[Cherin Bower]

Thank you Joe, and thanks for reading my long post. I’m looking forward to how much better the iMac pro will perform to my current setup. I think I will go with the specs I mentioned and maybe the 10-core and change my work flow to at least “leave files in place”. If I need to generate some proxies, like from drone footage or anything else that is not playing back I’ll do that instead of transcoding clips in compressor. I will have a big job going back and replacing all the mxf files that are compressed to 4k sharing services, but it sounds like that is not good to have those compressed clips in such a high end project. If I can’t edit them natively, I’ll go for proxies first. I’ve heard this a lot, so I know it must be worth changing. Plus the large fcp libraries were hard to deal with and back up.

Thanks again!

Videographer/Ecologist
MPG Ranch Montana

[Cherin Bower]

You’ve been very helpful Jeff, I purchased EditReady today:) Compressor took 1.5 minutes to convert a 5 second clip that took EditReady 28 seconds. If you say EditReady is keeping better metadata for a DSLR and it’s faster, then EditReady all the way. My last hope is that EditReady can convert mxf files…

[Cherin Bower]

Great, thanks for the responses! I was unfamiliar with the different ApplePro Res 422 LT, HQ and regular outputs. I was looking for a lower bitrate or just a clip that would play back in Quicktime without being choppy, but still be able to use ApplePro Res for editing. You convinced me to transcode the media to ApplePro Res LT (thanks for pointing that one out) even though I will end up with larger file sizes. They play back in Quicktime smooth compared to the original, but why? The original clip’s bit rate is 829 mb/s and the Apple ProRes LT output is 849 mb/s. The 692 mb clip ends up at 707 mb, but I am just glad it plays smoothly.

I like Edit ready, it does a good job, but since I have Compressor they seem to have relatively similar output options now that I know what they do.

Ultimately I may take the advice of everyone who responded to work with the original media in FCPx. I will see if that works for me. And, I will be purchasing this year’s (hopefully this month’s) release of the new iMac Pro! I might have questions for you all on how many specs I need to upgrade to for my editing purposes. We are all afraid of the price tag.

Thank you for all the advice! I learned a lot.

[Cherin Bower]

Thanks for your response Jeff. I am considering just using FCPx proxy, but I need to think about it. I’d like to first figure out my best compression settings. Edit ready worked well, but I like your idea on setting up the same settings from FCPx to Compressor but I am still having trouble and maybe you can help.

I don’t know how to recreate those settings from FCPx to Compressor. I can create a custom AppleProRes 422 setting in Compressor, but it does not allow me to control the bitrate therefore creating a larger file than the original, so how come the FCPx optimized video shared as H.264 highest quality is a manageable size and the best compressed quality where in Compressor it grows to nearly a GB? So I tried creating a custom H.264 setting so I can control the bitrate. I left the frame size, frame rate and color space on automatic. I chose H.264 as the Compression Type so I can restrict the data rate to a smaller number. I don’t understand this completely but I tried to get the same bitrate as the FCPx optimized H.264 video for the same video but with these settings in Compressor. I restricted it to 200,000 kb/s and I got a similar output, though larger (176 mb for a 7 sec video) to the FCPx video which is 138,000 kb/s (113 mb for a 7 sec video). Again the original clip is actually 692 mb and has a bitrate of 829,000 kb/s. I want to finish this task, is this the right way to do it?

My question is, is there a difference between the video imported to FCPx and create optimized media and the original source file? My guess is no, because I compared them and they are the same size and bitrate so I assume you don’t get the optimized feature until you share out of FCPx. I sent the optimized clip to Compressor, but it doesn’t show me any specific settings in compressor to mimic it. I want to only use compressor. Do you know how to mimic the FCPx settings in Compressor? I don’t know much about this, so the more detailed the better. Thanks!

[Cherin Bower]

Thanks Noah, but I am looking to convert all the media for easy playback in QuickTime but not loose any quality and downsize the output. Proxy is just a viewing /editing feature, I’m not wanting to ingest it all as proxy. I was hoping for a possible solution with Compressor output settings or a way to more easily use FCP to mass compress. I would prefer two clips stored: the original and a smaller viewable version good enough to use editing 4k video and to share online without making any changes. Maybe you can help?
Thanks anyway!

[Cherin Bower]

I am aiming to keep the libraries small. If I import original mxf media to FCP and create Proxy media those libraries would get out of hand. I am looking to find out ideas on how people compress, convert, transcode original mxf media for ease of use in FCP. I would rather make smaller files and trim them to the desired portion and import that into FCP and create proxy to keep my libraries and processing power to a minimum. I don’t think FCP would handle all that footage very well. It’s too large, it needs to be smaller. Thanks for your help BTW!

[Cherin Bower]

I’m running three Apple computers:

[Cherin Bower]

Individual mxf clips range from a few hundred MB to 30 GB. Most were shot in 4K. I shot 4 TB of footage over a 6 month period.