Q: Help Please. How can I make a DVD in FCPX - when FCPX always crashes?
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Mar 18, 2012 4:44 AMby andynick,Have you tried trashing your preferences?
Unexplained faults like this can often be fixed by clearing out FCP X's preferences (for some reason, they get knotted up from time to time).
Download Digital Rebellion's Preference Manager (free, simple to use, and perfectly safe, both to download and use).
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/prefman/
With Preference Manager, you can backup the Prefs when FCP X (or any of the Apple Professional Applications) are working normally. Then when either of the applications are acting strangely, Trash the Preferences, then Restore from your backups (just a mouse-click).
If you trash the prefs and don't restore them, you will need to manually restore all your FCP X settings again, so it's a great idea to backup Preferences from time to time when FCP X is working well, then your backups are up to date.
Doesn't fix every problem, but it fixes a lot.
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You say FCP X is "so unstable". It shouldn't be.
This is my pet checklist for questions regarding FCP X performance.
FCP X 10.0.3 runs very well on my 2009 MacPro 2 x 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 16 GB RAM and ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB.
First, check that you have at least 20% free space on the Hard Drive that your System and your Media, Projects and Events are on.
Check the spec of your Mac against the system requirements:
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/specs/
Check the spec of your graphics card. If it's listed here, it's not suitable:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4664
If you are getting crashes, there is some conflict on the OS. Create a new (admin) user account on your system and use FCP X from there - if it runs a lot better, there's a conflict and a clean install would be recommended.
Keep projects to 20 mins or less. If you have a long project, work on 20 min sections then paste these into a final project for export.
Create Optimised media - most camera native files are highly compressed and need a great deal of processor power to play back - particularly if you add titles, filters or effects. ProRes 422 takes up much more hard drive space but is very lightly compressed. It edits and plays back superbly.
If you are short of drive space, use ProRes 422 Proxy (FCP X Preferences > Playback) - but remember to select High Quality when you export your movie.
Hide Audio Waveforms at all times when you don't need them (both in Browser and Storyline / Timeline). They take up a lot of processor power. (Use the switch icon at the bottom-right of your timeline to select a format without waveforms if you don't need them at the moment, then switch back when you do).
Create folders in the Project and Events libraries and put any projects you are not working on currently, in those folders. This will help a lot.
Move your Projects and Events to an external HD (make sure it's formatted OS Extended - with journaled on or off) and run from there.
The biggest single improvement I saw in performance was when I upgraded the RAM from 8 GB to 16.
Andy
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Mar 18, 2012 5:18 AMby Ronky,Hey Andy - Thank you for the reply. I have a top of the range current 17" MBP purchase this oast December with 512gb SSD, max 8gb RAM, 2.5ghz Quad Core. Not sure if I can upgrade RAM as yet? I would have purchased with 16gb RAM if it was possible at the time to upgrade that. I run on board 512gb SSD (186gb Free), an external WD 2Tb HD (albeit USB2) (740gb free) and also run a 500gb WD Passport drive (also USB2) (435gb free). All footage is currently stored on the 2Tb. I am looking at purchasing a WD 1TB Firewire 800 Passport drive to use as the storage devise when editing. Not sure if that will be a solution?
The film I was working on is pretty large in that it was two 1hour long shoots for a project that I was asked to work on. I was asked to put some pretty intros at the start and credits at the back end. So am not sure if the size of the project is causing FCPX to crash when I choose SHARE DVD. I can however successfully send to Compressor 4 without a crash. I will go onto Lynda.com (as I have an account) and start learning how to use C4 and what settings I need to apply to make a DVD that will play in most standard DVD players.
Again thank you for the reply.
