rendering before sending to compressor?

[David Roth weiss]

For sure you should render, unless you have lots and lots of time on your hands to waste.

Furthermore, you should consider exporting first before bring to Compressor, using Export>>Quicktime Movie at current settings (don’t check the re-render all frames box). This way you make a one to one copy of your timeline that is identical in every way, and you can continue editing in FCP while Compressor chugs away.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Manuela Corbari]

Thanks,
will the end result be the same though (quality wise), with these 3 methods?
-send to compressor without rendering
-rendering first (it takes hours anyway!!) and then sending to compressor
-export as QT with current settings and then compressor

there’s always something new to know..
Thank u
Manuela

[David Roth weiss]

Well, there’s any easy answer to that one and a difficult answer too…

In a nutshell you are far less likely to encounter difficulties (such as black frames or missing audio) by rendering first before exporting with Compressor or just out of FCP.

Regarding quality, essentially the same in all three, except when encoding to MPEG2 using 2-pass method rather than constant bitrate method. That sets different bitrates for each clip, which can be good or not so good, depending on the material. That’s a whole discussion though for a different day…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.