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Quicktime Conversion is Slow/Out of Memory
Subject:
Quicktime Conversion is Slow/Out of MemoryMessage:
I am trying to export a 16-min video that the client wants delivered as an MPEG-4. The client sent me the specs they need in order to post the video on their website – they have asked me to go through QT Conversion with these settings:Format H.264
Data rate 1100
Optimized for DL
Image Size 640 x 360
Frame rate 30
Key Frames every 30 framesAudio AAC-LC
Date rate 128 kbps
Stereo
Sample Rate 44.100 kHz
Encoding Quality betterThey also want me to deinterlace the video through QT Conversion and not in the timeline itself. Once I have a QT, then I can export from Quicktime to MPEG4 (that usually works – it’s just getting a Quicktime out of Quicktime Conversion that is giving me trouble right now). I don’t see a what to deinterlace if I go straight to QT so I think I am stuck exporting with QT conversion.
My computer has been compressing for an hour already and it says it’s only 15% done and needs about 7 more hours to complete the export of 16-Min clip. It shouldn’t be taking this long, but I don’t know what is bogging things down.
Besides it taking so long, I keep getting the Out of Memory error. I have 12G of memory on my G5 dual core tower, and I am exporting to a 5T drive, so I don’t get how memory can be the issue. I have followed the suggestions I have already seen on the COW — I have trashed my preferences and restarted. I have created a whole new project file with just the final mixed master in the timeline. I have repaired all my permissions. Nothing else is running but FCP. According to my activity monitor, I have 12 GB of memory on my system and FCP is only using 1.99GB of it, so at least 9GB are free.
What else can I try? I appreciate your help. There must be a faster, easier way that what I am currently doing.
Thanks for your suggestions. -
3 Replies
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Hi Deborah, if I’m following you correctly, you are exporting your video in two steps? Why don’t you export directly from your timeline using “File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion…” (Or use Compressor, for that matter).
But if you are getting out of memory errors, there could also be an issue with some of the clips or render files in your timeline. Have you tried deleting your render cache? Are there lots of graphics in your timeline? Could one of them be corrupt? Do you have any other projects on the go that you can do a test export with? If you can export other materials without trouble, then that would point to an issue with the one specific timeline.
Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto -
That is exactly how I was exporting — directly from the Timeline — File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion. I had to go that way in order to de-interlace. Yes, the project is gfx heavy. Yes, I deleted the render cache.
The maddening this is that I have exported from this same timeline many times, including the day before when I exported a QT to take to the mix.
The way I ended up working around this for the final output to the web was using the video from the .mov I had taken to the mix the day before, since that was pix locked anyway, and then taking the stereo tracks from the mix, and putting those two things in a brand new timeline (so I ended up with 1 video track and 2 audio tracks instead of the 18 video tracks I had in the original timeline). That worked fine, although it still took 2 hours to compress a 16 minute clip.
Does HD just take a lot longer?
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“Does HD just take a lot longer?”
Absolutely it does, especially on a G5 (that’s the machine you are using, I think).
More info in your original post would have helped … like the fact you are exporting HD. You also didn’t mention any of the specs of your timeline (codec, frame rate, etc).
Because you are using the “best” setting in the h264 options, FCP is doing a two pass encode, which also adds significant time to the process. Were you using different settings when you did your earlier, faster exports?
The RAM usage you mentioned is normal, FCP never uses more then 2.5 gigs … as has been mentioned many, many times on the forum 🙂 But that shouldn’t matter, exporting video is mostly a processor intensive tasks, not a RAM intensive task. Unless: sometimes I see the out of memory error if I have an insanely huge still graphic in the timeline, or PSD file with tons of layers. Could that be the culprit? Maybe FCP is having trouble caching too many layers of graphic files at once. A little cleanup/flattening/optimization of you graphic layers might be in order, if its possible.
A workaround might be to export a self contained quicktime using “current sequence settings,” then open that in QT player or compressor and then do the h264 encode. Compressor can do the de-interlacing you require. But at the end of the day you can’t get around the fact that h264 is computationally intensive and you have an older machine.
Hope this helps,
Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto
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