User`s guide

FINAL CUT PRO
62
When you are capturing Apple ProRes 422, Final
Cut Pro performs the encoding in real time during
capture. Given today’s Intel processor speeds,
ProRes requires approximately one Intel CPU core
to perform this task, depending on the ProRes
quality mode (standard or HQ), the speed of the
processors, and other related factors. Your
performance will vary, but generally speaking,
ProRes 422 standard quality capture requires a
computer with at least two Intel core processors;
four cores or more are recommended. ProRes 422
HQ quality requires a computer with four Intel
cores or more.
If you have chosen to capture to an HD codec other
than DVCPro or Apple ProRes, the situation is
similar to ProRes capture, described above. Final
Cut Pro does the work of compressing the video
stream, and so the computer’s CPU performance
must be good enough to handle the real-time
encoding. Again, your performance will vary,
depending on the codec you have chosen, core
processor speeds, etc. If you have a four- or eight-
core machine, however, you should be able to
readily capture in just about any format you wish.
PLAYBACK AND MONITORING
To play back your Final Cut Pro project and view it
on any monitor or other device connected to the
V4HD’s video outputs:
1 Choose View menu> External Video> and make
sure that the All Frames item (command-F12) is
checked.
2 Start playback.
If you are at a point in your project workflow where
you are no longer capturing clips, you might want
to consider putting the V4HD in Playback Only
mode (Figure 6-19) in MOTU Video Setup. See
“Playback Only (disable inputs)” on page 50. In
this mode, you can either run the V4HD under its
own internal clock, or you can resolve the V4HD to
an external clock source. See “Playback Clock
Source” on page 53. Be sure to review the other
settings in the Playback tab (page 53).
Video decoding and CPU performance during
playback
If you are playing uncompressed SD from the Final
Cut Pro timeline, the uncompressed video stream
goes straight to the V4HD, with no compression or
encoding required along the way.
When playing back any form of DVCPro
(DVCPro25, DVCPro50 or DVCProHD), the
V4HD hardware does the work of decompressing
the outgoing DVCPro video stream into
uncompressed video for output to its HD-SDI,
HDMI and HD component outputs. In this
scenario, there is no additional computer CPU
overhead required for video decompression or
transcoding, since none is required to transmit the
DVCPro stream from the computer to the V4HD.
When you play back an Apple ProRes 422 Final Cut
Pro sequence, or any other codec, Final Cut Pro
performs real-time transcoding. Given today’s
Intel processor speeds, ProRes requires
approximately one Intel CPU core to perform this
task, depending on the ProRes quality mode
(standard or HQ), the speed of the processors, and
other related factors. Your performance will vary,
but generally speaking, ProRes 422 standard
quality playback requires a computer with at least
two Intel core processors; four cores or more are
recommended. ProRes 422 HQ quality requires a
computer with four Intel cores or more.
When you play back a Final Cut Pro timeline with
an HD codec other than DVCPro or Apple ProRes,
the situation is similar to ProRes playback,
described above. Final Cut Pro does the work of
transcoding the video stream, and so the
computer’s CPU performance must be good
enough to handle the real-time transcoding. Again,
your performance will vary, depending on the