[Joe Marler]

[Joe Marler] “I have prepared the last 45 secs of a showreel I’m currently working on for a 3D animator colleague, you may download the zipped library file here”

I have downloaded the library and am studying it. I can easily reproduce the red line on 10.4.8 on Catalina 10.15.4 on an iMac Pro. I don’t see any other performance-related issues but it’s obviously an anomaly. It still happens if I copy a simplified version of the project to another library, also if I create and load an XML of that project to a new library.

If I had to make a wild guess, it might be related to the non-standard parameters of some of the CGI clips. E.g, “Shenzhen Bay Cam1” is (from FCPX standpoint) 2048×1024, 25p, ProRes 422HQ. That should nonetheless work and cause no problems.

The video header metadata states 189 megabit/sec, ProRes 422HQ , 1920×873, display aspect ratio 2.2:1.

It might be FCPX is getting confused by this clip or similar ones. I will continue studying it tomorrow.

[Joe Marler]

[Hamdani Milas] “Thanks Eric, that would be much appreciated. I have prepared the last 45 secs of a showreel I’m currently working on for a 3D animator colleague, you may download the zipped library file here. No password is required:”

I will download and test it on several different machines.

[Joe Marler]

Speaking of a huge improvement, DaVinci Resolve Studio 16.2.2.012 just added 10-bit HEVC encode acceleration on Mac platforms. This results in approximately 25x performance increase, at least on my iMac Pro.

When exporting 10-bit HEVC from Premiere 14.2.0, the dialog says “software only” but it’s much faster than FCPX. Resolve is now much faster than both of them on 10-bit HEVC encoding.

Time to encode a 17.5 sec 4k H264 timeline to 10-bit HEVC, all on 10-core Vega 64 iMac Pro running Catalina 10.15.4:

FCPX 10.4.8: Over 5 minutes
Premiere Pro 14.2.0: 34 seconds
Resolve 16.2.2.012: 12.4 seconds (was formerly slower than FCPX)

[Joe Marler]

[greg janza] “hardware acceleration for H264 rendering has been turned on. This is a huge development for those of us who export everything from rough cut to final delivery in H264. On my system, H264 renders are now 70% faster.”

I’d be interested in what H264 codec you were using, what hardware and what operating system.

I just tested the new Premiere 14.2.0 vs an older 2019 version 13.1.5 on playback smoothness and export performance to single-pass 4k H264. I could see no difference. This was a 10-core Vega 64 iMac Pro on Catalina 10.15.4. Media was UHD 4k 29.97 Sony XAVC-S which is 100 mbps 8-bit 4:2:0 H.264.

Premiere’s H264 encode performance had already been greatly improved around late 2018. At least on the iMac Pro I don’t see any further improvement with ver. 14.2.0. Playback performance at 1/4 resolution remains quite laggy, esp. response time to JKL commands. FCPX and Resolve are much more responsive on the same hardware.

However Premiere’s H264 export performance is quite good and equals or beats FCPX on the same Mac hardware. But that is not new — it was that way last year.

I think the new improvements are mainly targeted at platforms with certain versions of nVidia’s NVDEC/NVENC hardware acceleration, which is similar to Quick Sync. Supposedly Adobe says similar improvements were made to support AMD’s UVD/VCE hardware, but I don’t know if that is Windows only, or what versions of AMD and nVidia hardware are required.

The updated Premiere Pro handles ProRes RAW and is very fast on that.

[Joe Marler]

[Mathieu Ghekiere] “I hope Apple makes much more controls available in FCPX”

The limitations usually mentioned are lack of separate ISO and white balance controls in FCPX for ProRes RAW. I don’t fully understand this; maybe someone could help explain.

It is true for some RAW codecs, FCPX and other NLEs show an ISO setting. However in reality there is no adjustable ISO – that is fixed for all time during acquisition. What would be the difference between using exposure controls in FCPX vs Apple adding a separate “ISO” control? Are they not both just applying digital luminance gain to the captured data?

Besides white balance and ISO, the Sony FS5 also writes to a Shogun Inferno the camera ND setting as metadata in the RAW file. Do people also want yet another control in the NLE which “manipulates” the ND in post? I don’t see the benefit of adding NLE UI controls if they are simply providing redundant capability to the existing controls.

[Joe Marler]

I tried it using some 4k ProRes RAW test material from a Sony FS5 and Ninja Inferno. It works well and seems very fast. That is on a 10-core Vega 64 iMac Pro running Catalina 10.15.4. I tried a few basic effects and it seemed OK but this was a very cursory test. The Premiere version number is 14.2.0 (build 47).

[Joe Marler]

[Hamdani Milas] “The random red line in the render bar continues to make its random appearances. I’m still at a loss as to a fix.”

At this point we can only guess. There is no documented or “known but undocumented” red render bar.

If we assume it is related to the render system, we could examine that. Even if previously done, re-verify that that background rendering is disabled, and delete all cache files.

Inspect the location of the render folder. It should be external to the library. In Finder create a different folder on a different drive. Then use Finder CMD+I and under “sharing and permissions” grant “everyone” Read & Write access. Then press the gear icon and pick “apply to enclosed items”. After that use FCPX library inspector>Modify Settings>Cache to designate that folder. This is to ensure there’s no intermittent permissions or space issue. Make sure all drives are HFS+, not any ExFAT nor NTFS nor any on a NAS drive. A NAS is OK but not when troubleshooting an intractable problem.

Then manually render by selecting all clips in the timeline with CMD+A and render with CTRL+R. The freshly-generated render files should be placed in the new cache folder.

Examine the behavior. If it still happens, export your current project as an XML, create a new blank library, then load that project XML in that library. Render that timeline in the new library and examine the behavior. Using the XML route sometimes will filter out project corruption or anomalies.

[Joe Marler]

Make sure your hard drive is formatted HFS+ (Mac OS Extended Journaled). That is a transactional file system and sudden disconnects are less likely to cause problems than ExFAT.

Run Disk Utility Fist Aid on all drives, including the boot drive. Running it on the boot drive requires you first reboot in Recovery Mode, else the check will be advisory only, not fix anything. Also starting with Catalina the boot drive has two containers and you must run First Aid on each one separately.

Start MacOS in Recovery: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

After doing this, rebuild all Spotlight indexes on all drives: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

After that if the problem still happens, disable background rendering in FCPX preferences. Then delete all render files: Files>Delete Generated Library Files>Delete Render Files>All. Then select all clips on the timeline with CMD+A, and do a one-time render with CTRL+R.

After that completes, evaluate the performance. In general it should be very fast. If not there are a few cases where the render tracking system malfunctions, esp. if certain effects are used. It it’s still slow and no render dots are showing above the timeline, state what effects are used on that clip.

[Joe Marler]

[James Kozick] “1) Should all shooting be done in 60FPS? Or just the shots you know will be used for slo mo?
2) Should all the non slo mo shots be done in 24FPS?
3) Should the FCP timeline be set to 24FPS?
4) Will importing 60FPS and 24FPS footage into the same timeline cause a problem? If so, how to avoid it?
5) Will exporting the final video in 30FPS be a problem when working with a mix of 60FPS & 24FPS?”

The basic issue is frame rates which are not even multiples cannot be perfectly rate conformed. This is typically even more difficult for higher-to-lower conversions like 29.97 to 23.98. Today we have powerful computers which can use optical flow methods, but that doesn’t always work well and can create artifacts.

The simple solution is shoot all material at the final product frame rate or an even multiple of that. E.g, for a 29.97 project, shoot at 29.97 or 59.94 (often abbreviated as 30 or 60 fps).

For a 24 fps project all cameras should ideally shoot at 24 or 48 or 72 fps. Unfortunately only a few cameras can do this, e.g, Panasonic Varicam and S1H. But even the S1H cannot do that if recording ProRes RAW.

In general 60 fps material can be rate conformed to 30 very well for 1x motion and will give very smooth 1/2 speed slow motion. But if both use the “180 degree shutter rule”, then it’s possible the 60 fps footage may have a slightly different look due to less frame blurring. If your camera permits it might be possible to shoot 60 fps at 1/60th sec instead of the typical 1/120 sec for the 180 deg. rule.

I’m not sure how visible that is to the final viewer. Live broadcast material by ABC, ESPN and Fox are at 720p/60, whereas other networks use 1080i/30, and people usually don’t notice that when they change channels.

60 fps at 1/120th will also have poorer low light performance than 30 at 1/60, and the data volume will be higher.

A conflict is created when people want both “cinematic” 24 fps *and* smooth slow motion available on all shots. This typically leads to a mix of 24 and 60 fps, which is OK for true slow motion but if the 60 fps material is needed for 1x playback it must be rate conformed. There are various algorithms for that, but none are perfect.

To use optical flow rate conforming, put your 60 fps material in a 24 fps timeline, then select that clip, then in the FCPX video inspector, scroll to bottom and under Frame Sampling select Optical Flow. Then render that clip in the timeline and examine the playback smoothness. Try that for a variety of scene types, esp. with subjects moving laterally against complex backgrounds. Evaluate for warping and smearing artifacts if using optical flow conforming, and for uneven motion cadence if not using it.

[Joe Marler]

[Flavio Juliano] “So my idea was to either delete that file or drag and replace the MobileDevice.framework file from Time Machine into my current system. But it won’t let me do either. I get a prompt: “XPCServices” can’t be modified or deleted because it is required by MacOS.”

You might need to use Finder, do “Get Info” (CMD+I) on /Library/Apple/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Mobiledevice.framework, and set “everyone” to “read & write”, then click on the gear icon and pick “apply to enclosed items”. If that doesn’t work try it on PrivateFrameworks.

If that doesn’t work it might be caused by System Integrity Protection. There are various articles about how to disable this on older versions of MacOS, e.g: https://www.technipages.com/macos-system-integrity-protection

I have not tried this, so it’s at your own risk. Make sure you have complete backups beforehand.

In general Apple only supports the current version of MacOS and the two previous versions, so that would be Catalina, Mojave and High Sierra. You are on Sierra, so it’s unlikely this situation would ever be fixed, especially since iTunes no longer exists.

According to the OWC support chart, your 2012 MacBook Pro will support later versions of MacOS: https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility