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Run FCP X on 2009 MBP? sloooowwwww

M

Magrathea

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 21, 2008
201
0
I'm wondering if anyone has figured out how to run FCP X on an older MBP without it bogging down with maxed out CPU usage and stuttering playback? I've got a 2009, 2.4Ghz MBP with 8 gigs of Ram and a 9600m Gt card / 256mb.

Stuff I've tried:
Turn off the auto render: helps a ton and I had 3 streams of 1080p 30 video playing on top of each other all with color correction on them
Just edit the Pro Res proxy: not sure how I can tell if I'm using the proxy of full ProRes422 codec when I edit.

The more I look at FCP X the more I see that it's got a huge amount of new stuff and the more I realize I have no idea how to use it. Putting the obvious omission aside (multi-cam, tape stuff) I think the problem folks are having is that it's so different and so new that the frustration comes from not know how the hell to use all the new features.
 
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Use prores files on a external FireWire 800 or esata drive.
 
Sounds like you're running native AVCHD. Even in Windows you'd need a very fast 4core system to handle 3 streams.
 
Errrr

1st: impossible to edit native Avchd, we've not got a mercury playback engine lads, FCP X has to transcode it into something.

2nd I am transcoding to Prores, proxy and regular 422.

I did try an external Esata drive connected via an expresscard adaptor and it did seem to help quite a bit but when I get he machine that I really need for this program: quad core i7 then I can kiss the esata good buy but then perhaps we'll have some more thunderbolt enclosures to choose from.
 
Putting the obvious omission aside (multi-cam, tape stuff) I think the problem folks are having is that it's so different and so new that the frustration comes from not know how the hell to use all the new features
Click to expand...

And I think a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that FCP-X has very poor documentation. It's nowhere near as refined as the manuals for FCS.

1st: impossible to edit native Avchd, we've not got a mercury playback engine lads, FCP X has to transcode it into something.
Click to expand...

From what I understand, it's possible to cut AVCHD "natively" if you turn off ProRes transcoding in the Preferences, but it HAS to transcode on export.
 
Native AVCHD

Yes you can edit native AVCHD but all machines but the latest quad core i7s will grind to a halt when you do this, hell, they can barely handle ProRes now it seems. INstalled FCP x on a newer lappy, an i7 dual core with a 330m card and 512mb of memory and it seems just as laggy as my late 2008 MBP!
 
Do you bringing in your footage via a single F/W drive? That might be the bottleneck with 3 streams.
 
Figured it out - AVCHD workflow

I wonder why I'm the only person who is running into this??? Does eveyone have a brand new 8 core MacPro or a i7 guess so ....... :) Is anyone actually using this program .... :)

Native is a no go , definitely not for anything but a 2011 MBP i7.
Make sure you are using a Fw800 or esata external drive.
Lots of memory helps I'm sure - I have 8 gigs on my old lappy
Finally - Make sure you have:

  • Final cut pro> Preferences > Playback > check--> Use proxy media
  • Final cut pro> Preferences > Import > check --> Create optimized media (this creates Prores 422) & create proxy media (this creates Prores 422 proxy that is a mere 9mbps bandwidth)
Strange, if I playback the proxy media FCP X creates in quicktime NOT in FCP x my computer uses a lot less CPU cycles than if I play it back in FCP X (media that has zero color correction etc applied to it in FCP X)
 
THX1139 said:
Because you are the only one using the program. Well, you and maybe 2 other people. :D
Click to expand...

Cheeky Bastard!

No, me and the other poor pisser who've been running FCP X have finally figured it out!

Hint> Don't use 1080p !!! and for the love of Dog use Proxy will ya. Will post an article on my blog.
 
Running it on a late 2008 Uni 15" and early 2009 Uni 17".
My first project was GoProHD clips and that was easy as pie.
About 60 clips in the event and most are maxed out in length.
Final output was only 5 min but still run great on the above.
Recent was 26 R3D clips exported from RCX using ProRes (HQ) and so far so good. I do have the video card on both systems running high and Im using a GTech mini 1TB with esata.
 
Make sure you are running your computer in 64 Bit mode. You can check that in the About this Mac - Software menu. If not, restart it and hold the 6 and the 4 button at the beginning.

Not sure if it helps in your particular case but maybe it will speed up your workflow a big :)
 
CaptainChunk said:
And I think a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that FCP-X has very poor documentation. It's nowhere near as refined as the manuals for FCS.
Click to expand...

Coming up in autumn:


http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Pro-Tra...4671/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310535945&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Pro-Tra...0228/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1310535945&sr=8-2

about organizing media in FCP X, already available:

http://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Me...0689/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1310535945&sr=8-3
 
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As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Remember if you are a pro you'll be transcoding and it'll take 2x anyway cos it has to create ProRes 422 standard and the proxy.

So my 2 hour shoot took 4+ hours just to transcode. If you add color correction to proxy it takes 5x on 1080p and but just 3.5x on an i7 machine. Using 720p took 1.5x and on an i7 should be less than real time.

In my case I shot in 1080p, god know why so if I were clever I'd change the timeline to 720p, do all my corrections etc then change it back in the end. Look there are reason no pro is doing full on edits on a 2008 laptop 4 cores and an big graphics card are a minimum and let's hope Mr Lion brings us some performance enhancements?

Guys if you just fannying about with home movies and filming your cat ignore my post but if you know what I'm talking about I hope this helps. No one edits native H.264 / Avchd not even in Premiere Pro 5.5 - you will ALWAYS transcode to do all the fancy color correction 7 layers of video etc.
 
Magrathea said:
Guys if you just fannying about with home movies and filming your cat ignore my post but if you know what I'm talking about I hope this helps. No one edits native H.264 / Avchd not even in Premiere Pro 5.5 - you will ALWAYS transcode to do all the fancy color correction 7 layers of video etc.
Click to expand...

This is exactly why I think that it is stupid that people were complaining that Premiere had native h.264 editing and FCP7 didn't. I wonder how many people actually tried to use it.

One thing you might have wanted to do to speed up your workflow is to only create Proxy files and then reconnect it to the original media after you have finished your edit.

I had some stuttering when I was using FCP X on my laptop but on my Mac Pro it was fine but I put this down to the fact that I was using a separate drive as my scratch on the Mac Pro. What drive are you using as as some people have said that maybe a bottleneck if you have 3 1080p streams on the go!
 
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