Import From Camera - Problem?

Hello,

I'm new to Final Cut. I have been creating new events by importing 1-hour tapes directly from an HD video camera (Canon HV 20).

The process goes smoothly, however the "Background Tasks" don't end - ever, unless I manually stop them. I'm not sure they really start, because there' never any percentage number showing how far the process has proceeded. I can leave the program running for hours and nothing changes.

Specifically "Rendering" is the process that doesn't stop, and the sub-process is "Creating Thumbnails."

If I try to close the program, a warning appears saying something to the effect "Can't Close Because Background Tasks Are Running." If I manually stop the Background Tasks, I seem to be able to manipulate the clips (I only know, literally, one or two editing tasks so far).

Any thoughts on what's happening or how to correct it?

Thank you

Steve

In your fcpx preferences, turn off "Background Render". Cancel, as you did, the thumbnail generation by clicking the X in the background tasks. Turn off "Reference waveforms" in fcpx preferences if you don't need the audio waveforms displayed on your clips.

Close any events that may be open for any projects you are not working on.

Do those things for starters.

I unchecked background render, and the issue has resolved.

How will this action affect, if at all, my subsequent editing work, or whatever?

Thank you for your help

It just won't render until you manually do it, that's all.

It looks like I spoke too soon. The next tape I imported ran into the same endless rendering.

You didn't speak too soon, riversurf. This is normal behavior for fcpx. Turning off background rendering was one step in assisting you with this issue. Now you should be able to manually cancel the generation of thumbnails and fcpx shouldn't force start it. Understand that if you have multiple events open, then FCPX continues to try to render thumbnails for events that are currently not in the project you are working on. Keep them all closed in the event browser.

Also, realize that an hour or two hour capture will take some time to render thumbnails, depending on the speed of the computer you are using. I always cancel those out. Short imported clips render in a snap in comparison.

Don't forget to also uncheck the reference waveform option in preferences. This will further improve your performance and constant rendering issue.

OK. When you say to cancel the thumbnails, is that the same as selecting and event, File: Delete Event Render Files?

No...you cancel thumbnail creation, or any other background task that is running by clicking in the timecode window (center of the fcpx application where the render wheel is) and then clicking x next to the task.

OK, I cancelled the background tasks. Is that pretty much the extent of my options? The program still shows the Rendering process ongoing (before I cancel it) every time I import one.

Steve

Hi Steve

Have you used FCP7 Previously?

riversurf wrote: OK, I cancelled the background tasks. Is that pretty much the extent of my options? The program still shows the Rendering process ongoing (before I cancel it) every time I import one.
Steve

Steve,
Every time you capture and import into fcpx, the program will generate thumbnails for that footage. These are basically the reference audio waveforms and if you don't need them you can turn them off in preferences also.

I am not sure if you are having a problem or just asking questions. Is there something not working right for you? If so, you'll need to provide some more information about your workflow and your computer specs....such as model, ram, gpu, hard drives used for media, etc.

Another thing you should be considering if you are importing 1 to 2 hour video clips (from tape capture I presume) is to limit the number of open projects and open events to just one (the one you are working on). There is a free program called Event Manager X which will let you select what events and what projects are active within fcpx and will automatically close out the others. When you need the others, you run the program and check the projects and events you want active and the program makes that happen for you.

If you look in your project library when you start fcpx, if you have many projects open and these are projects with long captured footage in them, you will for sure want to make them inactive as they are likely the source of your continuing rendering issues.

If you don't use Event Manager X, then you can simply create two new folders at the root level of your media drive where your Final Cut Projects and Final Cut Events folders exist. Name the new folders "Final Cut Projects Not In Use" and Final Cut Events Not In Use" and drag thru the finder any old projects and any old events to these respective folders. Then when you start fcpx, you will not see them in the project library or in the event library. Likewise, they will not be occupying any resources within fcpx.

Hope this helps....but do post back with the specifics of what you are doing and what might be your concerns.

Dan

No, this is my first Final Cut exposure.

Hi Dan,

"I am not sure if you are having a problem or just asking questions."
I was trying to establish whether I really was having a problem or not. It seemed that a process (rendering thumbnails) that would not finish and which prevented me from closing the program without first manually stopping that process might be cause for concern. I assumed the background process should eventually wrap up, or at least exhibit how much progress is being made. From what you're saying, I don't have anything to be concerned about.

"...limit the number of open projects and open events to just one (the one you are working on."
I think I am doing this, but I'm so new to this that I'll have to check and be certain, and look into the Event Manage X. I've barely started the editing work itself, because I first had to import about 40 hours of video to hard drive.
I started looking at one of the online tutorials, and (obviously) there's a lot to learn.

(On a side note, I'll bet somewhere in the forum there are some recommendations for good tutorials, but if you have any recommendations, I'm all ears).

Thank you

Steve

Steve...
Like many users new to fcpx, it's fun to just jump right in and start editing...but the media management in fcpx is something you need to really understand to use the app effectively. There are great tutorials right here in this forum and Ripple Training offers some excellent courses. I would suggest you take a break and at least read thru the fcpx manual to get a better handle on how to organize your footage.

Having said that, I will make some assumptions on what I believe you are doing.

If you created an event and then imported all your tapes to that one event (i.e. 40 hours of DV in one event as 40 different 1 hour clips) then this would place an enormous burden on fcpx. You didn't reveal your computer specs, so that may be contributing to slow performance, if you are experiencing that.

For that workflow, there are better ways to help fcpx perform. One way would be to create separate events for each tape...ie. Tape 1, Tape 2, Tape 3, etc.
From there, you create a project, and again I am assuming you want to have a separate project for each tape. Event Manager X, or using the manual method I mentioned earlier, would allow you to open event Tape 1 and Project Tape 1 and do the editing and final export. Then you could close both Tape 1 project and event and open Tape 2 event. Create a Tape 2 project and do your editing and export. Continue on one at a time and you'll see the rendering should not be an issue.

If you have all 40 tapes imported into 1 event, that is a lot of footage (40 hours per your comment) and that is a heck of a lot of thumbnails to be generated and footage to be transcoded, assuming you optimized media and didn't just reference the clips.

But I strongly encourage you to read a bit of the manual and watch a few free tutorials first before you get too involved in importing all your media.

Steve, I would highly suggest you purchase the Final Cut Pro Bundle from macProVideo they will teach you everything you need to know (well enough to get you well down the road) but Michael Wohl in a great instructor who will keep your attention.

Ripple Training also has some great tutorials, you can't really go wrong with either of them.

I think the problem your having (not a problem really) is the fact that you have probably selected to auto analyze every option available, such as people, camera shake, etc and you really don't need to analyze everything upon import. I'm still pretty new to X myself, but so far I've found to analyze people is about useless. It is for wedding video footage anyway, so is camera shake. Turn those analyze options off on import, you don't need them.

I actually capture all of my footage from tape using FCP7 as I capture it as ProRes 422 files on the fly. I then use that same drive to create my FCPX Event and projects and simply import the files without having to copy them because they are already on the drive. I think I'm saving a little time here because the files don't have to be converted to ProRes after capture, unless FCPX will capture the tapes directly to ProRes 422 on the fly like FCP7 does, I don't know, I haven't tried to capture tape to FXPX yet.

Good point, Ron. I didn't think to ask the OP if he was analyzing video on import.
And, FCPX will capture either original DV stream, optimized prores 422 or proxy media when importing tape from camera, depending on how your preferences and import settings are chosen.

dgwvideo wrote: Good point, Ron. I didn't think to ask the OP if he was analyzing video on import.
And, FCPX will capture either original DV stream, optimized prores 422 or proxy media when importing tape from camera, depending on how your preferences and import settings are chosen.

Well, we were writing our replies to Steve at the same time, it was after I submitted my response when the screen refreshed and I seen you had posted your response. So, it wasn't like I was trying to dispute what you had to say. I just remember that's what happen to me the first time I imported my first set of ProRes 422 files into FCPX and didn't elect to copy them, since they were already on the drive I wanted to use for my Event. But, I imported (referenced) probably about 10 hours worth of footage and I couldn't understand what was taking so long since it didn't have to copy and transcode my footage. Like Steve, I wasn't seeing much progress in the little render clock (or whatever it's called) because I had told it to analyze everything under the sun.

So X does capture ProRes 422 on the fly then, that's good to know, but from what I understand, it doesn't capture all of your breaks in the tape as individual clips, and or it won't name the clips upon capture as C1T1-1, C1T1-2 etc... (Camera 1 Tape 1, Clip 1, Clip 2 etc...) I guess I just need to grow some balls and try it sometime. Can you say that here?

Well, fcpx has been reported to be a bit buggy with capture from tape, but I do a lot of them and for the most part I never have any problems. I have captured certain HDV tapes which did create separate clips at timecode breaks, but then other VHS and S-VHS captures just produced one long clip. I believe fcpx is supposed to recognize start and stop record points when importing from camera and create separate clips, but I think this is part of the buggy behavior.
I've done a few imports from mini-DV and I believe it did, in fact, create clips at the start and stop points, but I don't remember for sure.

Generally, I never optimize my imports from tape since I am usually just converting a VHS tape for a client, adding a title screen and making some minor edits. If I need to do any color grading or something more involved, then I would optimize to Prores 422. But for a quick conversion of SD material to DVD, it's not worth the extra file size. It edits just fine on my Mac Pro. Just import, edit and export to DVD or media file. You'll still have the original imported media that you can copy to a second location or two for backup purposes.

Really haven't tried much editing -- just a couple of "play" projects to mess around with. I'll be getting serious about the manual and tutorials when I finish importing all the events. I'll also look into the Event Manager.

Each event I've created includes 2-3 hours of clips, so I haven't been loading all imports into one event.

For now I've just been manually cancelling the background tasks. From the various responses here, it sounds like that won't have any impact on the editing work once I begin that.

The system is a MacBook Pro, 8 GHz RAM, 2.5 Ghz i7 processor, 4 TB external hard

Will definitely look into the tutorials you recommend. All the analysis selections are turned off in Import Preferences. Under Playback, checked boxes are "create optimized media for multicam clips," and "warn when frames are dropped..."

Thanks

Steve