[Julian Bowman]

No, just other filters. Think I was using an Easy Looks one and a mLooks one. Magic Bullet don’t work (though they may have just started working from an ad I saw recently).

I truly believe it is just my Mac being crap, despite it not really being crap, but FCPX the software being the £200 part of a £3000 bit of software (when hardware is taking into account). At least I hope it is because I may go postal if I buy a new mac and FCPX still runs with so much lag. And believe me, though it is still very buggy and has some utterly naive/idiotic/flawed design decisions, on the whole it is a pretty decent way to edit now at 10.0.7 with some great features, and for a one man show such as myself is a good contained editing eco-system with plugins, Motion etc., it is just totally mickey mouse on my MacPro for working on proper video projects, whereas FCP7 and CS6 both worked without any lag whatsoever… and this is truly a tad frustrating.

[Julian Bowman]

I am running two films and splitting each into 5 parts which run from 2 minutes to 10 on average with one at about 18 mins.

As for cuts, a fair amount, but what I consider normal from 10 years of doing this. I use CC and looks filters. I have transitions and some PinP. I hav some text overlaid here and there too.

Background rendering is off and waveforms are on as I use them as a guide quite a lot in terms of trimming dialogue clips etc.

Playback is ok, when it gets going, but it is the general lagfest that is driving me to despair. I literally click something and have to wait a second or two (sometimes a little more) to get a visual representation of what I have done. In the filters I can click the transitions tab, click the all option, type my text into the search box then about 4 or 5 seconds later the text will appear in the search box and same amount of time again for the filters to appear.

I’m figuring i need a new machine though I am loathed to spend £3k if FCPX is just laggy, but I just don’t understand how other people are not whining about this all the time, so either they are a) very accepting of lag (unlikely) b) running newer machines or c) my Mac Pro happens to just be unfortunately really shite.

I can’t bare to continue like this though, which makes me feel really fond of Apple’s insane silence about anything they are going to release as I am stuck between an iMac now just to be able to work properly or waiting an indeterminate period of time suffering with this lag in the hope the ‘awesome’ mac pro is just that, rather than a fart in a tea cup.

Ah, I do love how Apple stand behind my business like a foundation stone made by the gods.

[Julian Bowman]

Steve, as your projects get bigger do you experience the insufferable lag on your machine? I’ve reached a point in a current job where my soul sinks every time I get an amendment or tweak to do because of how frustratingly slow the project has become. I ask as you are running an older machine too, and I even maxed out my ram and got a far better graphics card and still no improvement.

[Julian Bowman]

Thing is, FCPX runs with so much lag on my 2 year old Mac Pro that the £200 bit of software has already cost me an additional £350 in ram and graphics card updates and still necessitates at least £3000 more for a new i7 iMac or, if they can ever be bothered to release one, a new Mac Pro…. Which actually makes FCPX a not very affordable or cheap software shift really.

[Julian Bowman]

Toys, prams and whining little b*****s.

[Julian Bowman]

Cheers Oliver. Will wait and see what others suggest but nice to hear some good feedback from the latest macs.

I cancelled my cloud sub with Adobe as CS6 wasn’t what I was hoping for after FCP7 and the other software of theirs I use I am happy with my paid for CS4 versions so I no longer have CS6 to compare it to I’m afraid. I do know FCP7 doesn’t act like this on the same machine with the same type of rushes and I have done very large projects in a single timeline with no real treacle effect at all, but not sure if that is a valid comparison in this issue.

Many thanks again for posting and I will wait and see what others come back with.

[Julian Bowman]

Cheers oliver. Figured that may be the case. Is it better with the i7? Do you know? If not, does anyone else know?

I encode using QT7 to ProRes 422 then drop the folders into my event as keyword collections. I turn off background rendering. I actually use the waveforms whilst I edit. I turn thumbnail images on my clips and use the waveform option and I find them useful a lot of the time so am not really willing to turn those off. Although this may not be what you mean by waveform cache.

My timeline is 720p50 (I think that[‘s the correct term for it… basically 1240×720 at 50fps).

Basically it is exhausting having to edit through treacle. I’m not sure I can suffer it over years so I am hoping that because my machine is old I am suffering. It is hard to believe a bit of software like this can’t be run optimally on some machine, even if mine is too old and wasn’t even top end at the time of purchase.

[Julian Bowman]

32 gigs as it goes.

In the end I managed to create a new sequence, copy the bit that was freaking it out and delete the transition causing the issue. The issue (I believe) was a transition which moved the images off/on screen along the horizontal. I have used it elsewhere but by mistake I placed three on three stacked clips instead of three of a lights transition and it freaked the hell out of FCPX. Doing this is 7 never did so i’m guessing still a tad more work to do on FCPX.

Lost about 6 hours trying to get to the point of being able to continue, which was frustrating as hell. Everytime I would open up the timeline it would be fine until i did something such as trying to delete the transitions when it would suck up all the ram and bring the mac to a halt.

Anyway, done now.

Cheers for the help posters above though.

[Julian Bowman]

Yes it was frustrating me too 🙂

And if by Join through edit you mean when you make a cut then you highlight the cut and hit Enter (on FCP7) and it rejoins the clip I really miss that. If you don’t then I’m not sure what you mean. I am self taught so a lot of the correct terminology passes me by and I make up my own descriptions of things… usually using words like ‘thingy’ ‘that’ ‘this’ and ‘you know, the line thing’ 🙂

And yes, I am hoping that lots of little things that seem glaringly obvious but are missing will be added over the next update or two. Personally I would rather they spent a chunk of time making things bug free (undo returning my playhead – or ‘you know that line thingy’ – to the start of my timeline every time i do an undo edit is quite annoying) and adding little quality of life improvements or putting in the little things that are missing, such as your suggestion at the end of your post, or my current bugbears – +/-3 db shortcuts, forward jump 1 sec not 10 frames (and nope the + then tap in time is not the same or as easy to use, I have tried it) and connecting clips to non primary track clips… though I see loads of other good suggestions in other threads.

I hope they don’t spend all their time and resources trying to add additional ‘features’ so the marketing department can wet another pair of knickers.

[Julian Bowman]

Yes but one piece of music started way to the right of the primary clip I would it connected to so that’s doesn’t help.

Upon retreading this thread I see how audio can overlap in secondaries so as a workaround that or connected offers something, but truth be told until they allow us to connect clips to clips it will be work arounds and a shirt coming. Sometimes having every clip connected to the primary track is a right pain and a hindrance,