[Kasey Gay]

Hey Craig,

I really appreciate all the effort you put into that response, but my head is a little crushed right now. I respect your knowledge base but am a little overwhelmed.

Can you help me decipher this? As much as I would like to be someday, I don’t think I’m at your level. Most of my income right now is coming from real estate videos and small projects. I’d like to be getting this stuff out quicker. I’m losing a huge amount of time just from slow responsiveness from my computer.

What I’d really like to understand is these 2 things.

1. What $500 or less purchase can I make to get better performance from my shiny new high powered Mac.
2. What are the basic do’s-and-don’t of media and library storage if I want FCPX to sing for me?
As in, can I ‘LEAVE FILES IN PLACE’ and just move the LIBRARY onto my hard disk and expect decent performance? Or do I need to move EVERYTHING into one location.

I know I’m super low level. But I’m not at a place where I need to plan for 10 years of storage and huge piles of backups. (Trust me, I’d like to be in that place, if you know anyone hiring *wink wink*). But I’m just a guy right now trying to figure out what steps to take where FCPX will stop bogging down so I can free up more of my time and have more time to learn and advance.

Thanks guys!

Omnisweeper and everything has been incredibly helpful.

[Kasey Gay]

Hey guys,

Thanks so much for the in-depth feedback and responses. I feel like you guys stand to save me months of trial and error.

Robert, not to steal anymore of your time, but I just want to make sure I’m understanding everything.

1. My knowledge up until this point said that transcoding to Pro-res was actually BETTER for color grading. I take it the people giving me this advice weren’t accounting for the fact I was shooting on Sony.

2. If buying an external recorder isn’t in my price range yet, would I possibly be getting better results by avoiding shooting SLOG and flat profile, and instead sticking with the *in camera* colors.

3A. Loren both you and Robert have encouraged me to make sure I’m editing in the same resolution and frame rate as I shot in.

The Sony a6000 only shoots 1080, but the Phantom shoots 4k, and Im’ using them both. Is there a best practice to follow in this situation? When using a slider, I like to shoot 60fps on the Sony, but I can’t get that out of the drone. Is there any way to reconcile the two, or am I asking for trouble if I don’t get both cameras running identical settings?

3B. When we say “edit in the same frame rate/resolution. We mean only the time line, right? Example, if I shot in 60 FPS with intention to slow down playback, I’ve operated under the impression that I could have my time line be 24 FPS, and then drop that 60fps clip in and have it slowed down. (Not arguing. Begging to be corrected)

Thanks so much for your time guys. Your advice is invaluable.

-Kasey

[Kasey Gay]

I have access to it, yes.
Should I be exporting master files/uncompressed and then exporting through compressor?

[Kasey Gay]

Is there a selection for data rate in FCPX?
I shoot 4k on the drone, and I was shooting like 60-100mbps in the a7.

Are there other additional setting in FCPX to sniff out?

[Kasey Gay]

Hey Steve, Thanks for the reply.

Here’s some recent stuff that’s been coming out of the cameras.

https://youtu.be/ALZdpk1f_pI
https://youtu.be/aSQWlVtV4EM

I’m trying to get some of the raw originals onto youtube for comparison. I really just need someone with a greater knowledge base to tell me where I’m breaking my footage at.

I JUST re-exported and uploaded this to youtube with these settings.
https://youtu.be/PdUHFFauRp4. (is currently uploading)

I mean, feel free to tell me I’m a monkey who just can’t get his exposure right, or is wrecking my footage in the grading process.

Just trying to figure out where my miscarriage is happening so I can start improving.

Thanks team!

[Kasey Gay]

Drone is a phantom 4 standard.
I also shoot on Sony mirrorless cameras. An a6000 and occasionally an A7S II.

I feel like I’m making mistakes somewhere that’s costing me quality. I believe I’m making the “right choices” but still end up with export mush.

I’ve never tried using Premiere before, but I didn’t know if that platform offered more precision in how it exported that might help me along.

[Kasey Gay]

Thanks for that Jeff. But could I dig a little deeper?

Is it possible to have a fluid editing experience when you get your media files on an external USB3 drive? What is the deciding factor in editing fluidity? Does only your library need to be on your internal SSD, or does the library and media files both need to be ported in and out.

Thanks!