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Need advice on speeding up render time
I am trying to render 4-5 hour videos in final cut and it is taking forever. The last one I did took 4 and a half days to render a 4-hour video! The video is WMV (recorded from Go To Meeting). Go To Meeting only outputs WMV at whatever the presenter’s resolution is (1900×1200 in my case). I have my sequence set to NTSC in final cut, since I am outputting to DVD.
My machine specs are:
2.16 Core 2 Duo
4GB RAM
RadeonX1600
7200RPM internal HDSomeone please help.
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7 Replies
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COnvert the footage to ProREs BEFORE you edit. That way you won’t have to render in FCP at all. The conversion process happens once, and then you are done.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
So it’s better to convert it to prores in compressor, THEN bring into FCP?
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Yes. convert to a standard size and codec that FCP likes to work with.
It will be much easier for you.Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Whenever I try to convert my 1.5GB video, it outputs it into a huge file. 25% through the compression process, it had turned my 1.5GB file into a 4GB file.
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Yes, that is quite normal. And 4GB is really pretty small for a video file. ProRes is designed for editing. WMV is not. It’s highly compressed and not suited for use. ProRes is, the tradeoff is larger file sizes.
If you want to edit native, look at Adkbe Premiere cs5.5
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I have edited HD footage before. However since it is only a 1.5GB file for a 5 hour video, I am confused how it can get that much information to exponentially increase the file size, especially since it isn’t HD footage.
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With WMV every second or two it will draw a key frame, then for subsequent frames it notes what changes instead of drawing it from scratch. This saves space, allowing your file to be 1.5gb, but it also makes it very difficult for an editor to work the the file. For Final Cut to show a particular frame it may have to draw 30 other frames before it can start looking at the frame you want to see. Also this is a specialised Windows format – it isn’t going to do well on a Mac. You’ll have much better performance with Windows Movie Maker, not that you’ll have a quarter of the capability of Final Cut.
With ProRes every frame is stored as its own image. This takes more space, but is much easier for the computer to work with. If you convert up front to a standard frame size (720×480, 1280x720x 1920×1080) and work with a codec in the ProRes family (ProRes LT sounds appropriate for this project) Final Cut will be much more friendly.
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