Compressing AVC quicker?

[Chris Borjis]

are you using a quick cluster? that will speed things up.

[Andy Carroll]

I am not, and I didn’t know that was a possibility, is there a quick reference guide to setting one up somewhere handy?

Mac Pro – Mac OS X 10.5.8 – 2 x 3 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon – 6 GB ram – 6 TB Raid Array
MacBook Pro – Mac OS X 10.6.4 – 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo – 4gb 1067mhz DDR3

[Paul Jay]

Go to Qmaster in System preferences.
Service -> Click on Compressor.
Options for selected services ->> choose All your cores
Start Sharing.

Start Compressor.
Create a Job
Hit submit.
Instead of THIS Computer –>> Choose your MacPro Cluster.

[Tony Silanskas]

[Paul Jay] “Options for selected services ->> choose All your cores”

There is a lot of debate about the best combination of settings for QMaster and the specific Mac you have. The fastest settings I’ve seen for MacPro’s are:

4-Core – Options for selected services – choose 3 cores
8 and 12-Core – Options for selected services – choose 6 cores.

Also if you can, make sure you install RAM in sets of 3: for a 4-Core system install 3 RAM chips and not 4, and on the 8 and 12-core systems install 6, 3 in one chassis and 3 in the other.

The newer intel architecture for the MacPros uses a 3-channel memory system and this helps you get the fastest throughput for RAM and speeds up mulit-core operations like QMaster with Compressor.

And remember, QMaster is like a bittersweet love, sometimes it works great and sometimes you can’t get it to do anything. If this happens, try restarting as that fixes a lot of weird QMaster issues. But look the forums and you’ll see quite a bit of problems.

tony

[Andy Carroll]

Well I thought this would fix it, but I have tried with 4 and 8 cores, and it just errors after a few seconds every time =\

Mac Pro – Mac OS X 10.5.8 – 2 x 3 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon – 6 GB ram – 6 TB Raid Array
MacBook Pro – Mac OS X 10.6.4 – 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo – 4gb 1067mhz DDR3

[Paul Jay]

You do have only 6GB of ram.
You could try 4 instances.
But when you say errors, what kind of errors.
We need more info.

Do you use ‘send to compressor’?
Or standalone?

Maybee your FCS install is corrupted.
Try a reinstall with FCS remover.

[Jeff Greenberg]

Setting up a QuickCluster (with loads of pretty pictures) from Digital Rebellion

Setting up a quickcluster (Apple Documentation)

Oh yeah, turn ‘Back to my Mac’ off. It can cause problems with this.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer
Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
Avid & Color Videos Vasst.com
Compressor Essentials Lynda.com

[Andy Carroll]

Thanks everyone for the help. I exported the file as an MOV and then opened compressor separately and it worked great! The links for the setup were excellent too!

Mac Pro – Mac OS X 10.5.8 – 2 x 3 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon – 6 GB ram – 6 TB Raid Array
MacBook Pro – Mac OS X 10.6.4 – 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo – 4gb 1067mhz DDR3