Edit one still image in PS and entire timeline needs re-rendering in FCP6

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Level 1

5 points

Edit one still image in PS and entire timeline needs re-rendering in FCP6

I've been using FCE 3.5 and FCP5 for quite some time. My projects usually have a large number of still image pct files in them. Before changingg to FCP6 (because I'm working on a 1080p project) when i would need to edit a still image that was already in my time;line, I would open it in Photoshop, make the changes, save it, and when I returned to FCP 5 or FCE3.5, only that portion of the timeline where the item appears would need to be re-rendered. But with FCP6, even if the edited image is only in aa small part of the timeline, the entire timeline is red and needs to be re-rendered. Any idea what is causing this major problem? I never change the dimensions of the file or the type. I might just adjust brightnesss ro do some in-painting, etc.

Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5 ghz and Power mac 1.8 ghz Dual, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Jun 8, 2013 5:00 PM

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Answer 1

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 9, 2013 5:59 AM in response to Fay Krause

It sounds like a mismatch between your sequence and your clips – or a codec that FCP doesn't like. By any chance is your sequence h.264?

FCP 6 and 7 can set the sequence settings automatically by dropping in that first clip. If that "decision" is manually over-ridden then the sequence will be whatever the Easy Setup was.

Hit command 0 to get your sequence settings. It would be great if you could post a screen shot.

Russ

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Answer 2

Fay Krause Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 9, 2013 7:54 AM in response to Russ H

Thanks for your comment, but I don't think there's any sort of mismatch. The sequence setting is Apple ProRes 422, and the files in question are simply .pct still images. Here's a screenshot that I just I uploaded to my brother's webspace. www.originaldo.com/screenshotfcp6.png

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Answer 3

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 9, 2013 8:27 AM in response to Fay Krause

Well, an h.264 sequence setting would have been a quick and easy answer.

How big are the resolutions of these PNGs and PCTS? Are they all RGB? (CMYK is NG.)

Russ

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Answer 4

Fay Krause Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 9, 2013 11:33 AM in response to Russ H

All are RGB and all are equal or less than 1920x1080.

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Answer 5

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 9, 2013 12:26 PM in response to Fay Krause

Faye, I'm out of ideas. (And so you know, I've run a bunch of tests this AM trying to reproduce the problems with a variety of sequences and sending to editor; but no "luck".)

As you know, still images take a lot of resources to render to video. You have a lot of them and organized them on an unusually high number of tracks. But I assume this has worked for you before in FCP 5…in any event, it seems to me that any issues FCP would have with that would show up as beachballs and/or slow responsiveness while it worked through displaying the sequence – not as red renders.

I suggest you post this in the FC Studio forum here: https://discussions.apple.com/community/professional_applications/final_cut_stud io

Studio X and a few other regular contributors stop by this forum now and then, but it gets a fraction of the FCS forum traffic. I'll be nearly as interested as you to see what the solution is.

Russ

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Answer 6

Studio X

Level 7

27,229 points

Jun 9, 2013 7:27 PM in response to Russ H

Still images are extremely resourse intensive and will chew up available RAM. When you reach the RAM limit you've set, changes to the sequence will cause the whole thing to be rerendered.

One thing you can do is to bump up the stills cache in FCP's system settings from the default of 10% of available ram up toward 50 or 75%.

This will allocate more ram toward caching the images but if you have a great deal of images, you will eventually run out of RAM and you get the need to render again.

Still, FCP is a video editor, not a stills editor. AE is a better tool for this kind of work.

Good luck,

x

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Answer 7

Fay Krause Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 9, 2013 8:12 PM in response to Studio X

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll try changing FCP system settings and see if that helps. I use FCP6 instead of AE because while I do use a lot of stills, I also use alot of video clips. I learned and used AE for a little while a few years ago and for what I do I like FCP better. Sometimes I do still create a shor segment in AE and then import it into FCP. But FCP5 has always worked fine for me in the past on similar projects as the current, other than my past projects were 720p and this is 1080p.

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