MP 7,1 Should Final Cut Pro X Drop Frames?

[Theophilos]

Hello,

I'm reaching out to fellow FCP X users on the 2019 Mac Pro for their insights just to make sure nothing is wrong with my system.

I have a 16c Mac Pro with a single Vega II 32 GB and 384 GB of RAM. When using Final Cut Pro, I edit off of a Sonnet m.2 4x4 with 4 1 TB Evo Plus drives configured in Raid 0. As far as I am concerned, there is no bottleneck when it comes to hard drive, RAM, processor, or video card.

And yet, when I edit a single UHD 4K video on my Mac Pro with rendering off and "Better Quality" enabled in the Viewer, I get significant stuttering when applying a title from Pixel Film Studios. My footage is 10 bit 422 ProRes recorded by a Atomos Ninja from a GH5. It is only one stream with audio baked in.

In your experience, Is it normal for a title or effect to cause frames to drop on a machine like this?

Thanks

 

[OkiRun]

Hello,

I'm reaching out to fellow FCP X users on the 2019 Mac Pro for their insights just to make sure nothing is wrong with my system.

I have a 16c Mac Pro with a single Vega II 32 GB and 384 GB of RAM. When using Final Cut Pro, I edit off of a Sonnet m.2 4x4 with 4 1 TB Evo Plus drives configured in Raid 0. As far as I am concerned, there is no bottleneck when it comes to hard drive, RAM, processor, or video card.

And yet, when I edit a single UHD 4K video on my Mac Pro with rendering off and "Better Quality" enabled in the Viewer, I get significant stuttering when applying a title from Pixel Film Studios. My footage is 10 bit 422 ProRes recorded by a Atomos Ninja from a GH5. It is only one stream with audio baked in.

In your experience, Is it normal for a title or effect to cause frames to drop on a machine like this?

Thanks

What's the name of the specific plugin?

 

[Theophilos]

That would be been helpful, eh? It’s FCPX Pan and Dolly... basically a more powerful Ken Burns.

 

[OkiRun]

Pan and Dolly is for 3d photo editing; not video 4k editing.... as I understand it.

 

[Theophilos]

So is that too much for my system? Would it stutter on your similar system?

 

[OkiRun]

I'm sorry but I might be losing some things in translation. I am assuming that you have a movie you are editing in FCPX. Then the workflow is that you want to insert a 4k photo in-between scenes. And you want to then apply the plugin for the effect. You happy the effect only to the one 4k photo to inserted.
I stated in the past that my office experienced difficulty with several older versions of plugins from Pixel. We contacted them and they sent a free updated version.
The updated version of the plugin is ~

So I think it is the first step to make sure you have this version first. If that is the case, then I can try to mimic your workflow and see if my 7,1 has the same problem as you...
Sorry I can't help more.

 

[Theophilos]

Thanks... yes, I just purchased and downloaded this plugin a few days ago, so that is the version I’m using. The plugin comes with several titles; I’m using what seems to be the simplest one of them all... the camera movement title. All it’s doing is zooming in on a TIFF image in my 4K timeline for something like a Ken Burns effect. The Mac Pro really struggles with it for some reason.

 

[OkiRun]

Thanks... yes, I just purchased and downloaded this plugin a few days ago, so that is the version I’m using. The plugin comes with several titles; I’m using what seems to be the simplest one of them all... the camera movement title. All it’s doing is zooming in on a TIFF image in my 4K timeline for something like a Ken Burns effect. The Mac Pro really struggles with it for some reason.

OK ~
Does the dropping out happen between the transition from video to TIFF to video?
Or do the drop frames happen only during the TIFF image playback?
And can I ask why background rendering is set to off?

[edit]
Did you set your plugin to 1080p hd setting?

FCPX Photo Pan and Dolly - Documentary Camera Toolsl for FCPX

FCPX Photo Pan & Dolly is a collection of tools made for turning photos into 3D environments with parallax layers. Isolate any subject from the rest of the photo using the built-in masking tool and create depth between the layers. FCPX Photo Pan & Dolly comes with a variety of tool types. Choose...

store.pixelfilmstudios.com

Go to trouble shooting link at top and then scroll down and watch about setting FCPX to 1090p dh setting before you start your timeline.

I think a better work flow for you might be to start a new library and project. Be sure to set to 1090d hp.
Insert photo and apply plugin and set settings. Then render the clip and then insert that into your main movie timeline.
Just a thought.

 

[krakman]

Is the plugin optimised for multi core support? Or is it just trying to render the effect in realtime using a single core?

 

[Theophilos]

Thank you for the tips and suggestions. I turned off background rendering, because Pixel Film Studios has a video on the advantage of doing so. I did so also to save storage while editing. Since I don’t work with massive video files, I thought this highly specced Mac Pro could easily handle this workflow without background rendering turned on.

The suggestion to render the plugin on its own timeline and export it as a movie is very good and something I hadn’t considered.

I will also reach out to PFS and ask them if this plugin is optimized for multicore or Metal. I was under the impression that FCPX does all the heavy lifting when applying the instructions of a plugin, but maybe I was wrong.

okirun, I’m still curious how this plugin runs on your system, because we have similar specs. If you have a chance to test and report back, that would be quite helpful.

Thanks again

 

[elfamosisimoJON]

Pixel Film Studios is known for very poor written plug-in's for FCPX. Motion VFX plug-in's are way better

 

[OkiRun]

Thank you for the tips and suggestions. I turned off background rendering, because Pixel Film Studios has a video on the advantage of doing so. I did so also to save storage while editing. Since I don’t work with massive video files, I thought this highly specced Mac Pro could easily handle this workflow without background rendering turned on.

The suggestion to render the plugin on its own timeline and export it as a movie is very good and something I hadn’t considered.

I will also reach out to PFS and ask them if this plugin is optimized for multicore or Metal. I was under the impression that FCPX does all the heavy lifting when applying the instructions of a plugin, but maybe I was wrong.

okirun, I’m still curious how this plugin runs on your system, because we have similar specs. If you have a chance to test and report back, that would be quite helpful.

Thanks again

OK ~
It will be late tonight before I can get to it.
It's 8:54 am here.
A full day today ~ location hunting, drone footage of a haunted abandoned hotel, and killing a goat by a cult member.

[edit] Can you tell me the specific 'effect' within the plugin you tried to use? I want to make sure I'm matching the specific effect and not just choosing the randomness.

p.s. I am just the producer and not an editor. So I can only help and explain a little bit.

And what are these settings for you ...

 

[Theophilos]

I think I found the issue on my machine. It was an app called RightFont, a font manager. For some reason, it interfered not only with FCPX, but it also made Safari unbearably slow. Looks like it’s an issue with the font cache or Google Fonts in that app. Quitting the app brought performance to expected levels.