FCP and Premiere Laggy on MBP

[Dukey]

Hi there all

So I've been editing videos on final cut pro 7 and Premiere CS6 and the video seems to be very laggy on the timeline. I press play and it would play okay for a couple of secs then the audio and video starts to get off sync. I would then have to stop and play again to have it be normal... Footages are all 1080p HD some from Red MX other from canon 5D mkII and am using USB 2.0 and firewire cable from an external Hard drive. Is it my computer? here are my specs. Thanks in advance for help Also I haven't reformatted my computer in years (not sure if that has anything to do with it). Oh and activity monitor shows 1-4gbs of free RAM.


Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,3
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.48f2
Serial Number (system): W89283BS64C
Hardware UUID: 737FAC73-9E26-5C49-BA42-56E116FF5EEC
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

 

[Atius]

Hi there all

So I've been editing videos on final cut pro 7 and Premiere CS6 and the video seems to be very laggy on the timeline. I press play and it would play okay for a couple of secs then the audio and video starts to get off sync. I would then have to stop and play again to have it be normal... Footages are all 1080p HD some from Red MX other from canon 5D mkII and am using USB 2.0 and firewire cable from an external Hard drive. Is it my computer? here are my specs. Thanks in advance for help Also I haven't reformatted my computer in years (not sure if that has anything to do with it). Oh and activity monitor shows 1-4gbs of free RAM.

Have you tried lowering the playback quality. at least in FCP the default settings can often cause lagging, but by lowering them to ca medium, disable dynamic playback you should be able to play them smoothly.
Also, since the videos are from two different sources I would convert them both with the same codec through compressor

 

[akdj]

You aren't just importing your files 'as is' (in their native format), Are you?

Both files...the 5d2 (Plugin available at Canon.com for faster transcoding) and Red MX files...as well, check reduser for their options (I don't work with RED), and transcode BOTH to ProRes. This will greatly reduce the strain on your system. From there---should work great!!!

You can transcode in compressor if you want or directly in FCP7 with those plugins, as I mentioned. It's worth your time to track them down at canon.com. It flat FLIES for transcoding right inside of FCP.

J

 

[Dukey]

Oh I'm sorry I should have mentioned that I did change them to Apple ProRes 422. I know in premiere you can lower play rate, will look into FCP. As far as RED and Premiere, I have about 1TB work of RED footage and the Editor and I decided to use Premiere as we don't have to transcode it as it can be edited in native format (if transcoded to ProRes it would take a week :/).

RED Footage is pretty crazy, I have it on 1/16 of quality, using firewire, and it still laggy. I can manage as I'm only waiting a couple of seconds to catch up but man a few secs here and there and it adds up to a couple of minutes.

I feel like with Final Cut it's a lot faster (probably because I use footage that's apple prores). I use compressor for exports and use streamclip to convert 5D MKII footage to ProRes. Think it's the same thing not too sure. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for the advise though. Guess slow is what slow does. Maybe a new computer in near future?...

 

[arjen92]

I use premiere pro with the DSLR 1080 25p preset. It works like a charm on my macbook pro 2.4 ghz core 2 duo 8GB RAM.

I don't know about RED though.

 

[TheHound]

If you're feeding from USB2, it's definitely your drive. If you're playing from FW800, it MIGHT be your drive. Spinning drives are one of the main causes for slowdown and frame drops in an editing workflow.