UPDATE: Can anyone make me feel better about Mac?

This updates a thread I started about a month ago.

Basically I was whining because I couldn't make my machine do right. I also couldn't get my DVDs to look right. Ken Stone correctly suggested I had a RAM issue.

I'm happy to say that I have since added 4GB more RAM for a total of 6.5GB. I even found a method of making acceptable DVDs. So thanks to all again!

Another issue that I was having, but didn't complain about in the original thread was: during playback I ocassionally get a "hiccup" that disrupts the playback. Specifically, I push the space bar to play. Then at some point the video will freeze on a frame. Sometimes the audio continues and the video catches up after about a second. Sometimes the audio stops, too. Then it picks up playback at the point it would have if it never froze. It happens randomly.

I assumed this was part of the RAM problem I had, but it still occurs. When I installed the new RAM I ran the hardware test. Everything passed. A week later I ran the hardware test again, still good.

Sometimes I have more than one program open while I'm working. But when the episode is finished and I'm ready to make the dub I close all programs, even FCP. Then I relaunch FCP. Also I take the sequence I did all the editing in (called "episode" and drop it into a new sequence (called "dub" so the app is only looking at one video track and two audio tracks.

I just record playback from the timeline because I record to three different sources simultaneously which I start manually. It's especially frustrating when it happens 28 minutes into a 29:50 dub.

Is anyone familiar with this? Any ideas?

Robert Faust
Faust Productions

Power Mac G5 10.4.9
Machine Model: PowerMac 7,3
2 CPU - 2.7 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory 6.5 GB
Bus Speed: 1.35 GHz
Scratch Drive: 1TB
FCP 5.0.4
DVD SP 4.0.3

Thanks for the update, Robert, and glad to hear it's getting better.

The hiccup may be being caused by the need to do an audio mixdown. This is not a process that mixes all your audio together on the timeline, more like a special audio render that takes pressure off the system. So, in your timeline, before you nest it, go to Render > Only > Audio Mixdown. This will do what you are trying to do when you make the nest. You can still nest to one line of video and two lines of audio if you want, but do another audio mixdown there before output.

Let us know if this helps.

I was aware of audio mixdown, but I thought (hoped) you chose that setting and it stayed, kind of like a preference. So I actually thought I was performing audio mixdown every time I chose "Render All."

I'll try to be more aware of this and let you know.

Thanks Jude!

~Rob

Audio Mixdown is not a setting or preference. It's an operation. Any time you change anything in audio -- move a clip, change its levels, add a filter, even move it up or down one track -- you'll need to do it again for optimal audio playback. It's not necessary to do it after every operation, but I make it a habit of executing an Audio Mixdown every five to eight minutes. The more often you do it, the faster each one goes through.


www.derekmok.com

I had that kind of problem a few years back and it turned out it was a hard drive going bad. Hope thats not true for you but it is something else to check on.

Good luck,

Kevin

"I make it a habit of executing an Audio Mixdown every five to eight minutes"

to what end, for heavens sake?
that;s a total waste of time.
(or if you are doing it while taking a stretch or something, then it's unnecessary)

if you need to do it for playback reasons, then there's something with your system.


the point of the Audio Mixdown is to save the system overhead of searching for all the myriad pieces of audio that are in your timeline.
by doing an audio mixdown you are writing the soundtrack to one file and one location.
(could be wrong on this,.. maybe it;s like renders with a string of files, but the idea is the same)

i would imagine that by doing mixdown after mixdown you are actually making more trouble for the system's final play-out, by creating another myriad of files scattered throughout your hard disks.

If you are having playout problems then a mixdown is advisable.
but possibly more to the point:
IF you are doing your playout directly from the timeline, then there's a good chance that your timeline is still set to the default LOW quality playback. (user prefs)
the mixdown will always be best quality,
as will a print to video,
or an export.


nick

> to what end, for heavens sake?
> that's a total waste of time.

No, it's not. You may not do it, but I do. On average I work with 16-24 tracks of audio and I need to hear it optimized. Same reason I don't use real-time playback of complicated effects even if real-time rendering is available. If I can't see what the effect really looks like, I can't make decisions. Besides, when I have a client sitting with me, I can't afford to have audio bits go mute as they do when the Mixdown isn't done. And those bits can't be predicted.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.


www.derekmok.com

i had a screening of a feature the other day direct of the timeline.
lots of tracks, and quite a few sections that needed rendering,
but then there wasn't enough time for a mixdown.

i just bumped the real time tracks up and up.
we hit 32 before there were no more render bars.

screening went fine,
and this was off my 1.5G laptop.

every now & then it pays to test the limits
maybe you have in mind some older system you were working on that couldn't cope as well?


nick

Try this-
do a Safe Boot and repair permissions on boot drive and then restart--

Doing this once a week equals smooth Happy Mac -- Jay --

> every now & then it pays to test the limits
> maybe you have in mind some older system you were working on that couldn't cope as well?

Also remember, I work more on short films and commercials. My timelines are usually 30 seconds to five minutes long. An Audio Mixdown flies right by. If you're working on documentaries or features, then of course a 45-minute timeline would take much longer to render. So the difference in work habits and formats also plays a part.

> i just bumped the real time tracks up and up.
> we hit 32 before there were no more render bars.

Yes, I am used to the older days of FCP1 and 2 when a high number of real-time mixing tracks would grind down the system. However, since an Audio Mixdown takes all of 10 seconds in my case, I'd rather put the RAM to other uses.


www.derekmok.com

Back in my G4 days I used to have the same annoying issue when playing from the timeline. Usually it happened on timelines that were 20 minutes or longer. I found if I turned of mirroring and autosave the problem went away.

It crossed my mind that auto save might be contributing to the problem, so now I'll definitely add that to my list of things to try.

I'm not familiar with mirroring so I'll have to read up on that . . .

I still find the way FCP deals with audio to be a little cumbersome, and far more taxing on the system than it should be - some good points have been made here.

Yeah, actually, on reflection, that machine running that much ram really shouldn't be struggling to maintain audio info. I' suspicious there's still something wrong. Does the mixdown help, though?

I just finished an episode each of two different shows I edit. Each a half hour. Dubbed basically back-to-back.

I turned off "auto save." I turned off "mirror on desktop." I closed all other programs. I performed a "render all audio/video." And I performed an "audio mixdown."

Thankfully I did not notice any hiccups.

Here's hoping that this has become the rule and not the exception.

Once again LAFCPUG has saved the day (and my sanity)!

p.s. Jude, I have performed two hardware tests about a week apart since I installed the extra RAM and both tests showed no issues. Do you, or anyone else, have any other thoughts about tests or maintenance or procedures that might be helpful?

one more thing worth mentioning:

"Full" quality renders.

these are represented by the olive grey render bar.
and are RT effects that FCP considers it can play back at "Full" quality without rendering

sometimes FCP is right about these,
sometimes it is wrong,
and there IS a quality hit in the way the effect is played back.
either way, there is a processor hit.

make sure you have the olive grey "full" quality effects selected as render-able
by ticking them in Sequence Menu > Render All


nick

Every fortnight I run Techtool Pro from its e-drive, running the intermediate suite of tests and then Disk Warrior 4 to be sure nothing is wrong with my system and particularly the B-tree catalogue - FCP always runs even more smoothly straight after this.