Anyone cut long piece on FCP X?

[Andrius Simutis]

TheReverend, you are right, but if your source footage is XDCAM 35Mbps LONG GOP Mpeg2, or H.264, then I think Prores LT is more then enough because it's a much better codec then any of those.

It's not quite that simple...though one codec might be better, the conversion isn't necessarily so. Going from one lossy codec to another that is also lossy (even at a higher data rate) doesn't mean you will get the same quality as if it originated on that better codec. If you're planning on pushing any of the footage around in grading, or if your footage contains a lot of movement, changing backgrounds, or even smooth gradients, you'll be better off going to a less lossy codec like ProRes 422. Save the ProResLT for when you're hurting for space.

 

[noam]

To the OP: I have now cut three feature films on FCP X (all above 90 minutes) and have found it to be very robust. One of the features was a documentary and I found it particularly helpful thanks to the incredible asset/media organization. A huge time saver for a doc, especially when handling endless amounts of footage.

 

[ddixon]

My experience is that FCPX is happier with Prores and a fairly recent Mac. The combination of my 2008 8-core Mac Pro and native editing is very sluggish, even with an SSD boot drive, internal media drives, and a Radeon 5870.
The .mxf clips from my Canon XF100 are similar to XDCAM - 50Mps 4:2:2 Mpeg-2. I always converted to Prores, but along about the 10.0.6 update Apple evidently decided there was no advantage to transcoding and took away the option to do so when importing! So, I'm now experimenting with using Compressor to convert to Prores. It seems to help quite a bit.

Later this year, depending on price/performance, I'll either be getting a new Mac Pro or maxxed out iMac - that should fix the problem as well

 

[sebulban]

When importing footage I always make optimised & proxy media. In the edit I'll go with proxy and just before exporting the master file I change the playback on optimised media. Background rendering is always off except if I'm in a brake

Is this workflow correct or logical to anyone ?

 

[NoahK]

Making both is not really necessary if you're using proxy throughout the edit. Exporting from the original media will actually be slightly better image quality because optimized is adding a generation of video compression on top of your original footage. Switching back from proxy will force the exports to use all original media. Not too mention you'll end up using much less space without having those extra optimized clips you're not even using.