[Nick Meyers]

another, less expensive approach would be to media manage your footage down to a smaller frame-size,
you’ll get a lot more data through-put.

edit with that until your are satisfied,
then re-conect to the larger files.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

most likely your sequence (and probably your footage) is interlaced.

interlaced material, when viewed on a computer screen shows with a combing effect.
basically, your computer screen is progressive, and the way it resolves interlaced footage is to show both fields, but “combed” together.

the super quick fix is to set the sequence to progressive, (set field order to none)
your titles will look better, but it’s not great for your footage.
in fact it’s about the worst way to de-iterlaace it.

a better way to go would be to take the Prores file you’ve already exported, and de-interlace it in compressor
(im assuming that Prores was your native format? maybe i’m wrong there?)

you can convert it to H264 in compressor and de-interlace it at the same time.
use the frame controls pane in compressor, it;s better than the filter, or so i believe.
personally i use the Nattress plug-in in FCP, that’s a very good de-interlace.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

render your timeline before you export.

if the render snags, that may help you find the problem clip.
or you could do some detective work beforehand:
do you have any large still images? (4000 pixels ,say)
any still images that are CMYK rather than RGB.

they ned to be converted to more FCP friendly formats, and replaced in your timeline.

AND render your timeline
it’s always best to render your timeline before you export it.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“you guys claimed dividing media over 2 drives helped…. So I cleared footage from my media drive”

i dont understand, did you spread your media over more than one drive, or just clear some space?

Apple white paper:
“The target data rate of Apple ProRes 422 LT is approximately 102 Mbps at 1920 x 1080 and 29.97 fps”

another source:
“USB 3.0 has a maximum bandwidth rate of 640 MBps”

while that may seem like you can run 6 steams of ProresLT, i guess your real world experience shows otherwise.
maybe you’ve hit the limit of the spinning disk itself.

“Should I try running on FW via Thunderbolt instead?”
FW 800 is slower than USB3, so no.
Thunderbolt is faster than FW, but a FW drive hooked up via Thunderbolt wont get magically faster.

a Thunderbolt drive is faster than a USB3 drive,
but if you’ve hit the limit of the spinning disk that might not help

in which case if you could be bothered, you could try to put angles 1-3 ion one drive, and 4 and up on another,
but 2 dives RAIDED together (as RIAD-0) will have the speed of two rives, and appear as one.
which would be a lot simpler
you can buy drives with 2 drives inside that can be set up like this.

i jsut read this:
LaCie 6TB 2big Thunderbolt 2 Series 2-Bay RAID
“Max. Data Transfer Rates of 360 MB/s”

so maybe this wont work? this isn’t my strong point, sorry

another approach would be to media a mange your 1920×1080 down to 1280×720, or even SD
you;d get more streams that way.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“Q1: when I add more than 4 or 5 clips to the TL (overlaying due to syncing several cams), the sections that include the stereo studio mixes need audio rendering”

up your RT audio playback in your FCP user preferences
default is 8 tracks, default is crazy low.

“Q2: multiclip playback bogs down exactly like on the MBP… I assumed the issue was Processor speed, RAM and graphics cards”

drive speed comes to mind.
you might need to work off raided drives?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

” When I view the video on a computer, I see black bars on the side, due to the 4:3 aspect ratio – totally fine”

well not really,
your source was 4/3, your delivery is 4/3,
you should be cutting in a 4/3 sequence, with no black bars.

as Mark says, your sequence settings should match your clip settings,
which in your case would be DV.
if you are seeing black bars, you are either cutting in an HD sequence
or an SD sequence set to anamorphic

or are the black bars on the source footage?
i can’t really read your reference images, sorry.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

what mike is saying is that you need to re-edit the mix WAV into your new version of the film,
then make an EDL of that.

you should have done your re-edit with the mix track, and probably a picture export of the film along with the original edit on a track underneath.

you then make an EDL of the mix track.
i’ve worked with people who like an OMF of that mix track.
it’s a guide of your edit, and contains timecode that can be referenced.

“I exported a soundless video file and a OMF ”
that was a mistake, too, as the sound dept. have no audio guide,
always export your guide with audio.

i think your sound guy will still be a bit lost as to what to do.
he needs to copy and paste his original session and recreate the edits you did
the EDL or OMF will be a guide as to what sections of the old version are used where.
it would be a big help if you could sit in with him,
i did this recently with a re-conform:
i had FCP, and my edit,and was able to help by giving the appropriate time codes to the mixer.
i was the EDL, in a way.
the OMF of my re-cut mix tack was a useful guide.

i think the old session was moved down to the 2 hour mark,
then copy/pasted back to a 1 hour start where the new pic& sound guide and OMFs were.
(or something along those lines)

Michael may have more useful tips

there are ways to automate the process,
EdiTrace was a web app that did it affordably, i see it’e now EditLoad
https://www.soundsinsync.com/editrace-website-replaced-by-ediload

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“not sure what you mean by monitoring?”

at the lower left of your timeline is a small speaker icon, press it and you get more audio controls,
such as solo and mute.
these controls affect what you hear, but not what gets written into an export.

“I’m exporting to H264…”
maybe try a simple export as QuickTime Movie first.
if that’s ok, convert to h264

is the the correct part of the sound file?
FCP’s audio renders can sometimes get mixed up and render the wrong portion of the file.
solution is to use the Tools Menu > render manager to delete audio renders for that sequence,
and re-render

nick

[Nick Meyers]

weird, and really hard to guess at a solution.

a stab in the dark:
is the new file an MP3 or AAC?
FCP preferes AIFF or WAV

are the original files formats that FCP likes,
no nasty H264?

are you monitoring properly?
no tracks muted?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“the Delete key is not working anymore (only in FCP),”

i suggest you trash your FCP preferences.

nick