Guidance on using FCPX on 15" Retina Macbook Pro (Late 2013)

Hi all,

I'm new to FCPX, having just made the upgrade from iMovie. I'm loving the power and flexibility of FCP, but I'm wondering if there are some configuration/settings changes I could be making to speed things up... I've been noticing that I have to wait quite a bit for rendering to complete, which often slows me down.

Here's my current setup:

• 15" Retina Macbook Pro (Late 2013)
• 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 Quad Core processor
• 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M graphics card w/2GB VRAM
• 1TB Apple SSD Hard Drive (approx 65% full)
• OS X 10.10.2

I'm currently running FCPX and storing all of the files on the internal SSD. I've tried using an attached (USB3) HDD for render & cache files, to see if that would speed things up... but no dice. It might be a LITTLE better, but not enough to really speed me along.

I'm not really all that familiar with the files & file structures of FCPX (iMovie didn't have any options there, LOL!), so I'm thinking I could make some improvements with that.

When I import 1080P30 video (mostly shot on a Canon EOS 7D and GoPro Hero 3+ Black), I utilize the "Optimization" feature to transcode the video to Apple ProRes 422 format (which, as I understand, should help with speeds).

A typical project for me includes a primary video track, one or two background audio tracks and a couple of picture-in-picture tracks. Plus the usual titles, between clip transitions and an effect or two. And the trouble I've been having is just some sluggishness in the interface... dragging/re-aaranging clips is often delayed, making it difficult to place them accurately... titles & effects aren't rendering that quickly, so reviewing my work is often frustratingly slow (have to wait for background rendering to complete before getting the real picture), etc.

I'm chock-full of questions, like:

• Are there other settings I should be looking at changing?
• Would my in-app speed be improved by using Proxy Files (and what are those, btw)?
• What are most people doing with file storage? All on the internal SSD drive? External drives? USB3? Thunderbolt? RAID?!?!
• Am I just expecting too much from a MacBook Pro? And do I need to accept that I will need long pauses while working in order to allow rendering to complete? (i.e. stop whining if you want to do pro-level video editing on a portable computer!)

Sorry to be such a N00B! But I really appreciate any/all pointers (even if they are just links to good resources online I should be reading!).

Thanks!

ok im using basically the same laptop to edit in fcpx

check out the "its a raid thread" (if you havnt already)
i have been advised by members here not to optimise or proxy, just load it in and get going.
also do all you edits without stopping then let it render at the end whilst you go and get a coffee, sure you may have to make further adjustments but at least you will get more work done.

usb 3 is working well for me in a raid setup (but only for editing not for storage)

watch the following videos re: media management, they taught me a lot





im a noob myself so im sure other more qualified help will chirp in and provide further advice
cheers, the Karma button is to the left

Never put Libraries and media on the system drive. Get an external USB 3 or Thunderbolt drive. If spinning disk, 7200 rpm. RAID necessity depends on the type of media your working with and how much, and your storage growth rate. Go in to Preferences and turn off Background Rendering, it drags you down. If you need a section rendered for decent playback, to it manually.

And for more in depth technical information about soft and hard links, there is this video.

ok Ben thanks for that

I have background render on and didnt know i could manually render a specific section

how exactly is that done ?
at work so dont have fcpx in front of me

Thanks, HappyFingers! Those videos are a great intro and really help clarify the file structure and locations in FCPX! I'll have to poke around on their channel on YouTube and see what other valuable info they have to impart!

Appreciate your help!

Thanks, BenB. I was wondering about that... the background rendering definitely seems to eat up a lot of resources while you're in the process of working on the project!

Just curious... what's the logic behind not putting Libraries & Media on the system drive? Is it just the I/O bottleneck of that one drive now handling the OS, FCPX AND the reads/writes for the media & render files?

I've got a USB3 drive that I can test out moving the Library to... and if that speeds things up, I can look at a Thunderbolt drive to really improve things.

But what about backups, etc? With everything on the System Drive, Time Machine can handle backing things up as I go along. If I move the Library & Media to an external drive, aren't I losing that? What do most people do about that situation?

Thanks for your help!

Happyfingers wrote: ok Ben thanks for that

I have background render on and didnt know i could manually render a specific section

how exactly is that done ?
at work so dont have fcpx in front of me

HappyFingers,

I wondered the same thing. Just did a quick Googling and found this:

support.apple.com/kb/PH12704?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US

Looks like you can select individual clips and click "Control-R" (or go to the Modify Menu and select "Render Selection").

Or you can click "Control-Shift-R" to render ALL clips (or go to the Modify menu and select the "Render All" option).

awesome im going to try that

because some of your edits, you have done before and you know they will work they way you want so they dont need to render immediately.

others you can be a bit unsure of so want to see if it has worked.

i think i almost have the hang of slo mo (i said almost )
ok maybe i have the basic hang of slo mo
ok cancel that my slo mo is sh!t :woohoo: but its good enough for me, hopefully it will get better.
im the big guy in the goal, my son has the camera on his helmet. (skywalker)