Adding a lower third bug almost quadrupled my render time?

[David Bogie]

Every frame had to be rendered.
You should have imported the previously rendered SD footage and placed the lower third over that and exported to SD. Easy and quick.

Going from 720 to SD is a huge computational exercise. Adding transparency complicates everything by another large factor.

Streamlining render and export pipelines takes experience that leads to logical applications of work previously accomplished.

bogiesan

[Anthony Popolo]

Thanks,
I understand each frame had to be rendered, but it makes no sense to me why adding one layer of video quadrupled the render time. At worse case I would think double maybe.
My previously rendered footage (without the logo) was rendered and compressed to SD mpeg2 so I didn’t want to import compressed footage as my base video for the logo version.
-A

[Walter Biscardi]

[Anthony Popolo] “At worse case I would think double maybe.”

A solid logo maybe, but you said it was semi-transparent. MUCH more math to compute to make the logo transparent over each frame.

This is one of the beauties of the AJA Kona 3 and one reason why we have them in our shop. We can add a bug in realtime on the way out so in your case, I would play out my HD timeline to one of our Panasonic 1400 decks. Then recapture the footage back into my system, downconverting it to SD via the Kona during capture. Then compress that for the DVD.

Total time would be around 4 hours and it would be cleaner than just using FCP.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
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[David Roth weiss]

[Anthony Popolo] “I understand each frame had to be rendered, but it makes no sense to me why adding one layer of video quadrupled the render time.”

Also, how large is the bug in the original file? If you’re taking a full-sized 1920×1080 graphic (or larger) and scaling it down to bug size on the timeline, then re-rendering over the every frame of video, that’s a huge resource hog. If you scale the bug down to size before supering it over your video things will go considerably faster.

David Roth Weiss
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David Weiss Productions, Inc.
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[Anthony Popolo]

Thanks,
The bug is actual size for the video, and it was created in pshop as an alpha layer on a canvas the same size as the video (720×1280). In other words I have a transparent pshop document 720×1280 with the small logo located in the corner. So there was no scaling required, but there is “transparency” of the pshop file over the rest of the frame. Is all the photoshop “transparency” still adding to the render time?

Thanks
Anthony

[Anthony Popolo]

Oops. My bad. I just realized the “frame” I was using was in fact from a previous 1080 project (not the current 720), so yes, there was downscaling occurring (albeit not a whole lot, but math is math) for each frame, just as you pointed out.
Thanks for highlighting that.
A

[Michael Sacci]

(Assuming you are using a preset or a custom VBR encode)

Want to see your encoding times go WAY down.

If all you are putting on the DVD is this movie, you should be using CBR as the encoding method. Apple does not give you a preset so you have to change and save one for that. But for 90 minutes your Video bitrate can be as high as 6.5Mbps (as long as you use ac3 audio, which you should be) With a bitrate this high it is foolish to use VBR for two reasons. First, the VBR encoding times can be 2-6 times longer. Secondly, the quality will NOT be as good, yes not as good. High rate CBR will yield the highest quality at less encoding times. VBRs power is to get high quality when you need to use a low-mid average bitrate.

[Anthony Popolo]

Thanks. That’s good to know.
Unfortunately, for this project I’m putting a lot on each dvd, so my bitrate is below 3. I’ve been using VBR and the finished quality is better than I would have expected. At a bitrate that low, do you think CBR would do the job, or do you think I should stay VBR?
A

[David Bogie]

[Anthony Popolo] “I understand each frame had to be rendered, but it makes no sense to me why adding one layer of video quadrupled the render time. At worse case I would think double maybe.
My previously rendered footage (without the logo) was rendered and compressed to SD mpeg2 so I didn’t want to import compressed footage as my base video for the logo version. “

You missed all the points I was trying to make and you just keep arguing with everyone else that this shouldn’t be big deal. Your workflow is flawed.
And in your last post you finally let it drop that you’ve been scaling your logo AND you’re using VBR? Sheesh.

bogiesan

[Anthony Popolo]

Sorry, I didn’t think I was arguing with anyone. I appreciated everyone’s input, and actually learned things I didn’t know before (which is kind of the reason I come to these forums).
If I knew them all, I wouldn’t have posted my question.