[Nick Currey]

Hi,

I did find a workaround, but it won’t make you jump for joy… we swapped out all the Proxies for HD files, one by one.

The process is:
Make a copy version of the whole master timeline.
Have all the Proxy files one one drive and linked up with this timeline.
Look at the Proxy files one by one along the timeline.
Search for the Raw file it came from on the saved card files.
Batch encode that Raw file to ProResHD and name it IDENTICALLY to the Proxy file – and store on a separate drive.
Take the Proxy drive offline.
Delete all render files.
Relink all media on timeline with the ProResHD files.
Re-render.
Voila.

One reason for doing it this was that we had 1000’s of unique transitions, colour-corrections, effects and filters on most clips, so the swapping out should preserve them all. And it did, amazingly, as you are effectively fooling your project that the new footage is the old footage.

Unfortunately we had renamed our Proxies during the original offline capture process. The process we were going to use remembers which raw file the proxy is ‘of’ but if that process doesn’t work it’s not obvious how to relink the correct clips unless visually – i.e. look at the first frame of the proxy then look for the same in the raw files. This sounds mad but the renaming convention we used for the proxies included the individual card number, so the search wasn’t THAT bad.

We used MPEG Streamclip for the transcode – much faster than Compressor and it could work in the background whilst searching for the next in line. Be careful to get the exact right transcode setting for your HD files and remember to uncheck the ‘interlaced scaling’ box or all your lovely progressive footage will get interlaced. I strongly advise you do a few tests!
You get into a rhythm after a while and I found it quite pleasing and useful to review the film this closely – we found a couple of errors and even a couple of better shots. But even so it took 4 days.

Good luck!

Cheers,
Nick

Final Cut Studio 3
MAC OS X 10.6.7
MacPro4,1
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

[Nick Currey]

Hi,
I wish I could, but unfortunately I have only been given the files on a drive. I’m told that the original file and folder structure has been maintained, but I don’t know what that is so can’t check. I’ve done the Log and Transfer with 5D files in the same way and it worked fine. I’ve noticed however that all the .MOV files from the 5D have a .THM file associated with them, whatever that is. The 600D files don’t have this. Might this be the problem and if so has anyone got a solution?
Cheers,
Nick

Final Cut Studio 3
MAC OS X 10.6.7
MacPro4,1
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

[Nick Currey]

Hi Shane,

That is brilliant. I had seen your other tutorial on Tapeless Workflow but had overlooked this one. It really nails the offline/online thing perfectly which was the missing link. We are well into the project now and we’ve transcoded all to proxy and all seems to be well. I feel very reassured that the further step is not going to be a problem. Thank you!

By the way, most of our stuff was shot on the Canon EOS 5D II and that’s all fine. We have some later pickup shots done on the Canon EOS 600D, and we can’t seem to bring those in through L&T. We can transcode them through Mpeg Streamclip like most people do, but inevitably without all the benefits that L&T gives. Do you know how it’s done or if it’s even possible? My net searches on the subject have found zilch.
Thanks again.

Cheers,
Nick

Final Cut Studio 3
MAC OS X 10.6.7
MacPro4,1
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

[Nick Currey]

Hi,
Ah, my mistake. Here are the results of the AJA tests – I used read/write of an 1920×1080 8-bit file:

640GB Mac Drive:
W 99.2 MB/s
R 100.6 MB/s

1TB Internal 1:
W 90.1 MB/s
R 90.6 MB/s

1TB Internal 2:
W 92.2 MB/s
R 92.9 MB/s

1TB Internal 3:
W 85.8 MB/s
R 86.2 MB/s

1TB External via FW800 (Lacie D2 Quadra):
W 65.3 MB/s
R 72.5 MB/s

2TB External via FW800 (G Raid):
W 64.4 MB/s
R 82.2 MB/s

Cheers,
Nick

Final Cut Studio 3
MAC OS X 10.6.7
MacPro4,1
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

[Nick Currey]

Hi,
Thanks for replying David.

I’ve already done the prefs and permissions several times, but will certainly do them again.
In Energy Saver I have the ‘computer sleep’ set to never – do I need the ‘screen sleep’ set to never too? I will if so.

Regarding the AJA System Test: I think this might only be for people with AJA hardware – I have none. It says on their download page: ‘Note: the AJA System Test is provided as part of the system installation for all KONA cards and the Io HD—it is not a separate download.’ Do you know of another option?

Striping the internals is certainly possible, but not just yet! I use the 3x1TB internal drives mainly for storage and to play media from for editing, and I back up anything important on externals. I’ve always assumed this was a fair compromise as I assume internal drives should always be pretty fast. I try to keep connected externals to a minimum and never have a usb drive connected at the same time, stuff like that.
But are you saying by not striping my internals they clash against each other or something? Or if I edit media from an external via firewire, might they be slowing it down in some way? As I said I do the exact same kind of thing on my bosses older system with no problems.

Keen to learn and thanks again.
Cheers,
Nick

Final Cut Studio 3
MAC OS X 10.6.7
MacPro4,1
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

[Nick Currey]

Hi,
I got no replies after David’s good question. Even if no-one has ‘the answer’, might someone have a suggestion as to what I could try to resolve the issue?
Cheers,
Nick

Final Cut Studio 3
MAC OS X 10.6.7
MacPro4,1
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

[Nick Currey]

Hi,
Just raising this again as I’m quite up against it now and would really appreciate any thoughts!
Cheers,
Nick

[Nick Currey]

Hi,
Ah yes, that’s a good point.

My Mac drive is is:
Caviar Blue(?) 640GB
WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

I have 3 Internal media drives:
3 x Caviar Black(?) 1TB
WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B1
all Mac OS Extended

Then I use various external media drives, mostly Lacie D2 Quadra 1TB, all connected with Firewire 800.

My Mac drive is currently only half full and all internal media drives all have about 300GB free, so I don’t think it’s because everything is maxed out. The problem seems to happen if I use external or internal drives. And also, as I said before, the stuttering almost never appears immediately, it slowly starts to happen and can be temporarily fixed by a computer restart. Any ideas?

Cheers,
Nick

Final Cut Studio 3
MAC OS X 10.6.7
MacPro4,1
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

[Nick Currey]

No-one? No clues anyone?
I’m really up against it now!
Cheers,
Nick

[Nick Currey]

Hi there,
Not a silly question, but that’s all good. I am running the second one down.