Large Project won't play- Help!

[Jack08]

Hello, so I am in a very unique situation and need some help.

I am editing a large project on an older version of Final Cut Pro (6). I know, I know, I should upgrade. I made sure to convert all my video files to Apple ProRes 422. Everything was going great until one day after turning off my old mac for a few days, I opened up my project and found that it could no longer play my project. Everything feels extremely laggy, and it only plays for a few seconds before dropping frames.

I don't know what changed in that time. I know I'm stressing my system somewhat with how much video I'm working with, but I was editing just fine for a long time. So I know my computer is capable of handling this much video; I think there is a setting that I must have wrong somewhere.

All my footage is stored on a 7.28TB Lacie hard drive. So is my project file and scratch disks (I hope that's all right?)
There are currently 888 gigabytes free on this external lacie drive. I don't think this is the issue because I remember this number going down to around 750 gigs free, and the project slowed down a bit but still played fine. I agree I could be wrong on this though.

My computer is an old mac (can get you the specific specs if you need it)

My footage is 23.98 fps
1920 x 1080
13.6mb/sec data rate

My sequence settings are also using prores 422 as the compressor.

For system settings, my RT setting is on safe. My video quality setting is on low.

My Final Cut project file is 11 mbs.

I have tried trashing preferences, and it now gives me a message saying "One or more frames was dropped during playback. It gives me some ideas on how to fix, like lowering compression data rate. Also in red, it tells me that RT Extreme has determined these dropped frames were caused by slow disks. I can elaborate here if needed.

Let me know what else I can share that would help. I would super appreciate any ideas on what's causing this huge change, whereas for weeks I was playing and editing with this large project just fine.

 

[AcousticAl]

It could very well be 400 and I just assumed it was 800 (which would indeed be bad).

Why would it be bad? FW800 is backward-compatible with FW400. There’s no reason not to connect a FW800 drive to a computer’s FW400 port.

Once you get through this project, it’s probably time to speak with your higher-ups about updating your system. The latest iMac models are more than enough to hack away at 4k with speed and grace as long as you incerase the RAM (max it out if you can). Thunderbolt 3 has a much higher data transfer rates, which also means getting new working drives. But if you’re doing this stuff regularly for your job, you need to have updated tools that allow you to work without hitting these legacy-OS-related issues every time something breaks down.

 

[Jack08]

Why would it be bad? FW800 is backward-compatible with FW400. There’s no reason not to connect a FW800 drive to a computer’s FW400 port.

Once you get through this project, it’s probably time to speak with your higher-ups about updating your system. The latest iMac models are more than enough to hack away at 4k with speed and grace as long as you incerase the RAM (max it out if you can). Thunderbolt 3 has a much higher data transfer rates, which also means getting new working drives. But if you’re doing this stuff regularly for your job, you need to have updated tools that allow you to work without hitting these legacy-OS-related issues every time something breaks down.

Oh I see! I didn't realize it was backwards compatible.

Anyway, thankfully I checked today and I have been editing via FW800 to FW800, drive to mac, this whole time (besides the last few weeks when I've had no proper drive). A LOT of editing in fact, and without taking proper care of the device like with storage space (lesson learned). But it's good that the new OWC drive I purchase will be FW 800, and that my mac has the FW800 port ready for it. I will take far better care of it this time.

And yes I hear you about upgrading. Currently I just want to finish my documentary project via FCP 6 tbh, but in the future I know that I'm really pushing it by not upgrading yet. I believe they'll purchase a new Mac for me in the next few months at least, but I can't say for certain yet. I am still open to transferring the project to FCP X and the new Mac, but am hoping I don't have to.

For now I am talking to my boss and asking for this OWC drive: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ME3QH7T8.0/

I think it will work well. I finally feel like I'm mostly out of the woods with all the craziness from the big data loss, but I know I still need to be smarter and more careful. Will keep you in the loop. Thanks again, Acoustic!

 

[Jack08]

Hi Acoustic, so (big surprise) I could really use your opinion again.

After a ton of work troubleshooting and getting files back after my old Lacie hard drive failed, I finally got back to where I was with trying to edit again using a new 8 TB OWC drive. Unfortunately, reconnecting has been a complete mess. I thought things would run smoother if operated with this new powerful drive, but my timeline is still quite slow and unresponsive. I often got the message "some attributes have changed" when reconnecting, and audio desyncs are common. I often get a green screen showing in my canvas after attempting to reconnect files. When I scroll over some footage, the canvas will even change colors instead of show my footage. This is me probably not knowing what I'm talking about, but it feels like some salvaged data is corrupt, and this in turn has corrupted my whole new OWC drive.

Just so you have an idea, here's an image from my timeline:

https://ibb.co/BG1z52m

My faith that I could edit the project on my old mac has never been lower than it is now. I've tried different things with multiple copies of my project file, and every one of them seems to be slow when operating from my brand new drive.

While I think it is possible to fix every single issue that's causing all my problems in FCP 6 on my old mac, I think it'd be easier if I just upgraded to a modern machine (probably an i-mac, need to research more) and started a new editing project from there. I do have a high quality .mov export of my project (the rough cut of the documentary, which still needs a fair amount of things added to it anyway). Do you think it'd be all right if I just imported this video into FCP X or something and just started editing from there? My main footage is in AVCHD MTS files which I assume I could mix in with my large .mov file. I'd imagine exporting your project twice isn't ideal for a professional independent documentary, but it's got to be better than my alternatives.

The light in the tunnel is that my company is willing to upgrade my current mac and editing software asap with practically whatever I want... I'm leaning toward an imac and just learning FCP X.

If I took this action, I'd probably return my OWC drive and get a g-tech drive like you initially once suggested.

Sorry for the wall of text!

 

[AcousticAl]

My main footage is in AVCHD MTS files which I assume I could mix in with my large .mov file.

I’m fairly certain that you didn’t get as far as you’ve gotten in this project editing from the MTS files. My certainty comes from the fact that FCP (versions 7 and earlier) cannot natively handle MTS files. When you first started the project, you most likely went through a “Log and Transfer” process that converted the files to a usable QuickTime format (ProRes?) that FCP could handle.

I suspect that the data recovery salvaged the original source files from your camera, but did not salvage the converted media. That, or you’re trying to reconnect to the MTS files instead of to the folder with all the converted media.

 

[Jack08]

I’m fairly certain that you didn’t get as far as you’ve gotten in this project editing from the MTS files. My certainty comes from the fact that FCP (versions 7 and earlier) cannot natively handle MTS files. When you first started the project, you most likely went through a “Log and Transfer” process that converted the files to a usable QuickTime format (ProRes?) that FCP could handle.

I suspect that the data recovery salvaged the original source files from your camera, but did not salvage the converted media. That, or you’re trying to reconnect to the MTS files instead of to the folder with all the converted media.

Thank you so much for your reply. What you're saying makes sense. I do remember using log and transfer to import. My workflow is steadily coming back to me, which I wish I remembered better.

After giving my whole situation a lot more thought, I realized I made a really stupid mistake when trying to reconnect. Hopefully this means my camera does indeed have the converted files in the scratch folders that I salvaged. Anyway awhile back when I was waiting on the new hard drive situation, I used another camera (which required very different non prores 422 settings) to perform other work on the side. I forgot to change all my sequence settings and the like back to 422. No wonder reconnecting has been a giant mess! Man I wish I were smarter ><

I am currently working through this now and will let you know what happens. Thank you again. I really hope this is my main issue.

 

[Jack08]

Hi Acoustic,

So I've made many more attempts to reconnect to get my old FCP 6 Project file working again. Changing my audio/video and sequence settings back to ProRes 422 has helped immensely, but a lot of issues still remain. Probably too many for me to even get into: basically my audio is still often desynced, I get file attribute mis-matches often, dropped frame warnings, and many files simply seem to refuse to reconnect. It's unfortunately still a big mess. I think it is within the realm of possibility to work through every single one of these issues and probably get things back to normal again, but at this point I don't think it's worth it to do it that way.

As I mentioned before, I think I'd be best off editing on a new 27inch imac/FCP X (or maybe Adobe Premiere Pro) using my large exported .mov rough cut file as my starting point. My company needs to upgrade our editing station anyway. There'd be no issues with reconnecting like I described above. I know editing from an already once exported .mov file would probably mean the project won't look/sound quite as good when it's exported again (am I right on this?) but do think it's my best option. It is also kind of a low budget independent documentary (though I still care about it A LOT), so it doesn't have to be "perfect." I see a lot of advantages to upgrading as well.

What do you think? I really value your opinion. Let me know if you could use more info on something; I realize it's a strange situation.

 

[AcousticAl]

I’ll be honest, as a longtime FCP user: FCP7 and earlier was great at a lot of things. Media management was not one of them. In fact, this was its greatest weakness.

Some of these issues (warnings of changed attributes, slipped audio sync) happened often when trying to reconnect media in an old project. One cause of this was restoring ProRes media from the camera files (re-transcoding). Another was changing the file names outside of FCP. But then, moving the media to another drive and trying to reconnect sometimes did this. So did sneezing wrong near the system.

Yeah, you could move up to FCPX and work from your rough cut .mov, but here’s the problem you face there: all the audio is mixed. There’s no going back on places where sound is layered.

This is never a graceful process. That’s just the reality of it. Sound that’s slightly out of sync is easy enough to nudge back into place. Clips that simply refuse to reconnect? You’re probably better off re-importing those clips and re-editing them into their spots on the timeline. It’s going to be time consuming, but personally I’d rather be able to work with everything in separate elements until I’m done than have to work from an already-mixed video file.

It’s just never a good idea to upgrade systems in the middle of a project (though this is less a software update and more moving to a completely different system.

Plus, FCPX behaves much differently and you’ll find yourself fighting with the magnetic timeline for the first few days. That, to me, is asking for more headache than its worth. Wait to move to FCPX until you are through this project.

 

[Jack08]

I’ll be honest, as a longtime FCP user: FCP7 and earlier was great at a lot of things. Media management was not one of them. In fact, this was its greatest weakness.

Some of these issues (warnings of changed attributes, slipped audio sync) happened often when trying to reconnect media in an old project. One cause of this was restoring ProRes media from the camera files (re-transcoding). Another was changing the file names outside of FCP. But then, moving the media to another drive and trying to reconnect sometimes did this. So did sneezing wrong near the system.

Yeah, you could move up to FCPX and work from your rough cut .mov, but here’s the problem you face there: all the audio is mixed. There’s no going back on places where sound is layered.

This is never a graceful process. That’s just the reality of it. Sound that’s slightly out of sync is easy enough to nudge back into place. Clips that simply refuse to reconnect? You’re probably better off re-importing those clips and re-editing them into their spots on the timeline. It’s going to be time consuming, but personally I’d rather be able to work with everything in separate elements until I’m done than have to work from an already-mixed video file.

It’s just never a good idea to upgrade systems in the middle of a project (though this is less a software update and more moving to a completely different system.

Plus, FCPX behaves much differently and you’ll find yourself fighting with the magnetic timeline for the first few days. That, to me, is asking for more headache than its worth. Wait to move to FCPX until you are through this project.

Yeah, I think in most situations, what you're advocating would be the right call. I of course would normally prefer to edit with separate elements than an already mixed video file too. But in this case due to many other factors that would take up a lot of your time reading (feel free to if you happen to have the time), I still do think that starting fresh with FCP X is the better choice in this specific case.

I of course will keep my old mac in case editing on the new one doesn't work out. But here's a list of my reasons why editing on my old FCP 6 project would be more hassle than it's worth:

-Reconnecting is seriously a giant mess. Trying to get everything back on track for my hundreds of files is just ridiculously time-consuming (I also could have done a better job with storage organization), and nudging these hundreds of files to sync up with audio would add a lot of time as well. I do agree that re-importing on the extra tough ones would make everything possible, but that also adds time.

-My new OWC editing drive has been acting kind of funny during the reconnecting process. Part of the reason is likely due to my mis-matched audio video settings, but still even when switching to the right settings during the reconnecting process, the drive doesn't feel reliable. I often need to verify and repair it with Disk Utility (it will take about an hour to "rebuild RAID slice" every so often. If I edit anew on an imac, I would use g-tech drives.

-The vast majority of my rough cut thankfully doesn't need many changes, especially the few parts where I added music. The changes the producer and I have planned are more about adding footage and sequences than drastically changing anything.

-I need to get used to new software anyway in preparation for other projects at work.

-Numerous compatibility issues with modern equipment (such as my external hard drives and AVC-HD footage) will get easier if I use the i-mac.

-My old mac is simply slow at a lot of things. Using a fast system would be advantageous, especially for this large project.

Theoretically, I still think your advice is absolutely correct. But for my specific situation, I think I'd be better off beginning fresh.

I might be a little biased since the reconnecting process has been so aggravating. So I'll sleep on it and try to keep an open mind. Can't thank you enough for your thoughtfulness and helping me so much!