For Ex-1 Users who edit in Final Cut

[Bob Kerner]

I'm just checking/fine tuning my editing workflow to see if I am using the most efficient process for achieving good results. I recently fiddled with some presets (perhaps wrongly) and it seems that I'm needing a lot of rendering on each clip.

So, please let me know how you run your "Easy Set Up" and sequence settings.

I shoot primarily 30p, so I have my Easy Set up configured for:

HD
XDCAMEX 1080p30 VBR
Editing timebase : 29.97

and my Sequence Settings at:
1440 x 1080
Quciktime Video Settings: XDCAM EX 1080p30
Render in 8-bt YUV (not sure this is necessary)

I'm getting good results but notice that there's a lot of rendering needed even for simple text. I'm concerned I don't have this optimized or I adjusted something incorrectly. My work goes to Vimeo and DVD.

Thank you
Bob

[Olof Ekbergh]

I would use 1920 x1080 and the EX render to prores option. Unless you use standard quality.
HQ is 1920x1080 on the EX1 and EX3.

Just drop a clip in a timeline and when FCP asks if the timeline should be set to clip click yes.

Then go to timeline options and click on render tab and click popup to set render to prores (for EX only I think).

This will render excellent results and is very responsive. The faster your drives and CPU the less rendering will seem to slow you down.

I take it you are using an EX1 or EX3.

[Bob Kerner]

Do other people use the "Easy Set Up" feature or do you just drag the clips into the timeline?

I'm wondering if I'm mucking things up by using the pre-canned XDCAM-EX setup and somehow making the software deal with extra tasks.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Bob Kerner

I'm wondering if I'm mucking things up by using the pre-canned XDCAM-EX setup and somehow making the software deal with extra tasks.

The canned ones should be good to go, with text and 2 color filters appearing with no green or orange bar on single channels. Maybe a mismatch between interlace and progressive?

Check the settings of your chosen canned setup, then create a new sequence and drop a clip from your rushes in it, does FCP ask to use settings based on the clip? Then compare and contrast the settings.

I know of somebody who uses both Edius and FCP, and he swears that FCP is so slow as to be unusable. He describes a situation that I would find intolerable, but it's so far removed from my, and my colleagues, experience that I can only suppose that there's a conflict in his system. Rrogue codecs are often the culprit. I found Div-X and FCP/XDCAM-EX don't get on, and the open source codec pack with an icon like a Swiss Army Knife gives my FCS the gripes.

I cut 720p mostly, and it feels like DV even on my MBP. The only point where I feel pain is with drag-&-dropped Motion projects which render very slowly in XDCAM-EX - it's at that point where swapping to render effects in ProRes, hitting render and going to lunch seems the best option.

So if the codecs are all in order, the slow processing probably has something to do with working out the I-B-P frame sequence in what is, after all, just another LongGoP format. Just thinking out loud....

[Bob Kerner]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

I found Div-X and FCP/XDCAM-EX don't get on, and the open source codec pack with an icon like a Swiss Army Knife gives my FCS the gripes.

Brilliant! I just installed Div-X on my machines because I had to work with some AVIs from a surveillance camera. I wonder if that is causing the slow down?!