[Chris Simpson]

Sadly conincidental, have had much the same issue this very weekend, at least freeze/hang, beachball, then forced to Force Quit, then when FCP refuses to reopen, or the Mac Pro refuse to shutdown, requiring power button off shutdown, FCP has run for about an hour or so before repeating. And that was just scrubbing through native Pro Res HQ clips from a project in FCP7, marking up shots for project sequence I haven’t even started to assemble.

I’ve been having problems for a while, it started with a RAID lock up transferring files from Atomos Ninja drives, large files, this also locked the RAID, so I moved the project file to an internal drive, so the RAID did not lock, but FCP still crashed, I soldiered on to finish that project, but things came to a head over xmas hols, I started trawling the web, and came very nearly here to post a desperate plea for help.

Anyway I had already started with Ken Stone’s advice trashed the preferences, didn’t work, repaired disk permissions on the boot drive, starting down this list in effect…. https://www.moviola.com/book/export/html/187
downloaded a trial of Digital Rebellion NLE maintenance, over the weekend I removed FCS and reinstalled it, and after a panic of a black screen after starting up FCP (F12 turn off Cinema mode) it was initially no change, I opened the Mac Pro, and checked the graphics card and my 2nd RAID controller card (Highpoint Rockraid 4322) which was the culprit the last time I had such instability, for scorching on the board, as the last time, after a strong sense of burning it proved to be a faulty card, that was 18mths ago, and I had noticed the odd whiff of electrical smouldering again a few weeks ago, nothing conclusive, but there is some slight discolouration, but yesterday, after saving after marking up every clip, I had had 8hours of solid with no problems. So the jury is still out on the RAID controller again.

I don’t think it’s cured, so it’s fingers crossed. I do find myself now being less confident with being Mac based/FCP reliant, it’s like back to my PC days. I just have no confidence in the Mac now. It’s really disappointing.

The other thing that strikes me is what to do next, where to turn, I was considering taking a blank drive, and creating a completely new boot drive, with Leopard OS, another clean install of FCS, but yesterday my mood improved, but not before pricing up a new RAID… Caldigit (something with a rock solid rep… until you find web entries of problems, at least their After Sales is better, Highpoint was/is woeful), considering upgrading to Snow Leopard (from Leopard 10.5.8), or even Lion, so reading is FCP7 compatible with Lion threads, or even considering going back to a PC! The only thing is I like Multicam, and its the most important part of workflow, the half a dozen Ninjas are Pro Res. FCP7 was/great, I only want FCP8, and was waiting for FCP X to mature, and working up the funds for a new platform/RAID/edit software, etc ,etc. if it is not for me and jumping ship, hopefully to something as good as 7. I’d like to go CS5.5 (handles Pro Res) but only 4 multilcip angles, is not enough, if I had to move. I’m hoping CS6 might have 10-16angles, then I’m probably off and it may include going PC again, as Apple of late FCP and Mac Pro, I just don’t know what to think about where they are going.

Is there anything worse than a lack of reliability in the underpinnings of your workflow?!!!!

As a side note please please come back if you have success on fixing your problem, the number of threads I have read this weekend where someone has a problem, is given lots of ideas and solutions to try where the OP never finally comes back to say “yes” this was it, or thats what fixed it, is really frustrating. The things I always used to say about the rare Apple based gear going wrong, makes the extra $ worth it, is a) someone else has always had the problem, b) there’s a solution out there on the web, c) and you can usually fix it yourself (if its software). Now I’m no longer sure!

[Chris Simpson]

Thanks for that Brad, I think I’d seen it in posts maybe by in other places.

I’ve tried as much as i can I don’t have a reference monitor, but compression markers have not fixed the transcoded avchd to pro Res clips. Fortunately they are very short clips and the DVDs are secondary to onlineand show stand content, so it’s a lesson relearned avchd is HD only.

Audio is no better, I tried everything, every bit rate, filter on or off in compressor, in the end I turned on the 31band equaliser, and then realised, I’d just have to do a DVD mix, with music and effects lowered, so the vo and interviews can be heard for the show stand. And tonight I’ll see if the avchd has played nice on the blu Ray left encoding while ive been at work.

Normally the avchd cameras are hdmi to Atomos ninjas but I needed all 6 for the 6 crew I was using on the shoot.
Thought (or rather forgotten) avchd to card would not be problematic. Never again!

[Chris Simpson]

Atomos Ninja, with 2 large NPF batteries attached will run for 25hrs, already tested it. 750gb spinning drive will give 18hrs of Pro Res LT. If it’s not covert, you can leave the camera plugged in on charge, on standby just disable autoshutdown, make sure you disable shop display mode. If SD is good enough I know a 500GB drive is good for 37.5 hours.

Alternatively for small and battery powered. Buy the Contour+, run out the HDMI to the Atomos box. Power with a USB Li Ion battery charger pack like what you can get for charging iPhones on the go. I’ve developed a 3 cell Li ion torch battery power pack to power ContourGPS pov cameras for 12hrs in endurance race cars recording to card.

When SSD’s become cheap enough and big enough, I’ll mount a ninja in an endurance race car, hooked up by hdmi to external usb battery powered contour+.

As for cameras, as i say whatever you like and can afford with HDMI, or SDi when the samuari arrives.

[Chris Simpson]

My advice, for the future at least, if those cameras have HDMI, go tapeless and use the Atomos ninja, if you FCP, recording Pro Res, you can FW/USB the drives one at a time, and drop the video on to your RAID, I used to multicam HDV tapes, ordinarily 30-40 hours from 7-8cameras, real time ingest/transcode to pro Res, now the same shoot is “ingested” at full 1920×1080 422 LT in 5 hours.

The downside this just makes you more lazy, and now my 6.4Tb RAID won’t be big enough for next big project,a 24 hr endurance race, where one or two cameras around the team garage will be just left to roll the entire event, because the drives are so cheap, it’s just a question of battery power, as the only limitation.

If you haven’t got HDMI on your HDV cameras, the SDI version is due by IBC, it’s great not buying much tape, or using it and then not bothering with it as it goes on the shelf, as the drives are sound and the video is sweeter looking and stands up better to grading.

[Chris Simpson]

does it have a multicam facility anything remotely like/or as good as FCP7?

As I’m tempted….

[Chris Simpson]

… The video to https://fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/453-michael-wohl-demos-editing-and-trimming-and-functions-in-fcpx-at-the-lafcpug

Bit more entertaining.

[Chris Simpson]

If you go to the fcp.co, and scroll down the home page there are videos from lafcpug in one (cant remember which) he describes the “work around” to allow you to put a simple crossfade between audio clips.

[Chris Simpson]

What’s the multicam like in PP and AvidMC? All I can find on PP appears to max out at 4angles. Sports/performance I tend to use at least 8 and as many as 12.

Thats why I came to FCP….

[Chris Simpson]

If apple is deserting pro end of the market would they sell/licence the FCP7 platform to a third party, like the FCP 7 development team to develop for the pro Market?

Errrrr…. Of course they wouldnt! LOL!

[Chris Simpson]

Before fcp I used Premiere Pro, I’d load 3 or 4 camera streams on individual tracks and start moving forward building stairs up and down. It was slow, and laborious.

Then FCP got multiclip, I saw it, I tried, I bought a mac pro, later I went hd, as I now do 12-15 pro Res multiclips, and have a massive raid. It’s brilliant, cutting at about 10mins finished edit video per hour, almost like a live director.

Do you know it’s coming back? Officially? It’s funny one of my petrolhead sites has a thread about fcp x should i get it? You know “I’m a hobbyist X great fun etc etc I don’t know what the pros are on about? I dont have a clue about these terms, etc incl what’s eh, multicam?”

You see the point?

So I’ve explained, you’ll be Pleased to know. But your hobbyist probably doesn’t own more than 2 cameras. Doesn’t do multicam shoots, I own something like 20 if I include the go pros and contours as my hobby morphed into a motorsport event DVD biz, now heading for broadcast, but I could easily be a wedding videography or music or theatre performance multicam operation. I sync using visual or audio cues on screen/audio.

Now if fcp x is iMovie pro, and that’s apple new target audience does the serious hobbyist need multicam ?. Possibly not. Will they feel the need to put it back in, for me, just me (us)? I think they will or rather they should.

So what makes you so sure? It’s simPle all Apple have to do is officially tell us what their Plan is. The cats out of the bag on X, so put us in the picture, or put us out of our misery.

Yes!!! I’m still using FCP7. And intend to stick at 7, until these many issues are cleared up. Although i was looking at the competition to see if they have it. Not panicking, just thinking about the future. Id be a fool not to. Or is the attitude ‘just hold it different way’. Why?

But why should I need to go back to editing pre multiclip? Or remember? Why? What hapPened to ‘awesome’ multiclip/multicam?