Moving up from MMS i7/16Gb/SSD

BenB wrote: "There's one attached to my post up above."

Clip, video clip, not a screen capture. I'd like to see the actual video, see what it is you're trying to achieve.

Oops. Sorry about that. My reading comprehension is normally better than my FCPX skill... :blink:

I'll run one off and add it here.

Thanks,

Myles

mylescdavis wrote: I also just checked and my storage drive isn't an SSD, it's a 7200rpm bus-powered 2.5" drive. Is that a problem? As the MMS doesn't have USB3, I run it off a thunderbolt hub.

Is it a USB3 drive? If it's USB2 (or connected to a USB2 port) then that would be a big bottleneck as well...

No, it's a USB3 drive, connected to a USB3 port.

mylescdavis wrote: No, it's a USB3 drive, connected to a USB3 port.

The problem with single HDDs is that they are never very good at random access and their peak performance drops like a stone and you get dropped frames on playback. A 2.5" drive will almost certainly be the worst case and for your project where you've got a lot of streams of video and fades will be too taxing for it.

I would get an SSD for your editing if you can. I only do short form work and have a NAS where media is backed up and I move the project onto the SSD for editing after the project is finished the SSD is cleared ready for the next.

As far as editing your work I, personally, don't put the audio on the primary storyline, instead I attach it to a gap clip at the beginning of the project and use markers to check sync throughout. I add an empty title to the gap clip at the beginning and add markers to it. I use gap clips on the main storyline to attach secondary storylines for repeating phrases etc.

The beauty of FCPX is there's so many ways to skin a cat and no right or wrong way only one's preference.

mylescdavis wrote: shoot in 1080p, most viewing is on Youtube...2012 i7 Mac Mini Servers...
Waiting for renders of effects plugins isn't helping my workflow...trying to figure out the best bang-for-buck point that will get me the biggest performance jump from my current setup. Buying used seems like the way to go...main problem is plug-in rendering time. Output renders can run overnight, if there's a way to go that favors one over the other....it's a 7200rpm bus-powered 2.5" drive. Is that a problem?

I've summarized the essential points of your post. The 2012 i7 Mac Mini uses a 2.3 or 2.6Ghz quad-core "Ivy Bridge" CPU with integrated HD4000 GPU. It has either two 1TB 5400 rpm drives or one or two 256GB SSD drives.

Your Mac isn't bad but a 2013 or later iMac 27 with discrete GPU would be significantly better for effects. There are some 2013 top-spec factory refurbished iMac 27s still around, or you could get one on eBay. I personally prefer the 27" retina screen on the 2014 and later iMac but they are more expensive. Just don't get one unless it has Fusion Drive or SSD.

To my knowledge there are only a few single-platter 7200 rpm bus-powered 2.5" drives:
HGST Touro S: www.touropro.com/en/product/touro-s/
OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro: eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSU37T1.0T16/
G-Tech 1TB G-Drive: www.apple.com/shop/product/HE492VC/A/g-t...-hard-drive-7200-rpm

These are better than nothing and a single stream of H264 1080p is not very I/O intensive, however if you transcode to optimized media or do multicam the I/O rate will go up, hence risking the drive limiting your performance.

That said, my first guess is you are CPU and GPU limited, not I/O limited. Your best method to immediately improve performance is transcode to proxy media, which is a built-in FCPX feature. You then set the viewer for optimized, edit, apply effects and before your final export set the viewer back to original media.

Getting a faster Mac would also help, especially one with a faster GPU. Even a mid-range discrete GPU will be much faster than the HD4000 integrated GPU in your Mac Mini.

I don't know why your export is so slow. However it must render all effects before encoding, so maybe that's it. For exporting to Youtube or similar I'd suggest using H.264 Faster Encode which will use Intel's Quick Sync to accelerate encoding.

BenB wrote: "There's one attached to my post up above."

Clip, video clip, not a screen capture. I'd like to see the actual video, see what it is you're trying to achieve.

BenB, I'm really sorry it took so long to get a reply back. I went ahead and finished the video, it's here:

About the Man

On the original topic, I realized I confused things by using the word "rendering" to describe my issue. Rendering (as in creating a video or file of the project) if fine, it works quickly enough for me. It's the background processes that are slowing me down.

Thanks,

Myles

Background Rendering should be turned off. Rarely does it need to be turned on. Turn it off, render only what you need to, when you need to, manually.