[Joseph Hung]

Can’t you go back to that original sequence and change the settings, rerender, and maybe even output and bring it back in?

This is also assuming that you shot all of your footage at the desired settings, and the footage was also transcoded to the same settings… if all is correct, you could try copying the sequence and pasting it into a new sequence with the correct settings. If you shot the footage in the wrong settings, you’ll have to use Cinema Tools to change the framerate and start over. Or do it to the output and see if your footage is okay.

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[Joseph Hung]

I personally don’t even enjoy the FCP to Compressor workflow, I find it buggy and unreliable. I tend to output a high res master file (whatever codec you are working in at highest settings) as a quicktime self contained with compression markers turned on, then drop that into compressor, adobe media encoder, mpeg streamclip, whatever. Make sure your harddrives never go to sleep for those long transcodes.

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[Joseph Hung]

More info would be helpful too. Like how the text was made? is it scrolling or stills? And to be clear you’re downrezzing from HD to SD?

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[Joseph Hung]

Audio that is synced at the start but then slides out of sync throughout and to the end usually means you have differing audio settings. Check your Zoom H1 setting (for instance 48khz 24bit) and make sure that is the same as your sequence’s audio settings. I would also make sure the framerate of your footage is matching your sequence settings.

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[Joseph Hung]

Since this is the FCP forum and not FCPX I’m assuming you are cutting in FCP7?

Agreed with all above, MPEG Streamclip is a great app, but won’t give you logging features or TC. Use T&L or Compressor (which also batches btw). Convert to ProRes 422 (H.264 is not an editing codec and will not edit smoothly in real time = headaches). I’ve used 422 HQ before, but that’s because I have the RAID and bandwidth. For the Canon cameras, there isn’t enough info in the H.264 to warrant HQ, 422 will be just fine. Then sync audio after you choose your buys and holds. If you have the hdd space and bandwidth, I generally transcode all of it, so I can see everything in high resolution smoothly on my reference monitor. The performance and the video should be what you are looking for first, and of course audio is very important, but audio is a little easier to fix rather than bad exposure, wrong settings causing too much motion blur, out of focus, etc. If there is a glitch in the master audio, an audio engineer will have lots of tricks up his/her sleeves to hide it such as ADR or foley, etc. You also have the camera audio, which isn’t the greatest, but you can use it (with some processing of course) to fix small problems. I’ve had to do that a few times from the 5DMKII and 7D at times and it worked out fine (I still notice slight differences because I’m the filmmaker, I’m looking/listening for it, but the audience probably will not notice it at all, in most cases).

Keep it ProRes 422 settings all the way through to mastering.

So, transcode then sync audio to chosen takes. Your head will feel better.

Hope this helps.

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[Joseph Hung]

Shane is right. Also, eSATA, Firewire 800, or Thunderbolt if you have it on the iMac. Anything less would not help. A RAID enclosure would help with speed as well.

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[Joseph Hung]

Well, I don’t think Oren “fixed” his problem, more like identified what could possibly be slowing his system down.
For you, it’s not your scratch location, it sounds like something internal. Have you checked your RAM health? Disk health? Graphics card? You aren’t giving us much information, so we’re just shooting in the dark here.
In fact, you should start a new thread, as your problem is different from the OP.
Thanks,

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[Joseph Hung]

Hi Daniel,
In order to really handle Uncompressed 10bit you need a hardware based RAID controller PCI-E card, with high speed high quality cabling, such as SAS, Mini-SAS, or fiber channel, to an external RAID chassis and harddrives, preferrably in RAID 5 or 6 configuration. An internally striped software based RAID will not hack it, as it takes up alot of your CPU power, where a RAID card will take on the administration onto it’s own CPU.
With that said, you do not necessarily need to use Uncompressed 10bit, but it depends on what you are planning to do with the footage (lots of graphics, keying, compositing, etc?) and your distribution (interweb streaming, broadcast, DVD, etc?). Since the source is DigiBeta, it’s SD, and in most cases ProRes 422 will be just fine for your purposes, and on top of that, your bitrate will be low while maintaining high IQ and resolution that you could conceivably edit via a small RAID harddrive like GRAIDs via Firewire 800.
In the post department at a broadcast show I used to work on, before they switched to HD, everything was taped to DigiBeta, and we would ingest to Apple ProRes 422 HQ. Probably a little overkill, but we could afford the SAN network, fibre channel, high bitrates, and two full pro edit stations, so why not? we said. I do believe that you will be just fine with ProRes 422, or even 422 HQ if you can handle that bitrate, and save yourself some money and headaches, and avoid Uncompressed 10bit because you don’t really need to go that far. But of course, again, this depends on what you plan to do with the footage.
If you do want to build a RAID chassis I have a DIY blog I wrote for an 8TB RAID 5 for under $2K. I can email it to you if you like.
Best of luck,
Joseph

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[Joseph Hung]

You know, ethernet is still a very viable and affordable networked SAN connection. I think I read somewhere that Walter Biscardi connects his entire post house via ethernet. I could be wrong tho.

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[Joseph Hung]

Well, I’m a one person shop and I am very hesitant myself, and will not make the jump yet. There are too many factors and I want to wait and see how it all plays out. Your fears I believe are legitimate, and many professionals share it. I have not heard of any post houses adopting FCPX completely yet, only purchasing one app and playing with it, staying up on it, and seeing how it will fold into their current workflows. For the most part, post houses using FCP7 for majority of their work is sticking with that until FCPX really shows them they can “trust” Apple and FCPX. Or testing other NLEs. Walter Biscardi is a big proponent on this and has written alot about it. Time will only tell.
I do believe that Apple has shown that they want to be in the pro game. They are working on FCPX and it is getting better and eventually it will get there I think. But when that is, is the big question.
If you are under a time crunch and need a solution for upcoming work right away, either stick with FCP7 or you might need to move over to a different NLE that you are more comfortable trusting on the long run. If you have time, then waiting a little while longer to see what happens could be worth it. Not sure, it’s a tough call.
Thunderbolt isn’t tested in the situations that you are describing, so I wouldn’t trust it yet. FCPX and sharing volumes is still in the works and not ready I think. These new workflows needs real world testing.

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Mac 2.66 GHz Quad Intel Xeon
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ProAvio 8TB RAID 5 Dual Mini-SAS
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ATI Radeon X1900
RocketRAID 4322 via dual MiniSAS
Panasonic Lumix GH2, Canon 5DMKII, 7D, Panasonic HVX200A, Panasonic DVX100A