FCPX freeze with 2 hours long clips (ProRes422HQ + 16 Audio channels)

Hi everybody. I'm having problems with long ProRes clips recorded with a blackmagic hyperdeck. When I hit play usually I have to wait 1-4 seconds before playback starts. When I try to go double speed (L key) the beachball appears and I must force quit FCP. Strange thing is that with Premiere CC everything play smooth (also with the old FCP7).
Any suggestions? It's frustrating to see such a good software having problems with basic tasks...

NO solutions, but please use the feedback form link to report this to Apple in as much detail as possible. The sooner the better.

Could you give your complete system specs?

Feedback done!

Yes, Tom.
Mac Pro 2008 8-core 2,8Ghz
14GB RAM
1GB VRAM (ATI)
All media stay in internal RAID0 (two 1TB HD).

FCPX 10.1.1 and Mavericks updated

The clips are two hours long ProRes 422HQ 1080i (25fps). 140GB each clip.

I didn't mention my specs just because, as I said, with the same Mac, Premiere CC and FCP7 are super fast (Premiere works well even in full res preview while FCPX lags and freeze in "better performance" mode).

Thanks, but comparisons with other apps really never mean anything. Apps work differently. You might try making a new user. That sometimes seems to fix these odd problems.

Thanks Tom. I'll try as soon as possible.
I also used digital rebellion's tools (preferences trasher, etc) but nothing changed.

Now I'm doing tests on a shiny Imac 27" (fully loaded with solid state drive, 32gb ram and 4gb Vram and media on a thunderbolt raid).... but, same results. FCPX lags on playback and beachballs after pressing L key.

It's really hard to support FCPX when these things happen. So many beautiful feature and just a bunch of -unforgettable- flaws that ruin the app.

Ok, I solved transcoding to prores LT with the 16 audio channels collapsed in one stereo track. Obviously I could do it just because 15 of 16 channels were silent.

Now, after the usually (too much) long task of "generating waveform", it plays quite well with very little lags now and then when hitting double speed playback. I also tried to delete the fifteen silent channels inside the original prores using the "open in timeline" command, but no benefits (looks like FCPX still reads all the channels)

So, I think the problems were related to the number of audio tracks embedded. I'm curious trying these files with lots of audio channels in a new Mac Pro, but unfortunately for the moment I can't afford it.

Hi Tom, I created a new user, and I can confirm that FCPX is now noticeably faster. Do you know why is this possible? I mean the "technical" reason. Anyway, thank you so much!

FCP X is tied to the underlying operating system, much more than any other NLE. If you have a clean system FCP X will run faster on it than any other app. If you have updated to Mavericks over an older OS, or if you have copied over your old user settings onto a fresh Mavericks install, your user account can get bloated with old caches and conflicting preference files that can slow down or even crash FCP X. By creating a new user you create fresh and clean user preferences and you eliminate any conflicts with old settings. That's why this often solves unexpected problems and slowdowns that are not specifically related to bugs in the software. The bottom line: if you want to get the best performance with FCP X it should be run on a system that is as clean and lean as possible.

- Ronny

Thank you Ronny!

Maybe when Yosemite comes out I'll do a complete reset of the the system... for now I'm ok with the alternative user.