be any benefit to using said ext gpu as the gui card?

[Andy Bissonnette]

My apologies, you are probably right. I got a little excited and clicked the first thread I saw. And yes, with the higher res 15″mbp (or even the 17″ since it has an express card slot).

[Andy Bissonnette]

Yes, definitely get the firmware update to shoot 29.97.

In my opinion, FCP 6.0.6 is just fine, but it doesn’t hurt to upgrade if you can afford it.

You must convert the footage to another codec before editing. The 5d puts out .mov files that are in the H.264 codec. This codec is really hard for the computer to decode, so it will slow fcp immensely. The best codec to use is ProRes (for FCP). The files will be much bigger. I have a friend that converts it to XDCAM, which saves on file size, but I wouldn’t recommend this.

You can use Compressor or MPEGStreamClip (MPSC) for conversion. If you really want to be anal-retentive, I would download this program to convert the clips: https://rarevision.com/5dtorgb/. It is much better than compressor and MPSC. You’ll notice that your footage looks darker when converted, if you use compressor or MPSC. With 5DtoRGB, the footage stays the same color (describing why this is is beyond the purpose of this post).

When in FCP with the converted clips, select Apple ProRes 422 1920×1080 29.97fps as your preset and you should be good to go.

[Andy Bissonnette]

Feel free to hi-jack it. This thread has become pretty hilarious, I had no idea what I was doing at the time and haven’t looked at this thread since posting. It’s fun to see all the different variations of coloring on this severely underexposed image I recorded a few years ago…

[Andy Bissonnette]

I think I figured out the problem (well, Walter kind of did). The color shifting was happening both when I had “preserve RGB” in the output module settings checked, and also when it was unchecked (with the output profile set to “ProPhoto RGB”). I switched the output profile to Rec 709 and the colors now look fine.

I kind of understand why this fixed it, I know that Rec 709 is the profile for HD; but ProPhoto is what the photos were originally colored in and their native profile (I think). Why the colors change so drastically when the ProPhoto profile is applied to video is what I don’t understand. I’m sure there is a logical explanation.

By outputting to Rec 709, have I lost any color information? It doesn’t really matter to me at this point, but I am curious…

Thanks for the help!

[Andy Bissonnette]

I chose ProRes HQ considering the fact that each frame (or raw image) is around 9 or 10mbs, that’s 240 mb/s. My bad, by 24 I meant 23.98 or .976. Interesting read, I will try it out. I do not know how much of a difference it will make though since the input footage is not ProRes, only the output.

[Andy Bissonnette]

What lens were you using? Is it possible that you had the Image Stabilization (IS) on? This will make pans/tilts/etc. look jerky or stutter.

[Andy Bissonnette]

Thanks, I’ll try the log.

[Andy Bissonnette]

So I’ve tried rendering a variety of ways and all with the same result: it failed at frame 170. I also tried turning some layers off and then it kept failing at frame 187. So there is obviously just too much going on at one time. I got a few different errors:

-“Not enough memory to create shadow map, xxk requested only xxk available”
– “Unable to create an image buffer of xxx x yyy. Your memory seems to be fragmented, try and increase ram for other programs.

These aren’t worded exactly as they were in AE, but this is what they basically said. The shadow map was the main error I received. *It seemed like after I told it to “Purge every 1 frame” is when the error message changed to “Unable to create image buffer”. If that helps at all…

Here is what I tried to solve the problem:

-Increased “Ram left to other programs” (Mem & Multiprocessing) (I left 1.5gb, is this enough?)
-Disabled “layer cache” and am now purging “every 1 frame during make movie” (Secret Prefs) (I assume this also applies to the render queue, right?)
-Turned off “render multiple frames at once” in “Memory & Multiprocessing”.

So I have a couple other questions:

-Should I enable the disk cache in “Prefs>Media & Disk Cache>Disk Cache”? I have it enabled with a max size of about 4500mb, could this be causing problems?
-Should I also enable openGL in the render queue settings? I do not have it enabled as I think I read it was less reliable for final renders. (I have an ATI Radeon X1900XT on a 1st gen Intel Mac Pro)

I am assuming the basic problem is that I don’t have enough RAM. But, I don’t know for sure since I also had the same problems on a MP w/16gb of RAM. Assuming it is my problem, is there a way to solve running out of memory since I am already purging every 1 frame? I don’t care how long it takes, I just want it rendered…

Sorry for the length of this post, I am trying to be as thorough as possible. Thanks again.

[Andy Bissonnette]

170 is when a couple layers kick in. But there are many layers that kick in at different times throughout the sequence, frame 170 is probably the tipping point of too many layers..
I’m waiting till I don’t need to be on my computer for at least 14 hours as this render will surely take that amount of time. But I’ll post the results from using everyone’s advice when I’m done. Thanks again…