Hi guys
Finally I got the new G5 quad and trying out the FCxpress HD. I noticed that I have to render the timeline all the time.

Is there a real time card to view the video for the G5 like the one comparable to the Canopus Card that I use for the PC.


thanks a lot

FCP doesn't have hardware acceleration available so I'm sure FCE doesn't either. If you have to render all the time on something as powerful as a quad G5, you should check your sequence and capture settings to make sure they match, and you should check your real-time settings in the dropdown menu at the top left of the timeline. If you import video clips that use codecs other than Apple's QuickTime codecs, you'll have to render no matter what (e.g. if you brought in a DV AVI from a project you edited on Windows). Or it could just be that FCE has terrible real-time performance. I've only seen it once, but most things do seem to translate from FCP.

The format is 1080i50 which went well during capture. There are no avi's from my windows machine. These are all newly imported footage for testing and playing with newly installed software.

Also even the titles and transitions have to be rendered. Maybe I am just missing some options. Especially when I read somewhere that the FCxpress has the RT dynamic like the one that FCPro have.

Is there an option where the real time preview can be turn on or off.

thanks

I don't think FCE has dynamic RT. That was a new feature in FCP5, and I don't think FCE has had an update since then. It should have options for RT mode. In FCP, the dropdown menu for this is at the upper left corner of the timeline. It's a rounded button that says RT.

I think you should check that your sequence settings and capture settings match. That's the most common mistake that new FCP users make that forces them to render everything. FCP/FCE aren't flexible about putting clips with different resolutions and codecs in the same timeline.

Make sure that your sequence settings exactly matches the clips that you capture. Click one of the clips and then use >get info to get the details. If the sequence settings don't match then you'll have to render everything including titles because you're placing native elements over a rendered layer.

I normally just have RT set to unlimited. Unrendered stuff gets choppy, but at least I can see what I'm doing.

FCexpress has a "RT" button on the top left. I placed it on unlimited. I found out that the scrubbing on the timeline is in real time.

Also the option P key which I think is the preview mode works well. But when I hit the play button a "not rendered" screen comes out.

Anyway thank you very much for all the response, it has been informative.