Avoiding System Lockups on Long Form Projects
By Kevin Monahan

Recently on the list, a Cutter has brought up a very good topic. "How to Avoid the Spinning Beach Ball of Death" on long form projects. The SBBOD shows up when your system is being overloaded with tasks. This halts you from making progress on your sequence.

The bottom line? I don't think that NLE's are very good at handling long and complex sequences in general, so you are at a disadvantage from the get go. And unless you take some care before a project even begins, you may run into trouble with our friend the SBBOD.

Observations About Long Form Shows
My suggestions here are not iron clad "sure fire" techniques for success on a long form show, but are merely observations I've made over the years in working with NLEs in general.

Many of these issues are related to how carefully you organize your project and, specifically, how you manage your clips and media. These are primarily technical issues that must be dealt with and unfortunately, may be counter-intuitive to the way you may have been working. It takes a lot more work to make a show that is lean and mean, media manageable and restorable - but you must keep all these things in mind when organizing your show.

Here are the issues at hand:
•Get advice from colleagues before starting the project.
•Long form projects can never be lean or mean enough.
•Don't capture footage you know you will not need.
•Clips derived from short, discrete media files perform better and require less RAM than clips derived hour long tape rolls.
•Having less footage that is more organized is more desirable than a greater amount footage that is not organized, logged, etc.
•If you capture THEN log, be sure to consolidate media for subclips you make.
•Learn to use the media manager to consolidate media for subclips.
•Consolidate your sequence if you are experiencing the SBBOD often.
•Internal drives perform better than FireWire drives.
•Make Sure That Drives are not Sleeping
•Dupe Detection Check
•Optimize all graphic images
•Close Unused Applications
•Consider working at Offline Resolutions

Ask For Advice From Your Colleagues
To go into a large and demanding project without plenty of research and planning is probably not a good idea. Therefore, the key to a creating a smooth running project off the bat is to ask around to others that have attempted what you are about to undertake. A web site or list-serve like Cutter-Talk is a perfect place to use as a sounding board.

Keeping Projects Lean and Mean
You've got to keep your project lean and mean. This means that you need to blow away the footage you no longer need as you work. Also, delete any sequences you aren't using anymore.
It's easy to get lazy in this regard, but really, let go of footage and sequences you no longer need to keep your file size down for the project file. A bloated project file will lead you down the path to disaster. However, know that you can always duplicate your project file and work from that if you want to keep a certain iteration of a project. I duplicate my project file on a daily basis and upload it to my iDisk.

Don't Capture Footage You Don't Need
You may need some of the footage from all 60 tapes, but you certainly do not need every frame of footage ON those 60 tapes, do you? Probably not. It might be wiser to log and capture only the footage you really need for more than one reason. Read on.

Long Form? Avoid Capturing Entire Tape Rolls
Capturing entire tapes is something we all do for time to time - but it is very poor form if you have a large project to manage. Why? Two reasons. One is more related to organizing your footage, the other is related to system performance.

1) Short, discrete clips can be logged with notes that can be called upon when searching for the right shot. This isn't possible with a large clip with many, many takes on it. I guess markers could assist you, but it's just as easy to subclip them at the very least. Whether it's a short discrete clip or a subclip - logging a good name and adding some log notes is very, very helpful while you are in the throes of the editing process. Organization is key.

2) More importantly, it is important to understand that it takes hard drives more "seek time" to find a frame on an hour long clip than it does to find a frame on a short clip that is correctly named and logged for playback on your timeline. You see more people tempted to capture whole tapes these days, especially with such large hard drive sizes. Try not to succumb to this desire or you too will experience the SBBOD (spinning beach ball of death) on short clips derived from large media files.

RAM Issues
I have another observation: small timeline clips derived from large media files appear to require more RAM than clips that are derived from smaller media files. It seems that FCP relies upon RAM quite a bit in the timeline, so you really have to conserve it when it comes to performing editing functions, playback and output on a long form sequence.

Exceptions in Long Form?
The only people that really should be capturing hour long clips are those that MUST capture hour long clips: capturing a wedding video, a multi-cam event or working with a tape from telecine might be the exception to the rule. In other cases, just because you can capture an hour long clip, doesn't mean you should...

Too Much Footage?
The other advice I can give you that kills a lot of long form projects is having too much footage. Sure, view lots of footage, but really, you should only capture what you will really need. Excess footage bogs a project down in more ways than one. Many editors are blissfully unaware that too much footage is not really a good thing.

I'd rather have fewer clips to work with that had better log notes and sift-able meta-data than footage buried in an hour long clip that I've never seen before. Less footage also makes for a smoother workflow and keeps the project file size down. Certainly, it does take time and effort to log the right clips for your project. A little extra time up front will save you tons of time and exasperation in the long run.

Another advantage of logging each shot is that you become more familiar with the content, so that while you are actually cutting, your visual memory will help you find just the right clip for just the right place in your show even faster. I think many people are surprised about how far I go towards setting up my project even before I make a single edit.

Capture and Log?
Capturing entire tapes, then logging subclips is an alternative - however, I suggest that after carefully naming subclips and adding log notes, you should consolidate your subclips so that they have discrete media files. Short media files will address SBBOD stalls in the timeline that hour-long media files tend to initiate.

Again, short clips simply work better both system performance-wise and for your own editing workflow. In my experience, this has been the case since FCP 1.0. If you want short clips derived from longer media files, then you'll definitely want to be able to know how to consolidate your media with confidence.

Consolidate
I sometimes capture and then log subclips. After that, I consolidate the formerly hour-long QT movies into separate media files. This I do for the sake of the leanness and meanness of the project. You should too if you are a capture then log kind of guy or gal.

The manual is pretty good about the teaching the methodology of consolidation, and there's also a good tutorial on kenstone.net called "I said TRIM Dangit" that will show you how to trim up (consolidate) your media in a step by step manner, as well. If you don't know how to operate the media manager (warts and all) to keep your project running smoothly, you really need to learn to. Once you know how it works, it behaves very predictably.

Are you in the middle of your long form project and already experiencing the SBBOD? One way out of your situation is to skinny up your project by using the media manager to consolidate only what you will need to complete your project.

Consolidation's one way to keep that project file and sequence lean and mean. Understanding how it works will also further your knowledge of how FCP operates underneath the hood.

Drive Performance
Another thing that kills seek time and will induce the SBBOD on long projects are drives that are not speedy enough or are too full.

FireWire drives in many circumstances have adequate speed for playback, however, when handling excessively long clips more overhead is necessary to find the in point in time to play it back in 1/30 of a second. The other point about them is that if they are daisy chained to a malfunctioning or slower drive, then every other drive in the chain slows down to that level. Cheaper DV Decks and DV Camcorders daisy chained to your drives might only be FireWire 200! This slows down the entire drive chain to only half of its potential for speed.

If you are attempting a really large project, with tons of clips and many render files - I would use only internal drives or a speedy external drive array if at all possible. One thing you cannot have overkill with and that is drive speed.

Whether you use FireWire drives or internal drives, just make sure that they are not filled up entirely. Save about 10% of the drive space for overhead purposes.

Drives Sleeping Causing SBBOD?
If you are experiencing your drives going to sleep and then getting the SBBOD on spin up, you may need to adjust your System Preferences>Energy Control>Never Sleep. Sometimes, even though you set the drives to "Never Sleep", certain FireWire drives in the chain ignore the command and continue to go into sleep mode. In this case, you may need to contact the manufacturer of the drive for new drivers or firmware update.

Dupe Detection On?
Another thing that will get by even experienced editors is to ensure that duplicate frame detection is disabled. This can cause problems and may engage the SBBOD in the course of a normal edit. Final Cut Pro Menu>User Prefs>Editing Tab. Ensure that for Dupe Detection, both fields should display Zero Frames.

Optimize all Graphic Images
I've noticed that many of my newer colleagues don't pay much attention to opimizing graphic imagery for their productions. If your images are more than 4 times the native frame size, then they are too large and are clogging up your available RAM, inducing the SBBOD. You'll need to resize your graphics in Photoshop to be optimized for only as large as you need them to be. There are a lot of articles on this topic at kenstone.net.

If you've optimized your images and are still getting a red render bar over your graphics, you may need to bump up the Memory Usage for Still Cache. Just go to System Settings>Memory and Cache tab and bring the slider up for Still Cache.

Close Other Applications Not In Use
If you are frequently bumping heads with the SBBOD, check to see if you have more than only the most necessary applications open. When doing RAM and CPU intensive work, such as operating FCP, Motion, Soundtrack Pro or Shake, you should keep only the most necessary applications open while you work. Close RAM hogs like Photoshop unless you are actually using the application. When you're through with the application, quit out of it to allow more of your CPU and RAM to work on your long form piece.

Consider working at Offline Resolutions
I've done tests in batch re-capturing up to 1000 offline clips for an offline and were easily recaptured at DV frame size. Working at offline res has a lot of advantages for long form projects. I'd be very surprised if you got the SBBOD for offline res clips.

Is Long Form Feasible in FCP?
If Walter Murch (and others) can edit a feature on FCP, then certainly, large projects can be completed with it. However, I have a strong suspicion that Sean Cullen, his assistant, made sure that the project was always lean and mean, using many of the above suggestions and techniques I've mentioned, no doubt.

Of course, the suggestions I have made is based upon my observations of not only how FCP works with large projects, but how NLEs in general work as well. As editors, we are not only craftsman, but we are also technicians and computer specialists.

Next time you are planning a large project, post your concerns about your show and share your strategy with us on Cutter-Talk. We might be able help you and make suggestions to keep you out of hot water.

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Always Unmount FireWire Drives Before Shutdown

I've been seeing a lot complaints on the list that FireWire drives are malfunctioning and people are losing their media. You should know that Apple is very cautionary about recommending them. Here's what they say in the FCP 5 manual:

"While not recommended for all systems, FireWire disk drives can be effectively used to capture and edit projects using low data rate video clips, such as those captured using the DV codec.

However, most FireWire disk drives lack the performance of internal Ultra ATA disk drives, or of internal or external SCSI disk drives. For example, a FireWire disk drive may not be able to support real-time playback with as many simultaneous audio
and video tracks as an internal Ultra ATA disk drive can. This can also affect the number of simultaneous real-time effects that can be played back."

Apple appears to be cautionary about using FireWire drives these days. Which is a bit more positive in the days when they were not recommended at all. Here are some bullet points about FireWire drives from the manual as well.

Important Information About FireWire Drives
• FireWire disk drives are not recommended for capturing high data rate material such as uncompressed standard definition or high definition video. (KM Note: Certain FireWire 800 drives are capable of playing back certain flavors of SD and HD, such as 8 bit uncompressed and DVCPro HD files.)
• Certain DV camcorders cannot be connected to a computer while a FireWire disk drive is connected simultaneously. In many cases, you can improve performance by installing a separate FireWire PCI card to connect your FireWire drive. (KM Note: the cheaper the camcorder, the more likely this will occur. Some of them are operating at slower speeds, dragging down drive performance. See below.)
• You may be able to improve performance by reducing the real-time video playback data rate and the number of real-time audio tracks in the General tab of the User Preferences window.
• You should never disconnect a FireWire disk drive prior to unmounting it from the desktop.

Techs Agree on Unmounting HDs Prior to Shut Down
How many editors actually unmount prior to shut down? I would wager a very small number of us are mindful of drive care and maintenance at all. Cutters, we are not only artists, we are also technicians. You have to wear both hats on this job. If you don't....you'll someday be very sorry.

As Alberto Palacios (our resident Mac expert and owner of "The Tao of Mac") has repeatedly said, "ALWAYS Unmount FireWire drives before shutting down". This is one of the root causes for cutters losing their media on external FireWire drives (Probably THE #1 cause). This is also tech tip I learned in Avid Bootcamp's "Troubleshooting" class some years ago, so I whole-heartedly agree with Alberto (Avid has a superior training program for NLE techs: highly recommended). Sure, they were 4GB "sleds", but the same principles still apply in my book. Alsoft is making a killing on Disk Warrior because we are not diligent enough to unmount. If you don't unmount, it's possible to completely fry the internal directory of the drive.

How To Unmount your Drives Safely
It's easy to unmount your drives prior to shutting down. There are a few ways:

•Click and drag your drive(s) into the Trash (yes, really!)
•Open Disk Utility, select the drive, then click the Eject Button
•Control + click on the drive and choose Eject "Name of Disk" from the pop up menu
•Select the drive and in the Finder go to File>Eject "Name of Disk"

The Case For Unmounting Prior to Shutdown
Many have found the Disk Warrior can help you survive a corrupt directory. True, DW will usually fix the problems caused by not unmounting, but not always! So you cannot always count on DW.

It's hard to thrash internal drives, so that's why we recommend that you avoid external drives if at all possible (recall that you do have an extra SATA bay inside your G5). If you MUST use external FireWire drives, be fastidious in your care of them. Recall that external FireWire drives are not officially supported by Final Cut Pro, so that is warning enough to be careful with these babies.

The bottom line? You must take great care when working with FireWire drives, no matter the brand or if they are FW400 or FW800. My rules are to avoid daisy-chaining (a DV Cam might only be FW200! Slowing down your entire chain), run Disk Warrior frequently, erase the drives and reformat them as often as you can (between major projects), don't move them around too much and put them in a cool, well-ventilated and dry area. The only time I lost a drive was when I transported it in an airplane's overhead bin cross-country.

And ALWAYS, ALWAYS ALWAYS Unmount those drives EVERY time prior to shut down. I've NEVER lost a drive do to B-Tree corruption which is the main thing that happens if you do not unmount. Sure, you can be humming along for months at a time and not be thinking about a failure with your "precious" drives - and that's just when it will bite you. YES, it takes 5 extra seconds to unmount your drives. Don't be lazy. Just do it.

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Apple - QuickTime - Tutorials - Creating Video for iPod

With QuickTime 7 Pro, you can create your own videos that will play on the new iPod. Already have great home movies you want to play on your iPod? No problem. QuickTime 7 Pro helps you easily convert them to a format that iPod understands.* Just follow these easy instructions and you'll be watching your own video on your iPod in no time. More! >>>

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Final Cut Pro: What Kind of Hard Drive Should I Buy?

This article discusses what kind of hard drives are appropriate for video capture and playback using Final Cut Pro, as well as discussing specific incompatibilities between certain hard drive system and hardware combinations. More! >>>

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Creating and Importing a Motion Project as an Alpha Transition in DVDSP

DVD Studio Pro includes an Alpha Transition feature. AlphaTransitions make it possible for you to create customized transitions for use in your menus, tracks, and slideshowsStudio Pro includes an Alpha Transition feature. Alpha Transitions make it possible for you to create customized transitions for use in your menus, tracks, and slideshows. More! >>>

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Coming Soon: Articles, Book and Product Reviews by members of SF Cutters

We hope to feature articles, as well as book and product reviews from SF Cutters Members here. If you would like to contribute an article or review, kindly e-mail us.

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Links to Kevin Monahan's Articles
Here is a collection of links to articles that Kevin Monahan, the President of SF Cutters, has written both on his fcpworld.com site and on other web sites. Check them out.

From fcpworld.com (Note: UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
Changing the Speed of a Clip without having to pull it up to another Track
What's New with LiveType 2
Integrating GarageBand and Soundtrack
Using the Speed Tool for Time Remapping
Constructing the "Cops" Effect
Split Screen Squeeze Motion Effect
Creating a Hollow Circle for highlighting action
Importing iMovie HD projects into Final Cut Express HD or Final Cut Pro HD

From kenstone.net
Chroma Keying in FCP HD
Getting to know split edits in FCP
Cutting to the beat in FCP
Understanding 16:9 in Final Cut Pro
The Browser: The Organizing Brain of FCP

From bamg.org
Bay Area Motion Graphics User Group
Effects and Motion Graphics with Final Cut Pro

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