RAM Allocation and Media Transcoding not working?

Question

So as much as I love Final Cut Pro X and all of the great new features, I've come across two big concerns that I can't seem to fix or find a solution too.
1. I have heard that FCPX can basically use as much RAM that you can throw at it. This to me means that the more I get, the quciker things will Render, and Transcode and editing should be smoother. Considering that my iMac (Quad Core i7 3.4 ghz) is the latest model and it only came with 4gb of RAM, I decided to upgrade my RAM. I recently bought and installed 32 gb (4 sticks fo 8gb) of RAM. I know the Maximum says 16gb, however Crucial claims to have done significant testing on the RAM and says that the i7 can in fact work with it no problem and it seems to show up and work so far. My main concern though is that even with all of that RAM FCPX doesn't seem to be using nearly that much. I tried giving it tasks such as transcoding some files and applying a lot of effects to things in the timeline and it only seems to be using about 3 or 4 gbs worth of RAM, which is nothing compared to the 32gb that it should be using. I literally have things waiting to be transcoded or rendered when I ahve plenty of free RAM just waiting to be used. To me this doesn't seem correct. Does FCPX have some sort of RAM allocation control or does anyone know what I can do to make FCPX realize I have that much RAM and tell it to use it? Has anyone else had this issue? I was thinking maybe erasing the preference files? Maybe something in the preferences thinks that the RAM is still only 4gb?
2. My second question is in regards to Transcoding. I've read alot online that says it is best to Transcode your footage to Pro Res on Import to make sure it is at the optimal settings to edit in FCPX. My original footage is h.264 from my DSLR and works, but if I can convert it to Pro Res and it runs even smooother, I would love to do so. I know this option comes up when you import, but I have recently discovered that you can right click on a files in the Event Browser and tell it to Transcode after the fact. Since I have a lot of clips I thought maybe grabbing all of hte clips at once and telling it to batch Transcode all at once would be helpful, especially considering how much RAM I have now, but it doenst seem to be working. Upon trying that I noticed the first clip goes like normal, but then it just stops. The rest of hte clips just stay frozen and don't move at all. I can play and pause the Trancoding options in the Render Window, but still nothing continues. It just stays frozen. I've tried with smaller batches and it still doesn't seem to work. Any ideas on why my transcoding just stops. I usually have to cancel that Trancode process and try again, but still nothing. Why is this happening?
Any ideas?
-Mike

Answer 1

M. Video Productions wrote:
My main concern though is that even with all of that RAM FCPX doesn't seem to be using nearly that much. I tried giving it tasks such as transcoding some files and applying a lot of effects to things in the timeline and it only seems to be using about 3 or 4 gbs worth of RAM, which is nothing compared to the 32gb that it should be using. I literally have things waiting to be transcoded or rendered when I ahve plenty of free RAM just waiting to be used.
If the program has enough RAM to do it's assigned work, more RAM will not speed things up. RAM does not necessarily equate to speed of operation. Transcoding still requires disk write operations.