4K RED files with 1080p proxy clips inside project.

Is it possible in FCPX to work with 4K .r3d files and having 1080p proxies? Not only the transcoded files (they will be 1080p anyway) but also the clip settings inside the project to work in a 1080p timeline without having to render them.
My problem is that the 4K clips, even if they're converted to proxy, they do not playback smoothly and keep dropping frames in the browser.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Jon, welcome to the forum.

Reading your two questions makes me think this is the first time you work with R3D files, am I correct?

- This is the first time ever I see a question about relinking imported R3D to external .mov, usually it's the other way round. So why do you need to do this?

- Secondly, it is very un-wise to work with externally created 1080 proxy media when your original footage is 4K. Whenever you need to reframe of animate your clips your scaling will be completely off when you go back to the original media. A recipe for disaster.

So I think it would be better if you use a correct workflow from the start, and you can do this by answering the following questions:

1. What is your final delivery format?
2. Will you need to upscale or reframe your footage?
3. Will you ever need to work with or reconnect back to the raw R3D files before exporting?
4. What are the specifications of your computer?

- Ronny

Hi Ronny, thank you for your reply.

1. Delivery format: 2K 1:2,35
2. A little reframing, yes.
3. I'll not necessarily need to reconnect back to the R3D files. I will need an EDL (probably from an exported XML). For an EDL it doesn't matter the extension, so I think it would not be a problem.
4. MacBook Pro mid 2010, 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Startup Disk is SSD, Mavericks.

The reason I'm asking this and doing this at all, is that the clips in the project have a 4K res even if they were transcoded to proxy. And in that case the clips won't play without dropping frames in the browser.

Thank you for the information, very useful.

Sorry to say, but your 2010 i5 MBP is hardly qualified for handling 1080p. I'm not surprised 4K proxies won't play. It won't be easy to find an optimal workflow for working with RED footage on such a minimum specced system, so I will need a little more information:

- Do you have a fast external RAID for the media or are you only working off the system drive?
- Why do you need an EDL? I didn't know anyone really used this ancient format anymore
- If your final delivery format is 2K, why do you want to work in a 1080p timeline?

Ronny

I'm working with an external hard disk connected via USB 2.0. Not optimal at all, I know. But I worked recently on a 1080p project (with DSLR 1080p material) with the same specs and settings and it worked flawlessly.
I was asked for an EDL, but I think actually that the software in which the grading will be done will probably handle xml too. I only want to work in a 1080p timeline because I know that it'll definitely work without dropping. As I said, I did this recently.

It is possible to use external "proxy" in Final Cut Pro X, but, as Ronny mentioned it can be unwise unless you have a solid workflow.

Would be possible to get more specs form your drive?
Aslo find out what is being used for grading, my first guess would be DaVinici.

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, but the thing is, I'm not actually using external proxies.
My first workaround idea to make FCPX playback without dropping is relink the R3D files to the proxy files generated by FCPX. In this way the clips I have in the project are 1080p and not 3840x2160.
(I really don't understand why my FCPX drops the playback with clips with the size of 3840x2160 and not with clips with 1920x1080 as the source is exactly the same: proxies in 1080p - the data is the same!.)

So, this workaround actually works, and if I want to go back to the R3D media I can do it also.
BUT the whole problem of it, is that FCPX won't ignore the extension when relinking. So I have to do it ONE by ONE. And this takes a lot of time as you can imagine.

It would be a solution if FCPX would have a "Ignore file extension" in the relink dialog box, or something similar.

Yes, I will find out what is going to be used. Thanks.

And you mean the external drive? It is a USB powered 2TB Toshiba.

jmvkdcs wrote: Thanks for your reply!

Yes, but the thing is, I'm not actually using external proxies.
My first workaround idea to make FCPX playback without dropping is relink the R3D files to the proxy files generated by FCPX. In this way the clips I have in the project are 1080p and not 3840x2160.
(I really don't understand why my FCPX drops the playback with clips with the size of 3840x2160 and not with clips with 1920x1080 as the source is exactly the same: proxies in 1080p - the data is the same!.)

If you're actually using proxies generated by FCPX, just switch back and forth between original and proxy mode. There is no need to do any relinking, and in fact, that may cause a lot of problems. Your timeline could just be a 4k timeline, but it's using the 1080p proxies when in proxy mode. Also, because of the way FCPX is set up with scaling, I believe you can actually just switch your project from 4k to 1080p if you need to (please check if this is the case since I haven't done this in a while).

IMO, you're pushing it doing this with USB 2.0 on that particular macbook. I understand that you may have to make do with what you have, but it's really not a machine you should be doing a 4k project on. Remember that your other 1080p DSLR project that you worked on was with H.264 files which are a lot lighter in terms of disk throughput (although they require more processor power to decode). Your main bottleneck is certainly USB 2.0. I would actually go FW800 at least.

So you are on a standard one 7200RPM USB disc?
Depending on the drive with USB2 you will be getting up to 480 Mbps and as haysoos123 suggested with Firewire 800 up to 800 Mbps.
Would you be able to switch to a Firewire 800 drive?

Also if you are already using Proxy in Final Cut Pro X also make sure it is set to Better Performance under Quality. Give it a try Let us know if that helps in anyway.

haysoos123 wrote: If you're actually using proxies generated by FCPX, just switch back and forth between original and proxy mode. There is no need to do any relinking, and in fact, that may cause a lot of problems.

Yes, you're right. That is the standard way of doing things. BUT when I do it that way I cannot preview the 1080p proxy clips in the browser because they keep dropping frames. Because they're scaled up to 4K. AND the timeline must be set as 4K (3840x2160) too, otherwise it keeps asking for render.

haysoos123 wrote: Your timeline could just be a 4k timeline, but it's using the 1080p proxies when in proxy mode. Also, because of the way FCPX is set up with scaling, I believe you can actually just switch your project from 4k to 1080p if you need to (please check if this is the case since I haven't done this in a while).

Yes. This would be ideal. BUT it doesn't work.

This is how it is:
There are 3 possible settings. In all settings I use the same source files - the 1080p proxies.

SETTING 1:
The standard one. Transcoding the 4K footage to proxy and work in proxy mode, not original/optimized.
In this setting the clips have originally a resolution of 1920x1080 but inside FCPX they're scaled up to 4K.
This is causing the frames to drop with my specs. So it DOES NOT WORK FOR ME.

SETTING 2:
A messy workaround. Transcoding the 4K footage to proxy in FCPX and reimporting it to another library so I can work with it as a standard 1080p with no scaling. That way the timeline setting can be 1080p. With no need to render. BUT I lose the keywords (from folders) that were pre-organized. And have to set them again one by one. It DOES WORK, BUT IS A TEDIOUS PROCESS.

SETTING 3:
Another messy workaround. Transcoding the 4K footage to proxy in FCPX in one library and relinking these proxies to the r3d files from another folder to a new library. This saves me the time of organizing the keywords again BUT IT ONLY RELINKS THE FILES ONE BY ONE. Which is very tedious and time consuming.

The 3rd one is actually a good solution IF THERE WAS A CHECKBOX like "ignore file extensions" in the relink dialog box.

haysoos123 wrote: IMO, you're pushing it doing this with USB 2.0 on that particular macbook. I understand that you may have to make do with what you have, but it's really not a machine you should be doing a 4k project on. Remember that your other 1080p DSLR project that you worked on was with H.264 files which are a lot lighter in terms of disk throughput (although they require more processor power to decode). Your main bottleneck is certainly USB 2.0. I would actually go FW800 at least.

Thanks for your suggestion, but I just tried with some files on a LaCie Quadra FW800 and the problem persists. The clips drop frame exactly the same way. Perhaps it is the processor's fault?
Anyway, a workaround is possible. But very time consuming.

Scrubelicious wrote: So you are on a standard one 7200RPM USB disc?
Depending on the drive with USB2 you will be getting up to 480 Mbps and as haysoos123 suggested with Firewire 800 up to 800 Mbps.
Would you be able to switch to a Firewire 800 drive?

Also if you are already using Proxy in Final Cut Pro X also make sure it is set to Better Performance under Quality. Give it a try Let us know if that helps in anyway.

I just tried it with some files on a FW800 drive and the problem is the same. Yes, it is always in "Better Performance".

I just did a test with 4K raw R3D footage on a 2011 MacMini i5 with 8 GB RAM , which has about the same specs as your 2010 MBP.

I imported some raw 4K R3D footage in an FCP X Library on the system drive and I had no problems whatsoever playing back the proxy media that I created from the 4K R3D in FCP X. Even upscaling and reframing the clips and playing back the un-rendered 4K project did not give me one single dropped frame:



So I think there is something wrong with your workflow.

- Ronny

Ronny. There is a difference. The 2010 MacBook pro does not have avx. Your Mac mini does.

Hey Anders.

You are correct, I did not think about this. This does make a difference in playback performance and it certainly explains why the 2010 MBP is known to perform poorly with FCP X.

- Ronny

Thanks Ronnie, thanks Anders.

The MBP 2010 does really perform poorly with FCPX. It does not perform smoothly. BUT the playback with 1080p footage is, in fact, smooth. I can playback 1080p footage with no problems.

I've had problems when previewing the proxy clip from the event browser.

And I made a test doing exactly what Ronnie did in the video (thanks!) and I found out that the problem has to do with the second display I'm using.

I made a test with the same footage on the MBP display and on the second display. (HDMI connected on mini display port)

Here are the videos:

1. MPB display: (The playback is smooth)




2. Second display: (It drops frames)




Does someone know why this is happening?

What drives me crazy is the fact that this problem happens only when it is a proxy that has (virtually) the scale of 3840x2160, because in fact it is 1080p. Because the exact same file runs smoothly when imported into FCPX, not working as a proxy for the r3d files. Does anybody know why this also happens?

Jon

At least I'm happy to find out that it is actually more a display problem than from the MBP itself. I hope, at least.

Hi Jon,

Thank you for the extra information, this explains everything.

Your MBP does not have a dedicated graphics card, it only has one 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with the main memory. This means that this single card is used for all your applications and graphics processing, but also for driving your MBP screen and any external displays you connect to the MBP. This explains why you get much better performance when you disconnect the second display.

While it can handle simple HD without too many issues, a 4K timeline is much more demanding for your GPU. Although your proxy files have a 1920x1080 frame size the FCP X proxy playback technology plays them in the original 4K timeline without producing any render bars. This is great, but it also puts more strain on your graphics card. Add everything together and your poor graphics card will suffer if you also make it handle a second display on top of all this.

- Ronny

Thank you very much for the information, Ronny! I appreciate it.

Is there anything I could do about it? Except for changing my MBP?

Thanks.
Jon

Not connecting the extra display may do the trick, for the rest I'm afraid there isn't much you can do about this.

- Ronny

I understand.

Ok! Thanks for your help!