Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

Not sure if anyone has experienced this.. on one of my recent wedding, I was showing the same day edit.. but 30 seconds into the video, the clip gets laggy very badly. Has this ever happened to anyone here?

I export reference file from my FCP using a MBP 15" 2.66GHz 4GB RAM laptop (late 2010 model). I had about 12GB space left in the HDD when we were showing it.

Reckon a RAM upgrade necessary for me? Or is it recommended to restart the MBP before showtime? Just want to avoid this happening again in our next wedding!

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

Hi Johannes,

Is the footage converted to ProRes? There isn't a need to export a reference file - use your projector as the second screen and choose it in FCP as the Cinema Desktop Preview. Anything on the timeline will output full-screen. If you have the time after you've rendered you can also mix down the audio, but its not necessary if the audio files are the same as the sequence setting.

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

I don't think more Ram would help at all. Limited hard drive space will cause issues, but 12 gigs should of been ok. You can try and cach the ram using a Ram Cleaning software before you show it or just reboot.

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

12GB is not necessarily enough space, it depends on your hard drive size. You likely need a bigger hard drive or need to start deleting junk. Over 50% to 70% full and a hard drive starts to lag.

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

its never a good idea to show a reference movie file.

I have done this once because of time constraint and I prayed so hard that it would play fine which it did. Its just not consistent since its grabbing media from other sources in your hard drive.

Try to render it to another format that is stand alone and smaller in file size. you'll feel much better showing it. We export to a apple tv format and it works great. Not as clean as a pro res codec, but on a projector, you wouldn't know the difference.

Santo

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

Thanks gents.

Admittedly I usually delete my converted movie files, but I didn't that time.. maybe the 12GB wasn't enough.

I was about to try using the display preview in FCP to show on the screen that night. But the rendered sequence failed, it keeps repeating a 2 seconds clip over and over and over despite the timeline moving normally. It's happened before and I had to restart my laptop to get it working normally again. :/

Santo's suggestion may be the safest way out. Do you export using Compressor? How long to export a 4 minutes video roughly?

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

Take that exported reference file into compressor, apply apple TV preset, and play that thru VLC. It will take roughly 9 mins for a 3 min ProRes LT video file.

I've shown all my SDE's this way. Zero issues. I used to show them via self contained full 1080 mov file, but at times it would lag during testing although never during showtime.

Apple TV is still HD (720), is a "lighter" codec so not as intensive to playback, and doesn't take long to export to.

Cheers

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

You can speed up the time required to render an output file using an Elgato Turbo.264 HD USB dongle. Using the Apple TV preset it will render out a720p H.264 MPEG4 file faster than real time.

Elgato Turbo.264 HD

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

Simply export as a self contained quicktime movie from FCP instead of a reference movie, then play the self contained file. Job Done.

How long it takes depends on how many effects you applied and how much rendering needs to be done, but then you have the same problem for reference files anyway. Just make a self contained file and you should be good to go.

12GB is not enough.....

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

Hi Johannes,

It will only do this if you plug in the projector (or any additional display) after you've opened FCP. Close FCP, open it, make sure everything is rendered and all is well. No reboot of the computer is necessary.

Its hard to believe playing off the timeline isn't the standard - its the fastest, most efficient and easiest solution. It also allows the editor to use very current material as it just needs to be added in the timeline (after conversion). Its instantly ready for presentation with no outputting to another format. If we get native h264 editing with FCP 8 conversion won't even be needed.

Re: Same Day Edit Video Lagging
 

Thanks Joel. I might give it a try, I have another SDE coming up end of this month, hope it works. And here's hoping for FCP8 with native h.264 editing!