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Morning lafcpug.
Been surfing your site for a while now, but today is my first posting and hope that I could get some light shed on this problem.
I am editing at home (I usually edit at someone else's studio with their computers).
I have a 21" iMAC (17 months old), running Mac OS 10.6.2 See specs below.
My current project involves editing together a large number of STORY BOARD panels with audio files (for the dialogue). In the animation world, we that a "Leica Reel" or an "Animatic".
Since I am using a much older version of FCP (yes, I know... it's a pain), I set up my project & sequence settings using the Apple Intermediate Codec, since all my files are Photo-Jpegs and that seemed to be the best result, at least initially.
Started editing, got my GREEN LINE in the sequence, so I'm happy.
But about 10 minutes into my sequence, I started to get an ORANGE LINE (and of course playback issues, too). I futzed around with my RT settings, and the best settings seem to be using UNLIMITED RT and using HALF for my Playback Frame Rate.
I've trouble shot up the yazoo, -- even tried REPAIRING DISK PERMISSIONS with my DISK UTILITY.
That didn't change anything.
I should note, however, that, even with an orange line, the sequence will still play fine, unless I have put an effect into a shot. Still I would like to get rid of that orange line, and I am worried.
I have read that FCP often has problems with too many files in a project.
I do have a lot of storyboard files... we always do with animation projects. But I've not had this problem before.
Is this related to using FCP 5?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might get my beloved GREEN LINE back in the sequence?
Should I be worried about the dreaded ORANGE LINE?
COMPUTER SPECS:
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 6 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Hi Strypes.
What's your idea of "a lot" of cache?
I've already increased the Still Cache to 45%.... how far can I go with that?
Also: I've increased my Thumbnail Cache to the following:
DISK: 8192 K (original setting)
RAM: 1500 K
How much can I increase these settings? What's your suggestion?
I've now pushed the Still Cache slider up to 100%.
I've also pushe the Thumbnail Cache RAM up to 3000k.
Exited FCP, and then relaunched.
Still that Orange Line persists. Ughhhh....
My original jpegs are anywhere from 200k up to 2 Mb.
Average size is perhaps 300-500 k.
But I do have nearly 2000 panels. Still... Final Cut should be able to handle this, yes?
Storyboard Dimensions are 1920 x 1079 (mostly), but I'm importing them into my project as 16:9
I'm using the FRAME SIZE (in Sequence Settings) as 1280 x 720, HDTV 720p (16:9)
That appears to be the best setting available to me with FCP 5.
You can try dropping render resolution to 50 or 33% and set render to 8 bit yuv, and resizing to fastest. That's what i usually do for animatics, but i keep frame rate at full and usually I use tiff or tga. You should be able to play it back roughly in realtime even with the render bars.
www.strypesinpost.com
Ya, I switched preferences, as per your suggestions, but still no changes.
Still have that orange line.
I am still able to playback & view the project, even with the orange line. It will get disrupted when it comes to a shot with an effect (wipe or dissolve, pan or zoom, etc.).
But if I render that section, then it will play fine, even with the frame rate at Full.
I guess, when I start to do screenings & make changes with the director, I'll have to render out my sequence or parts of the sequence.
I rarely use tiffs or tga's for storyboard panels. In the past, I've mostly used jpegs, and haven't had this problem before.
But if I don't have any playback or other issues that arise, I can live with the Orange Line not being green.
I'd just like to figure out what exactly is causing this problem.
Fragmented external media drive, is a very slight possibility, but I doubt it.
And there's plenty of processing power & RAM in the computer, and I don't have any other software open (except for Safari for e-mail).
So, I just don't get it......
But thank you for all your suggestions, anyways.
My guess is that there is one too many stills in your project and once the cache allocated to stills fills up, it runs on virtual memory (your hard drive), and when that happens, you get the orange bar.
www.strypesinpost.com
i've found that you need to refresh your timeline occasionally so it re-calculates it's RT use.
simplest way is to select all (Apple A)
then Un-enable, and re-anable the clips (Control B, Control B)
it could be that you are the limit of what FCP can do.
nick
The colored lines are not necessarily a bad thing. They are only estimates of how well FCP will play back the clips. Third-party filters often have orange lines by default because FCP has no knowledge of how processor-intensive they are so it assumes the worst.
My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...
What Strypes said about TIFF. RGB TIFF over JPEG anyday. Although if you're not moving the panels and they look good? Maybe no issue.
Officially, the orange render line indicates "Unlimited Realtime preview." It is often choppy.
Get FCS 3. You are hamstringing yourself badly with FCP5. Your machine should support FCP7 and Quicktime 7.6, and maybe even Studio components like Motion, depending on whether or not that model has a separate video card.
- Loren
Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Temporarily mix down audio tracks with Command-Option - R !
Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com
Jpeg is compressed and it's a lossy compression, but all compression will take some time and resources to decompress. You can choose not to compress with tiff.
Problem is in finding someone that still sells FCP 7.
www.strypesinpost.com
Thanks everyone for all your input .... so far.
Here's my "orange line" update:
Been working on my project for the past two weeks. The "issue" hasn't gone away, however, it's been workable. I've been able to edit, although, whenever I put in a shot that either has an effect (wipe, dissolve, camera move, etc.) I usually have to render the shots so that it will play through.
But otherwise, it's not really a problem.
NICK: I"m curious about this business about refreshing the timeline. I won't try this until my project is finished... just in case I screw something up. I never knew you could do that, so I'm curious to see what happens.
TIFF vs. JPEG's. Perhaps Tiffs are less or not compressed at all, but when you're working with storyboards for an animatic, it doesn't really matter all that much. The quality of the jpegs actually looks pretty good.
Regarding this whole issue, I happened to write to Andrew Balis (who's written tutorials for Ken Stone), who was kind enough to write me back, and here's what he had to say on this matter:
" Your issue is not surprising. You are over-taxing the computer (specifically FCP). Any colored bar above the timeline, including green, is not good (only the steel gray bar is ideal). It indicates that there is more processing be done than simply playing back a media file. Anything that doesn't match a sequence will get some kind of colored bar. The more challenging the sequence, the more stills, effects, mixed media, etc eventually the bar will go orange and then red. More likely in FCP 5 than FCP 7.
That is simply something you'll have to live with while editing unless you render. These colored bars in no way affect your final output. When you render, then output to QuickTime the final movie will be fine. If outputting to tape, just be sure everything is rendered first.
There really is no mystery here- FCP 5 (and 7) is a 32-bit app, and can only access a limited amount of ram. That plays a big part in performance, just as does your CPU and the speed of your hard drives.
So, don't worry. Keep working until you need to render, and make sure your renders are going to a fast drive (or RAID)."
So, according to Andrew, my computer seems to be the guilty party, here, and not necessarily the software. Funny.... I usually edit on an upright G5, but this time I'm working at home on my iMAC.
Guess I'm not going to be doing that too often in the future... if I can help it.....
[I usually edit on an upright G5]
I like that! I started editing on upright Moviolas... now I edit on an upright Mac Pro! lol.
- Loren
Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Temporarily mix down audio tracks with Command-Option - R !
Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com
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