Final Cut Pro users here?

[mspink]

Hello
New to this but have FCP7 running OK (I think) on a hackintosh.
Any setup tips regarding scratch disks?
Should I have seperate scratch & media drives for FCP?
Also does anyone have any experience with Decklink cards in hackintosh setups?

Cheers
Mark

 

[Claus]

That is up to you. I like to keep all files of a project together on one drive, so I can take work home.
Just keep them separate from the OS drive (as mentioned above).

 

[charlzm]

Any setup tips regarding scratch disks?
Should I have seperate scratch & media drives for FCP?
Also does anyone have any experience with Decklink cards in hackintosh setups?

I have three discs ; system, media and scratch. I also use Photoshop, After Effects, Avid and Pro Tools, so it seems to work out best for all of them to be set up this way.

Decklink? Sorry, can't help you there.

 

[ninetto]

Hello
New to this but have FCP7 running OK (I think) on a hackintosh.
Any setup tips regarding scratch disks?
Should I have seperate scratch & media drives for FCP?
Also does anyone have any experience with Decklink cards in hackintosh setups?

Cheers
Mark

I have a Decklink Extreme II (PCIe) running fine-and-dandy in a 10.6.4 Hack.
Mostly I use the MJPEG Decklink-Codec for capturing BetaSP tapes, although DigiBeta worked fine too on two projects thus far. You probably need a fast RAID array if you are thinking of working with 8/10-bit uncompressed, tho'.

greetinz, ninetto

 

[mspink]

Cheers for all the replies, especially Ninetto - that's the card I've thrown into my system.
I think I was getting a bit worried for no reason: it was dropping frames while trying to play multiple streams- but I was playing prorez 1080 files and using the decklink to spit them out onto a CRT monitor in SD (so probably asking for trouble, down-rezing HD to SD while playing).
When I killed external video & audio I got 4 simultaneous streams with transparency of prorez 1080 without breaking a sweat...
Attached is the Blackmagic disk test for my 4 disk raid - should be enough for the moment I'd think.
With any luck I've got my first paying job using the system this week - so will see if it works ok in anger...
Once again - thanks all!

Cheers
Mark

 

[walaw]

I'm toying with the thought of building a Hackintosh. However, my main reason to use Macs is Final Cut Studio. Is anyone here on this board using it successfully? What is the recommended GPU for Color and Motion?

I am running final cut studio pro on a 10.6.5 system - hardware info to the left. No problems so far. The Compressors renders my projects stable and fast so far the Apple Qmaster cluster. Apple Motion runs very smooth so far.

I build my hack because my 'MacBookPro 17" late 2009' was way to slow to handle big Motion projects and to render anims and videos took ages while the coolers spinning heavily and screaming loud. I did not want to spend tons of money for an original MacPro, just to get OK performance, as I already spent a lot for my MBP. So that´s why I´ve chosen the hackintosh path. Installing and configuring is a bit trickier here and there, but until now nearly everything works fine. FCP runs 100% stable - so far I can evaluate that.

good luck!

 

[apple khaos]

Alright, so I am having a problem during my playbacks. I keep receiving the Warning - Dropped Frames message. It's becoming very frustrating to say the least. I am pretty confident that my system is able to handle the media that I am editing (720p MOV converted with MPEG StreamClip [MP4 prior]). It is just a basic clip that I wanted to edit to basically test out my new system. It seems like every time that the playback comes to a new cut (with or without transitions) it drops frames

Is there something that I am doing wrong, or a way to prevent this?

Preview Pref > RT > Unlimited
Media Drives and OS Drive is on separate drives
FCP Pref > All available CPU and RAM
Settings for the timeline and video clips are the same
Everything is rendered...

OS X - 10.6.5
FCP - 6.0.6
Hardware listed below....

Urgh! Help Please

 

[ninetto]

I briefly had a similiar problem that was related to the way the SOUND was set up. Yes, sound... I was just about to buy a new graphic card when I stumbled on this solution. Sorry I cannot be more detailed, but solving the problem involved either changing the DSDT or the hi-def kext, sorry I cannot remember exactly which.

Worth checking is also your SMBIOS... which model have you selected? Maybe worth trying the new SMBIOS tweaks in the latest edition of multi-beast? (see blog from this week)

good luck, ninetto

p.s- i just noticed you are refering to an MP4 file? Hopefully you are not trying to edit H.264 files in FCP? That will never work...

 

[apple khaos]

I did read other posts about video and audio being related (I think it was actually your post ) and the only successful attempt that I had getting my audio to work has been using the VoodooHDA kext (ALC892). I am actually get frustrated to about that point of switching GPU. I was actually looking during work today But before I was going to spend money, I wanted to troubleshoot as much as possible to make sure that I don't just throw away money due to me lack of reading ALL resources. I have been doing A LOT of reading this month trying to get my Hac running in tip-top shape.

I saw that someone (possibly you) was having problems viewing all video sources (youtube, etc). I was thinking that mine wasn't really related to the GPU because the fact that I could view other videos with ease, but it just seems to be in FCP that when it comes to a break in my clips, the Dropped Frame error occurs.

The clips that I imported to my computer were in MP4 format. I re-encoded them to MOV using MPEG Streamclip. I haven't really messed around with MP4 conversion before. I never had a need to. I always used XDCAM codecs. I am now just messing around with MP4 since I don't do video work professionally anymore. I followed other guidance from other places, but I am assuming after your post, that it may have been wrong advice to edit either MOV or MP4 in FCP?

 

[ninetto]

You "re-encoded" to MOV? With What codec... since "MOV" or "MP4" is just the container.

It is impossible to edit h.264 files reliably on FCP. So make sure you are using ProRes or some other codec that keeps the native resolution.

In your particular case, if it is not h.264 that is causing the problem, and if FCP handles other files with no problems, then look again how you are transcoding with MPEG-Streamclip. Maybe you have created an exotic mix of frame-sizes/bit/frame-rates?
If you are talking about AVCHD files, you know that your should use the log-and-transfer tool, or the software tool Sony provides for its cameras?

It was not me complaining about YouTube. I simply had a problem after initially installing FCP 7, and that was related to the Sound-configuration/kext.

good luck,
ninetto