sharonfromredondo beach

Q: FCPX 4K Crashes, how to AVOID?

Please someone tell me what size of the FCPX 4K project I can have and what limitation should I look for without CRASHES?

Ever since I started my 4K editing, my computer crashed all the time. I asked FCPX support and was advised to use it until it died. So the day came. I took my dead computer to Apple Store. They replaced the logic board which cost me $595.15 only to take home with the same problem. Second time they wiped the whole hard drive out, clean installed OS and all apps, only for me to have worse crashes. The third time they did extensive hardware test but no problem was found. I suggested that they SHARE my FCPX project to master file and this time they saw the crash with their own eyes. At this point they thought that FCPX was not able to handle my project.

I will have the logic board replaced again. I am sick and tired of the crashes. This time I am willing to start a new project with smaller size. But please some one tell me what exactly the LIMITATION and SIZE my FCPX project can have WITHOUT CRASHES?

I was asked that why I want 4K videos? Because I have this beautiful 4K smart TV that I can copy my picture slide show file so far as large as over 9GB on USB drive and play back smoothly on 4K TV with stunning pictures! That is why.

PLEASE SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO WITH FCPX FOR 4K EDITING WITHOUT CRASHES?

You help will greatly be appreciated!

Final Cut Pro X, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Aug 11, 2016 7:24 AM

Close

Q: FCPX 4K Crashes, how to AVOID?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

Page 1 Next
  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 11, 2016 7:31 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach
    Level 10 (118,096 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 11, 2016 7:31 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach

    What are your complete system specs? Whether FCP can handle your 4K content depends on that.

     

    my picture slide show file


    Are these still images? What are the image resolutions and how many are you talking about? Very large stills and very many stills take a huge amount of overhead, much more than 4K video whose delivery to the system is based on drive performance not on RAM or VRAM to hold them.

  • by sharonfromredondo beach,

    sharonfromredondo beach sharonfromredondo beach Aug 11, 2016 8:46 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 11, 2016 8:46 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    Hi, Tom,

    I have iMac 27" i7 with 3TB fusion drive, 16GB 1600MHZ DDR3 system RAM, GTX780M video card with 4GB video RAM.

    Apple Support FCPX specialist told me that it was suitable for FCPX when I asked if I should upgrade my hardware.

    Also, Apple Store tech told me that the video board was intergraded to the mother board. So far there is nothing wrong with display, hard drive, nor power supply. When they replace logic board, it is like I have new computer running power.

    My 4K project is about 350GB of size. All the pictures I used were the same resolution jpg pictures I used when I edited 2 hours of HD slideshows with no problems. After all the crashes during transition rendering, I was able to finish the whole project and played back smoothly. However, when it was time to SHARE, it started to crash again even when I reduced the project size to half and tried to SHARE to HD master file. But at one time I was able to cut the project to 3 portions and SHARE to three 4K master files, saved them to USB drive as 7.1GB, 9.3GB, and 6.9GB video slideshow files and played back smoothly on my 4K smart TV with stunning pictures. I am really confused for what I can do and can not do with FCPX 4K editing.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 11, 2016 8:55 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach
    Level 10 (118,096 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 11, 2016 8:55 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach

    Hate Fusion drives for video.

     

    My 4K project is about 350GB of size.

     

    That's the library size, right, which includes the managed media?

     

    All the pictures I used were the same resolution jpg pictures I used when I edited 2 hours of HD slideshows with no problems.

     

    I don't know what that resolution is. How many images are you talking about? What resolution? A huge number of high resolution images are extremely difficult to process. I would have thought 4 GB VRAM was enough, but maybe not.

  • by sharonfromredondo beach,

    sharonfromredondo beach sharonfromredondo beach Aug 11, 2016 12:39 PM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 11, 2016 12:39 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

    What is the reason you don't like fusion drive? I thought it speeds up program running time. The picture resolution I use is about 6000X3376 each, the same resolution jpg pictures I used in all HD slideshow video editing never had any problems.

    What makes me confused is that in 4K editing, after so many crashes, it finally finished the whole project. During SHARE, some larger files got shared but some smaller files did not. It was not stable and was unpredictable.

    Now please tell me what I should do with the picture resolution I use and how large the project including pictures I can have in order to make 4K editing without crashes.

    Thanks.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 11, 2016 6:41 PM in response to sharonfromredondo beach
    Level 10 (118,096 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 11, 2016 6:41 PM in response to sharonfromredondo beach

    Because as their name says, they're part spinning drive, part solid state. For most people that's not going to make a bit of different. For video users working with really, really big files, you can get files that are bridging the two types of drive technology. This is liable to cause media corruption and then bad things ripple out of that.

     

    The stills don't have to be that big. Depending on what you're they really don't need to be much bigger than the output resolution. Again, how many images are you talking about? How long a video? If all those images had to be held in RAM, how much do you have left to run the system? There lots of other factors involved, like how long the computer's been running, what other apps may be running, how much app switching you're doing, what you're doing during output? Watch the Activity Monitor to see what's going on. If it's a long video definitely try building it in pieces. If you're going to do that you can work in separate projects, so that no one single project has a thousand images or whatever that your system is trying to handle at once.

  • by sharonfromredondo beach,

    sharonfromredondo beach sharonfromredondo beach Aug 12, 2016 8:59 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 12, 2016 8:59 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    2 hours of 4K mp4 video, that is 7200 seconds, each picture is 6 second, minus about 72 second of video, so it should be about 1188 pictures.

    When I do editing, all I run extra is iPhoto. When output, I only run FCPX.

    Is there a memory reset operation I can use to clear all temporary storage in the memory before running output?

    I was one time told to hold opt key when power on to clear out NVREM, will that help, or any better ways?

    With your calculations, would you please tell me about how long maximum 4K video I can make safely without crash?

    Of course, restart the computer, not to run any other programs, then output.

    Thank you for any of your help.

    Regards,

    Sharon

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 12, 2016 9:28 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach
    Level 10 (118,096 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 12, 2016 9:28 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach

    I honestly don't know. I've never done anything like this. I'd guess you're using more than half your VRAM just keeping that thing open. Activity Monitor might give you some idea what's happening. I think if you could get the projects down to a third or less it will help. I don't usually recommend pre-rendering before export, but in this case I'd think building render files before you export might help a lot.

  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H Aug 12, 2016 9:31 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach
    Level 7 (21,770 points)
    Quicktime
    Aug 12, 2016 9:31 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach

    Just to say that depressing the option key when starting up will give you the choice of different start-up disks – rather than clearing NVRAM.

     

    As Tom indicated, all those images require a lot of resources and even a recent iMac can have trouble. Activity Monitor can tell you whether you are running out of RAM and using your (much slower) hard drive for memory needs.

     

    There is a Terminal command (purge), but if you have run out of memory while creating the slideshow you're probably just as well off to quit the open apps and then open FCP.

     

    Russ

  • by sharonfromredondo beach,

    sharonfromredondo beach sharonfromredondo beach Aug 14, 2016 8:13 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 14, 2016 8:13 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    Hi, Tom, this is a very new experience to me: a software crash can damage hardware and kill a computer! It costs me all the frustrations, disappointments, and $595.15 to find out!

    Now that I have 4K smart TV and new full frame Sony a7rII with 4K video and 42M pixel picture, I certainly won't want to do HD editing any more. However, I have been blamed for my FCPX 4K project file size and now that I find out FCPX can not edit my slideshow for total project master file of 24GB file, which is the same file size of all my HD slideshows, plus not sure what I can do with FCPX without damage my iMac again, while my iMac is still in Apple Store, I upgraded my PC Cyberlink PowerDirector to version 14. It has been improved since three years ago I put it aside and using FCPX. PowerDirector 14 works great with 4K video so far no problem.

    Sharon

  • by sharonfromredondo beach,

    sharonfromredondo beach sharonfromredondo beach Aug 14, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Russ H
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 14, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Russ H

    Hi, Russ,

    As my reply to Tom, this is a very new experience for me: a software crash can damage hardware and kill a computer!

    I have been blamed for my 2 hour 4K FCPX project all along, the shared master file size of 24GB, which is my same size 2 hour HD FCPX slideshows with no problem.

    It is pretty sad that I see so many 2 hour 4K videos on YouTube and I can not do it using FCPX on my iMac!

    Since I don't know exactly what I can do and can not do with FCPX without damage my iMac again, I have to either make very small 4K FCPX projects (no guaranty for not crashing again), or use alternative software and machine which are proven to work such as PowerDirector 14 on my PC 2 in 1 Lenovo Voga laptop.

    SAD!

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 14, 2016 6:54 PM in response to sharonfromredondo beach
    Level 10 (118,096 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 14, 2016 6:54 PM in response to sharonfromredondo beach

    this is a very new experience for me: a software crash can damage hardware and kill a computer!

     

    Where did you hear that? That's ridiculous. Hardware can crash software, but software can't damage hardware.

     

    I don't think you have the VRAM to system over thousand high resolution still images at 4K.

     

    I suggest you use the Lenovo.

  • by sharonfromredondo beach,

    sharonfromredondo beach sharonfromredondo beach Aug 15, 2016 7:06 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 15, 2016 7:06 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    I have been using Lenovo to do 4K editing lately. With Window's wireless display adaptor, I am able to work on it using my 65" 4K TV as big monitor. So far so good. Although I miss iPhoto a lot. I have to say if FCP does not crash on me, my choice is still FCP.

  • by sharonfromredondo beach,

    sharonfromredondo beach sharonfromredondo beach Aug 16, 2016 8:41 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 16, 2016 8:41 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    Hi, Tom, while my computer is still in Apple Store for repair, according to your calculation, will it help if I have system ram upgrade from 16GB to 21 GB?

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Aug 16, 2016 8:52 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach
    Level 10 (118,096 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 16, 2016 8:52 AM in response to sharonfromredondo beach

    I might help. I don't know. I couldn't hurt.

Page 1 Next