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Life’s too short for Compressor, G5 kicks Mac Pro’s butt by 10X for DVDs!
Using a Mac Pro Quad 3.0, exporting 6 minutes of 8 bit 720×486 via compressor to MPEG2 for DVDSP, 60 minutes.
Uisng a G5 dual 2.5, exporting same 6 minutes via Quicktime MPEG2 (not available in Intel Macs), 6 minutes!Quality MAY be slightly better in compressor, but if you are doing a rough cut, you will want to use the FAST one!
Does anyone have a 3rd party app for this? Or will we have to bring signs and protest (again) at Apple’s booth at NAB? I will make the T-shirts…I make a lot of DVD’s, and when you think about it, Apple has cut my LIFE short by discontinuing this feature.
(both machines using FCPHD 5.1.3)
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20 Replies
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“Using a Mac Pro Quad 3.0, exporting 6 minutes of 8 bit 720×486 via compressor to MPEG2 for DVDSP, 60 minutes.”
If it’s taking 60 minutes to compress a 6 min segment, you have something seriously wrong. My Intel Pro 2.66 is way faster than that, more like 5 minutes or less. Not sure where you are going wrong, but something isn’t right.
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
[Joe Langenfeld] “Uisng a G5 dual 2.5, exporting same 6 minutes via Quicktime MPEG2 (not available in Intel Macs), 6 minutes!”
That’s not available via FCP 5.0 and beyond. You must be using FCP 4.5 or older on that machine. You’re getting an inferior MPEG-2 compression with that. With FCP 5, you now have to go into Compressor to do MPEG-2 compression.
However, it should not take an hour to do 6 minutes. Maybe 10 minutes max, but probably not even that long. I know our Mac Pro Quad 3.0 screams through MPEG-2 work.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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“I know our Mac Pro Quad 3.0 screams through MPEG-2 work.”
So are you saying that the new Macs are LOUD? Is that internal speaker or does it come through your monitors? Maybe you are having an Audio Units malfunction. I was under the impression that Apples machines no longer complained as much. Now if they also “kick”, I would say get the he ll out of that room!” Be safe!
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Hi
To clarify: QuickTime Export direct from QT Player to MPEG-2 is available to FCP 5, and QT 7, but only under OS X 10.3.9.
Its Tiger that takes away that functionality.
Caveat: I haven’t had this setup since the earlier versions of FCP 5 and QT 7, so any later upgrades that still run under 10.3.9 might not work. -
Well, obviously the MPEG export still works with 10.4.8 and FCP 5.1.3 on a G5 because that is what I am using. You may have to re-install DVDSP 2.0 to get this function back.
I’m not sure what I am doing wrong, if anything, with compressor to get these long times…I am using DVD Best Quality 90 minutes 4×3 in compressor on the Mac Pro, and on the G5 side I changed the MPEG2 settings to 2 pass and best, which gives nearly indistinguishable quality compared to compressor. I get similar long compressor times on my Macbook Pro dual 2G…
These are filter laden sequences with many layers…I will try to output a single, unfiltered clip to see if that makes a difference.
You should see the times with HDV!
Still, it looks like there may be a market for a 3rd party “MP2 fast export” filter. (And a A57/ADO style DVE? Yes, I am showing my age!)
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OK, the single layer unfiltered clip takes only about 12 minutes, consistant with other peoples’ experiences. So to avoid the 60 minute encode on the effects laden sequence (and yes, it was fully rendered), the next best thing to using the G5 again, is to output a QT and use that as the source for Compressor.
So you would have to add the 5 minutes or so it takes to output the sequence to the 12 minutes that compressor takes to encode for a 17 minute total, still slow compared to the 4-5 minutes in the G5 with MPEG2 export. And the G5 is doing this with the media disks mounted via gigabyte ethernet.
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[Joe Langenfeld] “Well, obviously the MPEG export still works with 10.4.8 and FCP 5.1.3 on a G5 because that is what I am using. You may have to re-install DVDSP 2.0 to get this function back.”
Nope, it was taken away at some point in the FCP 5.1 development. Did you install a third party MPEG-2 software plug?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Walter, I do not have a 3rd party Mpeg 2 export. it’s the original QT export. It did not go away on my system with the 5.1 Upgrade. I noticed awhile ago in a FCP upgrade (back in the 4’s?) that it did go away, and I was able to get it back by installing DVDSP 2.0. I called Apple immediately when it disappeared and was able to get it back. I make a lot of rough cut DVD’s, so the quicker, lower quality encode is just fine for most of them. If you know of a 3rd party MPEG2 export, please let me know.
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Hey Joe..
I have to suspect a memory issue. I had this same issue with my system at the start and found that FCP on a Mac Pro needs to have the memory configured in a specific way in order to get the proper performance. Check out the Apple doc on this issue:
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304492
Give this a look!
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
[Joe Langenfeld] “I get similar long compressor times on my Macbook Pro dual 2G…”
Really? I don’t have a MacPro yet, but I do have MacBook Pro and I will often export programs to my laptop for Mpeg2 encoding. I can get 4 movies crunched on my MacBook Pro before my dual 2.0 G5 will finish with one. I’d triple check your settings.
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