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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

CPU OverLoad in FCP 6.0.2

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office@sif309

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Hi,
we have MacPro 3.2GHz 8 core with 4GB RAM, NVIDIA 8800GT 512VRAM and software RAID stripe, Leopard 10.5.2, FCP 6.0.2, and QT 7.4.1, REDCODE plugin 1.5.0. When we play on the timeline quicktime reference files (hi-res and mediium) the CPU overloads and FCP gives us a message that frames were dropped and gives us suggestion to turn off Unlimited RT. According to RED our hardware must support 2k quicktime reference files.

Can you give us some advice what might be the problem. Playing HDV files is ok and doesn't load the CPU's at all.
 
The only comments / questions I have are:

- Your set-up is more than capable of playing back the proxies.
- Did you turn off FCP's RT feature? Did it fix it?
- What is the true data rate per second of your raided drives?
- Not completely sure on this one... but a change of graphics card to ATI X1900 XT could be part of the solution.
- Have you tried to playback a more demanding codec such as Uncompressed SD 30MB/ sec, DVCpro HD at 10bit 50MB/ sec, or Uncompressed 10bit HD 160MB/ sec? Do they playback w/o dropping frames?

Do some tests and let us know....
 
Hey Stuart, thanks a lot for your reply! Here are the answers to your questions:

= In the RT menu we selected "unlimited" and "medium" for video quality.

= The true data rate/ second for the RAID drives is 186 MB/sec.

= As for the codecs we have tried, here is what happens
- with DVC Pro HD - no problem
- with Uncompressed SD - no problem
BUT
- working with exported HDV footage, using compressor, made into Uncompressed HD 10 bit PAL, it shows dropped frames in the sequence named "Uncomp. HD 10 bit" with frame size 1920x1080. And it shows the following message:
"RT extreme HD determined these dropped frames were caused by slow disk. Please try:
- increasing speed of disk;
- decreasing the number of RT layers;
- limiting your RT bandwidth in user preferences;"

Do you have some advice?

By the way, when I open the 4k referenced material with Quicktime proxy in H or M resolution, it not only has dropped frames, but also all of the 8 CPU's go to the red (max). When I open with Quicktime player a Quicktime reference file the picture is chopped. Is this normal?:)

Thank you so much for you kind help and advice!
 
The solution lies in NOT using the proxies... Find alternatives in transcoding your media...

You Can edit in pro res and then Online the r3d with Crimson. All post houses are doing this, Proxies are not Practical... I would never log and break down a proxy file, its a reference not a real file... Thats why the CPU hits so hard, its decoding 4k on the fly. And obviously it cant handle it...
 
I playback proxies all the time using a quad MacPro and two drive built in raid. but only if I follow these directions, which I found in another post awhile back.
1. H proxies, M are fine too but they don't play any better and you have better quality.
2. Unlimited RT set on
3. Quality low
4. Frame rate full.
5. This really helps, turn off high quality scrubbing.
6. Drop first clip into timeline, accept settings, should end up being Pro Res.
7. If your using a Kona card,we use an LHe, set to 1080psf 10bit in the FCP a/v settings.
8. Set Kona control panel to 1080sf.
9. Ignore orange bar, should play back fine.
Hope this helps.
 
vsrecord said:
I playback proxies all the time using a quad MacPro and two drive built in raid. but only if I follow these directions, which I found in another post awhile back.
1. H proxies, M are fine too but they don't play any better and you have better quality.
2. Unlimited RT set on
3. Quality low
4. Frame rate full.
5. This really helps, turn off high quality scrubbing.
6. Drop first clip into timeline, accept settings, should end up being Pro Res.
7. If your using a Kona card,we use an LHe, set to 1080psf 10bit in the FCP a/v settings.
8. Set Kona control panel to 1080sf.
9. Ignore orange bar, should play back fine.
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Tiger or Leopard?
 
chrisreynolds said:
I am not sure about that. I run both Tiger and Leapord on 8 core macs with no problems at all. FCS 6.03 and Quicktime 7.4.5
Click to expand...

Proxy playback performance in FCP6?

Quadcores running Tiger will play back the H proxy just fine. Upgrade to Leopard (as we have) and it will struggle to play back the P proxy.
 
chrisreynolds said:
That is what I am talking about Cail. I have no problems with proxy playback on either system.
Click to expand...

You've got 8 cores. I have four. 8 core has never been an issue, but inexplicably quadcores running Leopard won't do it any more, whereas they used to just fine under Tiger :)
 
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