Neil Patience
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Spencers suggestion is a good one. In MPEG streamclip there are some presets for Apple TV which are H264 MP4. Never had an issue with quality or PC/Mac compatibility.
There is a 720 preset and I have always found these to be good quality conversions at a reasonable bit rate. Basically its pretty much the same quality as you would get from a movie downloaded from iTunes.
Hope thats helpful.best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
You may still notice some stuttering even with Firewire 800 when trying to playback 3 layers of ProRes. It will be a huge improvement over your USB drive though.
It might be worth looking at getting a raid. Depending on how much storage you need something like 2 bay CalDigit VR2 might be worth a look. They range from 2TB to 8TB in capacity and can be configured as raid 1 or raid 0.
Similar solution is a GTech G Raid, they come in same capacities and are slightly cheaper. I think the G Raid can only be configured as raid 0.
Raid 0 gives faster performance but offers no redundancy so if either drive were to fail all data would be lost.
Raid 1 gives mirrored data so if 1 drive were to fail you can simply replace it and all can be restored. However the drive performance is less than raid 0.
So it comes to speed v safe data.
Both have FW800 connections and I think the CalDigit also supports JBODEsata is another option you can buy an esata card for your MBP and use similar drives that have esata connections, that should be quicker than F800 but of course you need the express card. Its not a hugely expensive item though.
There are quite a few manufacturers of similar systems I have always found GTech to be reliable and I work at a place that uses CAL Digit drives and really like them although never owned one myself they certainly seem reliable. Hope that helps.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
I am glad the lag has stopped however you are still possibly in for trouble. FCP does not work well with H264 files. Sometimes they work but you are just as likely to get flashes on edits, playback problems, in fact just about anything can go wrong with H264.
You would be much better off transcoding your footage all to ProRes and editing with that. HDV is also not FCP’s favourite format but same applies ProRes is the way to go for much improved performance. There are loads of threads here where people try to edit H264 directly and run into issues.best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Chris
Can you tell us which codec you are using, the type of footage and the storage set-up. This might give some clues to your problem.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
What Shane suggests is certainly the way to go. If I could add just one small point if you have not used Log and Transfer before.
While it is transcoding don’t do anything else on FCP, in fact I tend to leave the computer well alone and go have a cup of tea or something as otherwise your clips will likely be truncated. Apologies if you are an old hand at Log and Transfer and knew this, if not its a bit of a gotcha.best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Amanda,
I think a lot of the problems are likely caused by the codecs that you are using. It sounds like you were trying to edit using the H264 files directly from the Canon initially and then again after the DnxHD files. If so this is going to give you all kinds of issues and errors. FCP works best with ProRes. You could use the ProRes 422 option. You can use the LT version if speed or drive space is an issue. You don’t need HQ or 4444. DnxHD is the favoured format used by Avid. FCP can edit this format however again ProRes is the way to go.
Do a little test, transcode a couple of files to ProRes and just try a quick crop and colour correction – you should find that you have no problems.
I am only suggesting a test just in case something else it at play here but I suspect all will be fine.
You can download the Canon EOS Movie Plug-in V1.4 from the 5DMkIII page of the Canon site. Look under Downloads and software. You will see it in the list.
This enables the log and transfer tool in FCP to transcode the files to ProRes. A quick word of caution if you have not used this tool before. When transcoding leave the computer alone. Go make coffee read the paper anything. As if you try to do anything else the clips tend to get truncated. Apologies if you know this but if not its a gotcha.
Hope that all makes sense and works.best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Carolyn
As far as I remember the Canon shoots 1080i HDV and is a 4:2:0 recording so using ProRes HQ is not going to give you any quality advantage over ProRes 422. It will just create larger files for no quality gain. I would use 422 or even LT if space is at a premium. You can then quite happily use the same setting for your DSLR material.
I think if you capture via firewire you can capture HDV to ProRes – this article shows you the settings for 1080p 24 so you want 1080i 25, the device control; is HDV Firewire Basic, the capture preset is HDV to ProRes (no need for HQ) Video playback setting depends if you have an I/O card or not.
Have a look at this it may help you https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/capture_hdv_prores_fw_balis.html
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
You can not just switch the sequence to NTSC and edit your PAL footage into it. You will get all kinds of motion artifacts and problems with the pictures.
Shane’s suggestion is a good one and a cheap one too. I would edit the whole sequence in PAL as normal. Once done export a QT movie of the whole film. Reimport and then apply the standards conversion to that one long clip. It will take a long render but its the cheapest easiest way without using a hardware standards convertor which would give the best result but cost a lot more.best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Jens
Generally speaking laggy video playback is often due to slow hard drives.
Putting media on the internal drive is not a good idea as they are usually 5400 RPM drives and struggle to playback video while running the OS etc. Unless you happen to have an internal SSD I would avoid this.
How is the Western Digital drive attached ? You need it to be Firewire 800 as a minimum. USB or Firewire 400 is going to choke with ProRes files. USB3 or Thunderbolt would be perfect too.best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7 -
Hi Jeff
FCP works best with AIFF files although the WAVs should be OK. MP3s are a pain and probably the source of your woes.
I would convert them to AIFF files and make sure all of the sample rates are the same.
I have had all kinds of odd things happen with MP3s – including slipping sync and render issues so certainly convert those.best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv8 Core MacPro, Kona 3, Tangent Wave, Mackie Universal Symphony 6.5 FCP7
i7 2.7 Gig MBP (non retina) 16Gigs Ram Blackmagic Monitor Mini Symphony 6.5 FCP7