G6 50p footage glitch with FCPX

[Darren Ruddock]

Hi guys,

Something odd I noticed today, just wondered if there is an explanation or it is a glitch!

Since having my G6 I have shot everything in 1080 24p. The footage imports and plays back perfectly in FCPX.

I shot some stuff in 1080 50p today. Did my normal, copied the card over and imported into FCPX. This footage plays back extremely choppy (was shot at 100 shutter speed, before anyone suggests this reason!) I re-imported the media but this time optimised it for FCPX and this sorts the issue.

Just seems strange that 50p stuff has to be transcoded. Anyone else noticed this???

Darren

[William Hohauser]

Yes, it happens to me on one computer and not another with footage from Panasonic G cameras. Depends on the computer. Remember that AVCHD footage is very processor intensive for your computer to uncompress and playback. While 24p works fine for you, playing 50p more than doubles the amount of work your CPU has to do. Somewhere in there is a data bottleneck which displays itself with choppy playback. Optimized footage in FCPX is not compressed the same way, makes larger files (ProRes codec) but requires a lot less work from your hardware.

[Noa Put]

Yes, it happens to me on one computer and not another with footage from Panasonic G cameras

Is it only the g6 that causes issues? The g6 uses the same codec many other camera's use today so you should have the same issue on those camera's as well. Even my older I7 950 processor without any raid played and editied native avchd 28mbs 1080p 50p footage without any stutter in my NLE, so if FCPX needs to transcode when any newer generation CPU is used it should be a limitation of the NLE and not the CPU.

[Darren Ruddock]

I get your point William. However, I used to shoot with an EX1 and my Mac could easily handle the 50p 35mgb files...just seems strange. I suppose its an AVCHD thing.

For my money FCPX handles AVCHD better than Premiere, even if I do have to optimise 50p footage

[Noa Put]

Yes, but premiere does that natively while fcpx needs to transcode, if you transcode to an intermediate codec it takes the compression out of the footage so it's normal that play and edits much smoother, if it is normal however in fcpx that avchd footage plays back extremely choppy like you said it's not an "avchd" thing, it's a fcpx thing.

[Keith Rollinson]

Originally Posted by Darren Ruddock

I get your point William. However, I used to shoot with an EX1 and my Mac could easily handle the 50p 35mgb files...just seems strange. I suppose its an AVCHD thing.

FWIW the EX1 shoots 1080/25p or 1080/50i, not 50p. That "p" IS cpu intensive.

[William Hohauser]

The EX1 records in MPEG2, not H264, which is easier on the computer.

50 or 60p is very tough on computers but not all of them. A MacMini or MacBook might have problems or an older iMac. A older MacPro can get a video card upgrade which should take care of problems like this. I NEVER optimize and edit happily on my 2009 8-core MacPro all codecs from my GH3. However my MacBook Pro from 2011 will briefly choke on 50mbps files from the GH3 if (and only if) the image is very complex and full of movement (water, field of flowers in the wind, crazy hand-held). It never has a problem with 24 mbps files.