Exporting a very long sequence out of FCP

[Stephan Walfridsson]

What format are you working in? Is the sequence rendered? What codec is your source material and your sequence? What kind of computer?

I would export it using “Export -> Quicktime” (not “Using Quicktime Conversion) as a self contained quicktime first and then recompress that using Compressor to a suitable format.

Stephan

[Chris Tompkins]

You should invest in some compression software. It makes you life SO much better. It’s an invaluable tool in our industry today.

Episode
Squeeze
And probably some others.

Export ref file outta FCP.
Drop file into episode.
compressed to any format needed.
Professional!

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta

[John Heagy]

Agreed… we export reference movies straight to an Episode watch folder. If all your footage matches the seq setting and all effects are rendered, a 3hr movie will take maybe 15min to export. The only reason it takes that long is because FCP ref movies don’t reference the audio, instead it fattens it into the exported movie. I wish FCP made true ref movies.

John Heagy

[Lawrence Richards]

Many thanks to you all! In the future I will endeavor to be more specific r.e. codecs, settings etc. but this is a good place to start. I will look into Episode. In the meantime, just exporting it as a QT movie seems to be working out a whole lot more quickly although it looks like it will take @8hrs. Hey, that’s better than 2 days!
Cheers, ya’ll!

Larry

Thank you!

Larry R.
Florida

[Lawrence Richards]

So I just checked out Episode. Pretty pricey. I already have Compressor. Can I use that instead?

Thank you!

Larry R.
Florida

[Stephan Walfridsson]

[Lawrence Richards] “So I just checked out Episode. Pretty pricey. I already have Compressor. Can I use that instead? “

Episode has more features than Compressor and handles more codecs, but for most people Compressor will be sufficient.

Stephan

[Donny Rowles]

Hi there – I noticed you shared some thoughts from someone having trouble exporting a long FCP sequence. I’m in a similar situation…I shot 3 hours and 16 mins on 2 cameras – and I’ve edited it, rendered it, and when I exported it the first time using standard QT export – the file took like 6 hours and was 140 Gigs. So I thought I’d try to shrink the file in my “quicktime conversion” settings – but that said it’d take like 14 hours. I read on here to export from FCP first – and then bring into Compressor.

My questions are – if I’m starting with a 140 Gig file – I’m thinking that there is no way that I’ll be able to shrink that in compressor to a level where I could fit this video onto a DVD, is there? I know that DVD movies that I watch often have more than 4 hours of footage on them – so I know high-level professionals can do this, but starting with a 140 Gig file I can’t see how I could make it work.

My goal is to get the video onto a DVD…or at a size where it can be streamed on a company’s intranet server.

Do you have any suggestions?

I shot the 3-hour sequence (very simple sequence – just a woman giving a long training) on 2 cameras – the better of which is a Panasonic HMC 150 in 1280 x 720.

Any advice would be great.
Thanks,
Donny