Blu Ray burning taking a long time, desperately need answers.

[David Eaks]

Encoding h.264 for Blu-ray with standard Apple hardware is slowwww. IIRC a 2 hour video took my 2008 8-core Mac Pro about 16 hours. Your 4 hour video may take something like 30 hours. Also, if FCPX’s share to blu-ray is similar to “send to compressor” from FCP7, it might add even more time to the encode. At that rate, if I am remembering (guessing?) correctly, you should be ~25% complete by now. Also, if it starts encoding the h.264 first, the time remaining might “think” that the second file (the .ac3 audio) will take just as long as the h.264. If so, it will assume a 60 hour encode time until it finishes the h.264, then it will “realize” that the second file just audio that only takes 5 min or so.

That said, it looks like the process has hung on the audio file. The .ac3 should only have elapsed 5-10 min by the time it is complete. I am pretty sure it is normal for one of the two files to have processed for 2 seconds then wait for its turn after the first file finishes.

I think it is generally considered that a better workflow is to export your timeline and bring the resulting .mov into Compressor but I haven’t used FCPX share to Blu-ray, so I have no comparison.

If you want to speed up your h.264 encodes, consider Matrox MAX. It does (just barely) faster than real time h.264 encoding on dedicated hardware, so a 4 hour video takes 4 hours. Even though the current situation with individual drivers for different Apps and OS’s is a complete mess and it’s been giving me hell trying to keep up to date, I still couldn’t live without it. So I deal with it, booting separate partitions for each App and sticking to the OS & App versions that are working reliably with it. I reccomend an MXO2 Mini with MAX. It’s $599.00 on B&H right now.

Also there is some Elgato Turbo USB Dongle thingy that I know nothing about but its supposed to accelerate h.264’s as well. I think it closer to $100, you’ll have to look into that one if interested.

Oh, and while it is always helpful to post system specs, OS version and such I don’t think you need to post the serial number!

[Priyank Shandilya]

Thanks David for your reply,

I just copied and pasted the system specs,,,my bad.
Currently I am 13 hr through & still the same thing the doesn’t move- its still 0% complete.

I purchased this burner coz it has a fire wire port and a friend suggested it.
According to other communities thsi should take about 2 hours or so with the kind of burner I have.

It should at least move a little to give me some hope after 12 hours 🙁

How should I burn this project currently on FCP X, thats the real question for me??????

30 hours is a looooooot.

[David Eaks]

I’ll tell you right now, with your current setup this is going to take much longer than two hours. This or that burner might make a 5-10 minute difference, which is negligible in comparison to the many hours it will take to create the H.264 file. Where did you hear that encoding a 4 hour video for Blu-ray would take only 2 hours?

You are 13 hours in, it still says: H.264 2 seconds elapsed 0% complete and .ac3 13 hours elapsed 0% complete, time to cancel and reboot the computer. If it was working you should be like 50% complete.

You can try to burn from FCPX again or Export your timeline (cmd-e). Import the resulting .mov into compressor. Apply the Apple Blu-ray video and audio settings, apply Job action to create blu-ray disc and suck it up, it’s going to be a while. Like, tomorrow evening long while.

[Michael Garber]

Export the project to a QuickTime file. I highly recommend adobe media encoder for compression. As for making the bluray you would then need to use adobe encore. Couldn’t tell you how long it will take.

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company

[Priyank Shandilya]

Thanks Guys (David & Michael)

I exported one of my project through FCP X export movie option using H.264 format and saved an image using Toast 10 Titanium to my desktop and burned the blu ray disc with that image. It took about 4 hours for a 2 hrs project to encode and burning took another 30 min.
The quality of the video is a little low but it’ll work.

Any suggestions on improving the video quality of the disc would be greatly appreciated?

Also, I burned a second project with the same procedure.
Saved an image on desktop> burned the blu ray disc using Toast however, I find a 3 sec video lag. You can hear the audio 3 sec prior to the actual dialog,,,,if you knw what I mean.
I checked the exported file to see whether that has the same issue on the computer or not but it doesnt.

I am guessing there may be something wrong with the image I saved on the desktop??????
For now I am encoding another image of the same project on my mac again and then try to burn…

If you guys think this will not help then please reply so that I can stop encoding & save time.

Thanks again.

[David Eaks]

[priyank shandilya] “Any suggestions on improving the video quality of the disc would be greatly appreciated?”

Yes, Michael and I each had suggested that you export .mov of your project. You chose to test out the H.264 export and found sub par results.

I suggested bringing the .mov into Compressor, Michael suggested using Media Encoder. Either way, you would get good results. You did neither.

I told you it will take a long time, which would have been close to finishing by now. You went the quick route and are not happy with the results.

[priyank shandilya] “For now I am encoding another image of the same project on my mac again and then try to burn…”

Another image just like the one you said the quality was low and asked for advise on improving video quality? Not advised.

There is a reason we suggested the methods above, quality. You can rush out crappy videos if you want, just don’t tell anyone I helped you in the process of creating them. Everything you did was contrary to the advice given.

[Oscar Piña]

I’m dealing with the same issue. Recently I update to Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and FCP X 10.0.6. The BluRay burning process have been improved. I’ve tried all of the ways described in this post in order to shorten the long transcoding process. I have a 2h:6min project (26 GB) and this is my routine:

In FCP X Share to BluRay Pionner external drive
Select my own background picture 16×9 (cropped in iPhoto)
Select include chapter markers

It has taken about 14 hours And now is burning. It is still to long time, but other ways are much more if you export a Quicktime master file first.

[Oscar Piña]

Results: BR DL disc not usable due to a FCP X share error. (US&8.00 loss)

Solution.:
Look Back to my alternate Encore BR project with a Quicktime H.264 1920×1080 movie exported from the original FCP X project.

Results: No Transcoding was necessary and the burning was perfect. Very decent Quality of the BluRay video.

Conclusion: Export a QuickTime Master File and create and build the BluRay disc with Encore. (CS6 in my case). This is better for large projects.