Despite having 45GB of space in my 2006 MacBook Pro, my 2 minute (thus far) FCP project can not playback smoothly, which makes editing clips to music difficult as the clip change and beat may SEEM not to be in synch and it's not until I compress the unfinished project in Quicktime that I can check, and all is fine then, but I should be able to review my work smoothly as I go, so what's the problem?

Is it a RAM issue? ...A couple of years ago I had the RAM changed to the maximum my laptop could handle.

In the left side of the timeline were it says RT click on it and check dynamic, maybe it was set to low.

'Use playback settings' and 'Full quality' are the only options under RT and it was already set on the latter.

Thanks anyway Rickey, for a moment there it filled me with hope.

Until you get down to under 5GB of free space, the amount of space on your hard disk has little to nothing to do with playback performance.

Playback performance is a function of processor, memory and hard disk throughput speed wrt to the difficulty of the timeline. How many tracks of audio and video? What format video are you using? Didn't you recently upgrade from DV to HD? Your laptop is 5 years old which is ancient for that species. It's lucky to be alive.

Funny you should say that because although my Mac has served me well, I do fear that it may just die without warning one day. I had in fact planned to buy a new laptop when I got Final Cut Pro but having spent so much of my savings already I guess I lost my backbone.

If this is the only answer then maybe I should simply invest in a new laptop and use this one as a spare.

What version of FCP are you on? How much total RAM memory does it have? Most importantly, what format is the timeline (e.g. DV-NTSC, HDV, ...)

They had mac book pros already in 2006? Mine powerbook is from 2005, and it struggles with some codecs. For example pro res doesn't play back smoothly, but HDV 1080i60 does. What codec are you using for your video?

What version of FCP are you on? How much total RAM memory does it have? Most importantly, what format is the timeline (e.g. DV-NTSC, HDV, ...)

These are my full specifications:

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.2f10
Serial Number (system): W861808AVJ0
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0016CB8AE507
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled


The format of the timeline is, I think, DV-NTSC - how can I find out for sure?

The codec also, does this mean the format of video I am using?

All my footage is from the GoPro camera or the Panasonic AGHMC-152, I'll try to get more details on this. Apologies for my shameful lack of techno knowledge.

Those specs should play DV-NTSC just fine.

Isn't the Go-pro HD and the HMC-152 an AVCHD camcorder? Unless you specifically are converting it all to DV, you aren't editting in DV and that is surely the problem. AVCHD has to be converted to Prores for editing. DO some searching on how to edit AVCHD on FCP

To check what format you are editing in, click on the timeline and do command-zero to bring up the settings page. That tells the codec etc in use on the timeline.

For the future....A debugging trick is to create a new "test" user on your system and see if the problem reproduces on the test user. If it doesn't then your normal user login has some other stuff running that's interfering. I've seen Digidesign software just obliterate QuickTime playback performance. Also, search the Apple discussions for similar symptoms.

These are my full specifications:

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.2f10
Serial Number (system): W861808AVJ0
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0016CB8AE507
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled


The format of the timeline is, I think, DV-NTSC - how can I find out for sure?

The codec also, does this mean the format of video I am using?

All my footage is from the GoPro camera or the Panasonic AGHMC-152, I'll try to get more details on this. Apologies for my shameful lack of techno knowledge.

Those are both AVCHD cameras. Your computer is about half as powerful as it needs to be to handle this video codec. You need to move into one of the new i5 or i7 machines and you will be OK.

Alternatively you can convert the AVCHD to ProRes and have a much better editing experience.

AVCHD has to be converted to Prores for editing. DO some searching on how to edit AVCHD on FCP


I have to convert all my files from the Panasonic HMC-152 in Wondershare Video Converter before I can import them into FCP. The GoPro files don't need converting.

Your computer is about half as powerful as it needs to be to handle this video codec. You need to move into one of the new i5 or i7 machines and you will be OK.

Alternatively you can convert the AVCHD to ProRes and have a much better editing experience.

So would a brand new MacBook Pro still not be good enough as a full time editing tool?

To check what format you are editing in, click on the timeline and do command-zero to bring up the settings page. That tells the codec etc in use on the timeline.


General:

Frame Size: 1280 X 720

Aspect Ratio: HDTV 720p

Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square

Compressor: H.264

I have to convert all my files from the Panasonic HMC-152 in Wondershare Video Converter before I can import them into FCP. The GoPro files don't need converting.



So would a brand new MacBook Pro still not be good enough as a full time editing tool?

MacBooks are available with i5 and i7 processors.

Apple - MacBook Pro - Superfast processors, graphics, and I/O. (http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html)

As I thought, i'll stick to the plan and get a Macbook Pro with the highest specs possible. Portability is important in my situation.

You are editing in H.264 which is the problem. Convert the to files to Prores for editing. I use Clipwrap to do that.

I have to convert all my files from the Panasonic HMC-152 in Wondershare Video Converter before I can import them into FCP. The GoPro files don't need converting.
I and your jerky playback beg to differ.

My old 2.16GHZ MacBook Pro /can/ natively edit GoPro, H264, and HDV footage... but it's a painful, painful process. Where the hardware fails, the workflow has to make up. Editing multiple codecs extensively on the same timeline is simply a recipe for spinning beachballs.

Transcode all your footage (via Clipwrap, Compressor, MPEG Streamclip, or whatever) to ProRes (LT is fine for AVCHD and GoPro) and see how much smoother things go.