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FCP 10.1 slow timeline and editing - Any suggestions to improve speed?

Recently updated to OS X 10.9.1 and FCP 10.1. Now experiencing very slow editing and movement in timeline. FCP is responding some 2 to 5 seconds after providing an editing command. The slowest response is to scrolling in the timeline - 2 finger scroll does not respond for up to 10 seconds after doing it.


Render times are fine and similar to previous FCP X versions.


Never had this problem in previous versions of FCP X.


So far I have done the following things based on forums and a call to apple support(?).


Deleted all plug ins.

Started from scratch a project that I was half way through and imported all clips from scratch to a new Library (external Hard Drive).

Deleted FCP and reinstalled including deleting all preferences.


Timeline is quick in the early stages of the project but gets slower as I progress - about 3 minutes into my project now (approx 200 clips) and editing time is becoming impossible.


Am using Mac Book Pro with 2.5 GhzIntel Core i7, 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3, Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB.


Anyone able to assist with further suggestions?


Thanks

Final Cut Pro X, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jan 5, 2014 2:26 AM

Reply
6 replies

Jan 6, 2014 12:53 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Hi Ian and Russ


THanks for your interest.


Hard drive is 500GB of which I have used approx 300. I am using an external hard drive for this project.. Footage is from Canon 7D/70D which is H.264 which is the same as other successful projects.


Yes I do have a number of photos (18mp) that I am using as part of the project although I have used these before without impact.


I will open activity monitor and report.

Jan 6, 2014 1:35 AM in response to Russ H

Hi Ian and Russ


Thanks for your interest.


Hard drive is 500GB of which I have used approx 300GB. I am using an external hard drive for this project.Footage is from Canon 7D/70D which is H.264 which is the same as other successful projects.


Yes I do have a number of photos (say 30 @ 18mp) that I am using as part of the project although I have used these before in previous versions of FCP X without impact.


Tried activity monitor (first time I had used it).


When scrowling through time line (one of the problem activities) memory does not move much- Real memory approx 925mb, Virtual memory 6GB, shared memory 44mb, Private memory 75mb. Interstingly though when performing this task CPU usage goes > 100% and averages 130%.


Does this help with any potential diagnostics and solutions?


Thanks


Jan 7, 2014 2:53 AM in response to DJTK

For anyone experiencing this problem. I was using makers to beat match to a song _ i had approx 200 markers. I went in and deleted the markers and now FCP 10.1 is running exceptionally fast. Seems to be some sort of bug with markers. Now I am marking small sections of the song and deleting as I go.


Feeling much better about FCP 10.1 now. Hope this helps someone else with the same problem.

Feb 27, 2014 6:43 AM in response to DJTK

Thank you so much! I was experiencing the same unexplained slow down when I came across this article. I'm also editing to the beat, and have a ton of markers. The slow down was excruciating. Scrolling, scrubbing and zooming would all have at least a 2 second delay. Instead of deleting my markers, I put the music track in a compound clip and that did the trick instantly. It's a bit of a pain having to copy and paste the marked music track back into the timeline whenever I want to line things up, but it's much better than a beachball!


So this is a very real bug. Does anyone have a better technique of editing to the beat without using markers?

FCP 10.1 slow timeline and editing - Any suggestions to improve speed?

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