Render times extended?

[Tom Brooks]

You don’t mention the type of media or sequence settings you are using. That would be helpful.

What is the purpose of your exported movie? To go to Compressor for DVD? The first possible explanation is that you might be recompressing everything on export. Assuming, as you say, that all clips are rendered on the timeline, the fastest export to QT movie would be to Export Quicktime Movie, Use Current Settings, do not check Recompress All Frames, do not check Make Movie Self-Contained. This will create a reference movie which refers to the media already contained in your project. The reference movie can be used in Compressor to make MPEG-2 or other formats.

Even if you check “Make Self-Contained” it should not take 6 days. This could indicate some sort of system problem involving permissions, disk space, disk directory corruption, etc.

[Pino Catalano]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your reply.

The footage I am using is from my uncle and they are mpeg4 clips which I’m assuming is the main problem? I just dropped the footage onto the timeline and let it sort it out for me…

I want to export the QT movie so that I can take it to DVDSP and author a DVD.

I did all of what you suggest for the export except I did check ‘make self contained’. Would you be kind enough to explain what you mean when you say it makes a referenced movie to the media in my project? I thought when this was checked it was a seperate .mov file, is this assumption incorrect?

I have plenty of space on my hardrive and I have repaired all system permissions, my MBP is working properly and that’s why I’m stuck with this.

I appreciate your help on this, thank you.

Pino

[Tom Brooks]

Yes, the MP4 explains a lot. That’s a delivery format, not an editing format. It’s best to convert those types of clips to a standard edit format before bringing into Final Cut. A great way to do that is to use the free program, MPEG Streamclip. You open the clips in that and export to Quicktime with the DV codec. Then bring the converted clips into Final Cut. You should see all sorts of improvement in the operability of the program that way. Of course, the conversion will need to be done wisely to avoid scaling and interlacing pitfalls. That’s beyond the scope of what I can tell you at this point.

One question: When you first placed one of the clips in your timeline, did Final Cut ask whether you wanted to change sequence settings to match the source clip and did you say yes?

A reference movie is a Quicktime movie that does not contain actual video and audio media within it. A reference movie points to–refers to–media that is stored somewhere else. For example, your exported reference movie would be a very small file which would refer to video and audio media stored in the clips on your scratch disk. Reference movies are a good way to export from Final Cut if you are going to use the movie for further processing on the same computer–say, for compressing to MPEG-2.

[Pino Catalano]

Tom, you’re a great help, I’ll be downloading mpeg streamclip when I get home!

Yes, and I said yes to allow FC to change the sequence to match the clip settings.

Ok, I understand what you mean now… How does the exported referenced movie file work? Can that be used the same way I would a self contained QT movie to create my DVD in DVDSP (provided it’s on the same computer)?

[Tom Brooks]

[Pino Catalano] “Yes, and I said yes to allow FC to change the sequence to match the clip settings. “

OK, so FCP changed the sequence into this non-edit format. That’s generally a problem. The pre-conversion is the way to go. Good luck with it.

Yes, a reference movie can be used just the same, as long as the media it refers to is accessible–generally on the same computer to keep it simple. Before you export from FCP, your sequence should be fully rendered–no colored lines over the timeline.

[Pino Catalano]

Great, Just so I understand this correctly…
I export the sequence as a QT movie
uncheck ‘make self contained’
bring it into DVDSP create my menues etc
Render out the final DVD and that’s it?

You’ve been so much help, thanks a million Tom!

[Tom Brooks]

That’s right. If you want more control over the compression process, you can compress for DVD in Compressor and import the MPEG-2 and AC-3 files into DVDSP.

[Tom Brooks]

I should add that many folks prefer to work with self-contained files for various reasons. But if it’s strictly an intermediate the reference movie can be a great way to go.

[Pino Catalano]

Ah, I have so much to learn! Thank you for parting with some of knowledge.

Pino
(aspiring to be a pro!)

[Pino Catalano]

Hi Tom,
I converted my clips which took only a few minutes and then put them back into FCP to render out the entire video with soundtrack and it took me 33minutes! I’m so thankful for your help!

I don’t know much about codecs and what the difference is between each one, is there a website that can educate me on this?

Thanks again!
Pino