[Dan Monro]

Have you updated to FCS3? And if so, have you updated your Kona drivers? We’re on FCS3, and until we upgraded the Kona drivers we had problems. Once we updated the drivers it was pretty solid until we upgraded the Kona drivers again to 64bit; back to lots of problems and have since reverted to 32 bit and have had better luck.

That being said, we still have issues with frame accuracy and cannot pin it down, despite fine efforts by several in-house engineers working along with Apple techs. Its an ongoing search right now.

The playback offset in your device control settings can be used to force it to frame accuracy. I have been at +1 or +2, and even a +3. Switching decks (handy to have a room full of them) will often help, but not always. We’ve even had the first slate (this is for a spot reel) go in correctly and the next 6 go in a frame or two late. Very hard to pin down.

I restart FCP as a matter of course; trashing prefs doesn’t seem to affect this particular problem. Cueing the deck up before making the edit also helps. Occasionally I lay down one spot at a time, but that gets cumbersome. Sometimes it hits right on the first time and everything is correct.

I’ll report back any solution we find, but for now, we’re still investigating.

You’re not alone,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Hey Christopher,

Does your transition begin at the cut? In other words, is the entire effect within the limits of your media? I believe it has to do with wiping to the empty tracks on either end. You may just have to add the effect each time. You could at least make it a favorite.

And (I’m still new to this thing so correct me if I’m wrong) I think it will paste to whichever tracks you have selected, unless you have no tracks selected, in which case it will go back from whence it came.

Hope that helps a little,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

The project its crashing in is 123mb. I have paired that down and restarted, but as I got up towards 100mb again, it started flaking out again. So I’m pairing down again. We’re actually trying to pin it on a corrupt sequence.

On the other note; 10 bit media. We reverted our Kona firmware to 32 bit, down from 64 bit. That helped, but not much. But now, I switch my playback mode to 8 bit and it plays back fine, with the exception of dropping frames on output. But at least its not crashing. We could Not change to 8 bit playback when the Kona firmware was at 64bit. Food for thought.

I’ll update any more interesting findings.
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Hey Andrew,

We’ve been trouble shooting the same problem with RS422HQ media; there are some issues with our X-San bandwidth, and perhaps 10 bit isn’t necessary, but for a practical solution, it boils down to this (and I’d love to get some Cow feedback on this…) FCP uses about 3 gigs of real memory – that’s it. Once you get up to about 1.6 (gigs of real memory being used) you start to see the crashes (preceeded by green flashes in the canvas). I have eliminated a lot of bin information (from a 4 month movie launch project) especially unused sequences, superceded graphics, used slates, old version of the movie, etc. etc. Got my project down to a size that only takes 1.3 gigs or so to open. Its not the size of your project that is the problem, its how much Ram you ask it to use while you’re working – hence the waveforms, thumbnails, etc. I’ve found that closing all but the sequence you’re working on, and any unneeded bins really helps. I’ve had to dramatically alter my workflow (I save EVERYTHING) but its better than crashing every time I try to make an edit.

I hear that Shane has recommended running at 75-80% on your cache settings in System settings (Shane, my friend forwarded me a post by you). I’m still getting the crashes, but at a reduced level. And following the Activity monitor may seem silly, but its kept me up and running. And remember in Avid when you saved every 3rd keystroke because you knew it was going to crash – get back in that habit. Again, better than crashing.

I was going to post a general question about this, but this’ll do: Anybody else have any suggestions or experience with FCP’s RAM limitations? Can I force it to use more of my 16 gigs? Big projects are a fact of life, but if they don’t work, they don’t. I can change…I know I can…

D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Hey Scott, don’t sweat getting lost in all of the settings. I’m an Avid guy, too. As are a lot of us. As my friend says, “the good news is that Final Cut will let you work with any footage from anywhere. The bad news is that Final Cut will let you work with any footage from anywhere.”

He also often has to say that FCP is doing exactly what I’m telling it to do. Almost every time I have a problem, its because I have a setting wrong, or a preference, or a file type. The payoff for having an editor as flexible as final cut is that we have to pay a lot more attention to detail than we did in Avid. Its been a hell of a learning curve for me, compressed into about one tenth of the time it took me to learn Avid (so far). Hang in there; its worth it.

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Ah, Bach. Good point David. Nothing like viewing SD on your beautiful HD monitor for a crappy image…

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

I’m guessing your culprit is still the settings in Compressor. Remember that Compressor presets are just starting points. “Best” quality simply means less compression than “Good” (bear with me; i don’t have it open in front of me). If you can lessen the compression and still fit it on a DVD then by all means do it. It depends on the length of your piece. Shorter means less compression to maintain DVD file sizes.

You’re dealing with two factors: size compression and frame rate conversion. Both can make your output look soft. 23.98 has no interlacing. NTSC does. Can’t be helped.

The size compression is more likely to be what you’re referring to. Again, quality has to be sacrificed when you cut the size by, what, 2/3? That doesn’t mean you can’t back off on the compression as much as possible and sharpen it up a bit.

I like Mike’s idea of doing a hi-rez size screen size conversion first – so you lose as little pixel info as possible, then do a compression for file size. You could try that in Quicktime Pro, as well. Get a nice clear 720×486 image first, then make and Mp4 out of that for your DVD.

Play with those settings, too. I’m sure you’ve got all of the time in the world and no deadlines….

Good luck,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Thanks Rafael, but if you’re talking about the gamma Correction in the filters tab, that affects the video itself. The video looks great – correct – in FCP. It’s just the letterbox black level thats too high. Its almost as if I went in and changed the color of the letterbox to a 20% grey…

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Hey Scott,

Compressor makes very good DVDs. Give us a little more info, would you? BAD VHS, like interlacing? softness? bad registration? You’re interlacing 23.98, so it’s going to look worse, no matter what. And you’re compressing it to MPEG4, so its going to look worse, no matter what. What settings did you try changing? How long is the video, can you compress a little less? Have you tried variable bit rate? Multi-pass? Maybe convert it to an uncompressed SD quicktime first….

Just some thoughts.

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6

[Dan Monro]

Hey Meg,

When you convert, try a custom setting of 23.976 instead of the 23.98 preset. Sounds minor but I had a prores 422 quicktime from an animation house that stuttered in my 23.98 sequence. Converted it in compressor using the pro res 422 preset, but changed the fame rate to “custom” 23.976 and it played smoothly. Don’t know if this will address your particular issue, but its worth a shot.

You also have the option of choosing interlace in your video settings. Don’t have any 30p here to test with, but check to make sure you’re not introducing interlace in that step.

And you should be able to tell from your timecode what the frame rate is. Check the 30p stuff in FCP to see if there is a field dominance listed. If there is, it may not be 30p.

Hope this helps, good luck.
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.5.7
GeForce 8600M GT Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Quicktime 7.6