Worth upgrading to Snow Leopard for FC?

Don Miller · August 28th, 2009, 02:36 PM

I've installed SL

-iStat doesn't work
-Apogee Maestro seems to work (audio hardware interface)
-I wonder if the new quicktime has any new codecs?
-VMware Fusion works in 32 bit mode
-I have so much confidence in the guys who code VLC that I'm just assuming it works.
-I would like to know if iDefrag works. Nothing on their website. I ain't "testing" it. It does start normally.

Greg Quinn · August 28th, 2009, 02:44 PM

Final Cut?

Don Miller · August 28th, 2009, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Quinn

Final Cut?

As an apple product, we know FCS 3 has been tested. We'll just have to see what the small problems may be, if any.
But I sure wouldn't move a main editing system to SL for at least a month. Next year would be better.
There are nice little changes in SL that I keep finding.

Mike Barber · August 28th, 2009, 06:48 PM

Just like the upgrade to FCS3, the price makes it a resounding yes. I am, however, waiting at least until 10.6.1. In chess, the pawns go first.

Pavel Tomanec · August 29th, 2009, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

Just like the upgrade to FCS3, the price makes it a resounding yes. I am, however, waiting at least until 10.6.1. In chess, the pawns go first.

I second to that. I did it with Leopard waited until 10.5.6. and am happy person. So will tactfully wait while guarding the Queen.

Floris van Eck · August 29th, 2009, 03:08 PM

I am going to wait on CS5 and and/or Final Cut Studio 64-bit (free update or paid upgrade). And not on their release, but once they go to .1. Leopard is working wonderfully for me for so long now, I really don't see why I would need to update.

As a matter of fact, I did a clean Leopard install on both my laptop and desktop system last weekend and with 10.5.8 it is running smoother than ever before.

Chuck Fadely · August 30th, 2009, 08:52 AM

I installed Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro with Final Cut 7 / FCS3 on it yesterday.

So far, the new Quicktime seems to hold a lot of promise - but only for specific workflows.

Outputting from Final Cut through 'Share' or QT Conversion is still slow as molasses. But output a 'current settings' file and it's only a few seconds. Then take that file into QTPro (it gets hidden in your Utilities folder) and compress and it's really fast. If you can live with the limited choices of output in Quicktime X, it's even faster. A file that took 20 minutes to render out to a web version before now only takes 20 seconds.

(Clarifying: this is pro res footage at these quick speeds. Just tried HDV and it's still fast to output a 'current settings' file but the compression in Quicktime from the HDV is still pretty slow.)

I haven't done much testing of different formats because I was trying to figure out if 5Dmk2 files would work natively. You can put a 5d clip on the timeline and do cuts-only editing with no rendering and it plays smoothly and will output a current settings file in only a few seconds. But if you put in a lower third or mix in some other footage, everything comes crashing down and it's endless rendering and the output is glitched. So no love there... you still need to transcode 5d footage.

WARNING: all my express card adapters are useless in Snow Leopard. A Delkin CF card reader causes a kernel panic. A firewire adapter doesn't work. And reports elsewhere say that XDCAM SxS cards cause a kernel panic as well. I'm afraid to try plugging in my eSATA drive via an express card adapter as reportedly that will crash the system as well.

Jason Lowe · August 30th, 2009, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck Fadely

So far, the new Quicktime seems to hold a lot of promise - but only for specific workflows.

Outputting from Final Cut through 'Share' or QT Conversion is still slow as molasses. But output a 'current settings' file and it's only a few seconds. Then take that file into QTPro (it gets hidden in your Utilities folder) and compress and it's really fast. If you can live with the limited choices of output in Quicktime X, it's even faster. A file that took 20 minutes to render out to a web version before now only takes 20 seconds.

.

I'm sharing a file (trimmed from an HDV master) to youtube with Quicktime X now. I've been uploading full 1920x1080 files from FCP directly to Youtube and letting them handle the compression with great results. But I have to do it from work where I have much faster upload speeds. It'll be interesting to see the results.

FCP 7 seems to about the same as it did under Leopard. Used share to make a BD on CD, and it took about the same time. iStat Pro showed that it was still only using 2GB of the available RAM (total of 4 GB installed). So I guess it really isn't 64 bit yet.

Chuck Fadely · August 30th, 2009, 10:19 AM

Clarifying: the amazingly quick renders I talked about in previous post were in Pro Res. Just tried native hdv and the current settings output is fast but the re-compression in QT still takes a while. No actual timing but it feels slightly faster than before but is not fast like using Pro Res.

update: a two-minute HDV timeline with a couple of lower thirds and a cross-dissolve on FC7 under snow leopard takes two minutes to ouput at current settings. If you then take that file and open it in Quicktime X and 'save as' HD 480p, it takes two minutes to make a 640x360 h.264 file but it changes the audio to 44khz. You have no control over the settings. If you open it in QTpro and export as 640x360 h.264 it retains the 48khz audio but takes ten minutes to export.

So far, I think workflow will be a challenge to figure out.

Chris Leffler · August 30th, 2009, 03:34 PM

So far I like SL the only thing that is annoying is the fact that my expresscard eSATA does not work.

Nick Gordon · August 31st, 2009, 05:22 AM

I'm running FCS 2 under SL and it's fine. I'd say it's a bit quicker, but I can't prove it. I erased my HDD for the install, and then reinstalled FCS and others because my system needed a serious spring clean, so any performance improvement might be down to simply clearing out the crud.

FWIW, this is on a mid-2007 2.16GHz iMac with 3GB memory.

I doubt that the SL upgrade has made any substantial improvement to my FCS experience, but I like the other changes.

Justin Benn · August 31st, 2009, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Leffler

So far I like SL the only thing that is annoying is the fact that my expresscard eSATA does not work.

For me this is a deal-breaker til fixed.

Jus.

Greg Quinn · August 31st, 2009, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Benn

For me this is a deal-breaker til fixed.

Yeah, not sure what I'd do without an e-sata connection to my external drives; this has been a known issue for a while in the pre-release versions of Snow Leopard. I've just snagged a copy of SL, but I think I'm going to wait a while for fixes to emerge before installing.

Jason Lowe · August 31st, 2009, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Leffler

So far I like SL the only thing that is annoying is the fact that my expresscard eSATA does not work.

I'm getting qmaster errors again with the "share" function. Worked once after the upgrade/clean reinstall of FCS. Now nothing.

I'm really getting tired of throwing money at Steve Jobs...

Chris Leffler · August 31st, 2009, 06:17 PM

The thing that I do not understand is I do not get any error messages. I plug in my Express Card and the logo appears in the top right hand corner of the screen. (Just like it did in 10.5.) Except when I turn on my HD nothing happens and it does not appear...

I hope they fix this problem ASAP! I really do not want to use my 500GB external drive via FireWire to do my upcoming projects. If I have to it wont be that big of a deal but it would be nice if it was fixed in the next two weeks.

August 28th, 2009, 06:48 PM	#19
Mike Barber Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Toronto ON Canada Posts: 731	Just like the upgrade to FCS3, the price makes it a resounding yes. I am, however, waiting at least until 10.6.1. In chess, the pawns go first. __________________ Mike Barber "I'm laughing to stop myself from screaming."

August 30th, 2009, 08:52 AM	#22
Chuck Fadely Major Player Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: United States Posts: 306	I installed Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro with Final Cut 7 / FCS3 on it yesterday. So far, the new Quicktime seems to hold a lot of promise - but only for specific workflows. Outputting from Final Cut through 'Share' or QT Conversion is still slow as molasses. But output a 'current settings' file and it's only a few seconds. Then take that file into QTPro (it gets hidden in your Utilities folder) and compress and it's really fast. If you can live with the limited choices of output in Quicktime X, it's even faster. A file that took 20 minutes to render out to a web version before now only takes 20 seconds. (Clarifying: this is pro res footage at these quick speeds. Just tried HDV and it's still fast to output a 'current settings' file but the compression in Quicktime from the HDV is still pretty slow.) I haven't done much testing of different formats because I was trying to figure out if 5Dmk2 files would work natively. You can put a 5d clip on the timeline and do cuts-only editing with no rendering and it plays smoothly and will output a current settings file in only a few seconds. But if you put in a lower third or mix in some other footage, everything comes crashing down and it's endless rendering and the output is glitched. So no love there... you still need to transcode 5d footage. WARNING: all my express card adapters are useless in Snow Leopard. A Delkin CF card reader causes a kernel panic. A firewire adapter doesn't work. And reports elsewhere say that XDCAM SxS cards cause a kernel panic as well. I'm afraid to try plugging in my eSATA drive via an express card adapter as reportedly that will crash the system as well. Last edited by Chuck Fadely; August 30th, 2009 at 10:16 AM. Reason: added express card warning; added hdv info

August 30th, 2009, 10:19 AM	#24
Chuck Fadely Major Player Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: United States Posts: 306	Clarifying: the amazingly quick renders I talked about in previous post were in Pro Res. Just tried native hdv and the current settings output is fast but the re-compression in QT still takes a while. No actual timing but it feels slightly faster than before but is not fast like using Pro Res. update: a two-minute HDV timeline with a couple of lower thirds and a cross-dissolve on FC7 under snow leopard takes two minutes to ouput at current settings. If you then take that file and open it in Quicktime X and 'save as' HD 480p, it takes two minutes to make a 640x360 h.264 file but it changes the audio to 44khz. You have no control over the settings. If you open it in QTpro and export as 640x360 h.264 it retains the 48khz audio but takes ten minutes to export. So far, I think workflow will be a challenge to figure out. Last edited by Chuck Fadely; August 30th, 2009 at 10:28 AM. Reason: added hdv info

August 28th, 2009, 02:36 PM	#16
Don Miller Major Player Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Chicago Posts: 706	I've installed SL -iStat doesn't work -Apogee Maestro seems to work (audio hardware interface) -I wonder if the new quicktime has any new codecs? -VMware Fusion works in 32 bit mode -I have so much confidence in the guys who code VLC that I'm just assuming it works. -I would like to know if iDefrag works. Nothing on their website. I ain't "testing" it. It does start normally.

August 28th, 2009, 02:44 PM	#17
Greg Quinn Major Player Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: San Diego, California Posts: 505	Final Cut?

August 29th, 2009, 03:08 PM	#21
Floris van Eck Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 993	I am going to wait on CS5 and and/or Final Cut Studio 64-bit (free update or paid upgrade). And not on their release, but once they go to .1. Leopard is working wonderfully for me for so long now, I really don't see why I would need to update. As a matter of fact, I did a clean Leopard install on both my laptop and desktop system last weekend and with 10.5.8 it is running smoother than ever before.

August 30th, 2009, 03:34 PM	#25
Chris Leffler Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Wescosville, PA Posts: 90	So far I like SL the only thing that is annoying is the fact that my expresscard eSATA does not work.

August 31st, 2009, 05:22 AM	#26
Nick Gordon Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Milton Keynes, UK Posts: 166	I'm running FCS 2 under SL and it's fine. I'd say it's a bit quicker, but I can't prove it. I erased my HDD for the install, and then reinstalled FCS and others because my system needed a serious spring clean, so any performance improvement might be down to simply clearing out the crud. FWIW, this is on a mid-2007 2.16GHz iMac with 3GB memory. I doubt that the SL upgrade has made any substantial improvement to my FCS experience, but I like the other changes.

August 31st, 2009, 06:17 PM	#30
Chris Leffler Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Wescosville, PA Posts: 90	The thing that I do not understand is I do not get any error messages. I plug in my Express Card and the logo appears in the top right hand corner of the screen. (Just like it did in 10.5.) Except when I turn on my HD nothing happens and it does not appear... I hope they fix this problem ASAP! I really do not want to use my 500GB external drive via FireWire to do my upcoming projects. If I have to it wont be that big of a deal but it would be nice if it was fixed in the next two weeks.