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Rendering HDV for web with IMAC… slow render
Hi guys, I am a qualified level 1 FCP user and yet I am clueless lol. Basically I have a canon XH-A1 Camera and love shooting HDV. Problem is in post production. Capturing HDV is very quick but once I put on timeline and add magic bullet looks or lower third title the bar goes orange and playback is very choppy. I set RT to unlimited and dynamic dynamic and in sequence settings set to render prores 422. When i click render a 30 second clip will take about 3 mins to render which is a long time for me. Im guessing it might be my system that Im using cant cope editing HDV. At the mo I run:
IMAC 2.8GHZ INTEL CORE 2 DUO, Memory 2GB 800MHZ DDR2 SDRAM and has a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS, I also have a firewire 800 1tb hardrive for media.
Is this the norm or is it because my system is not up to it? People say convert to prores and get raid, but I dont understand what they mean by raid, which raid system as there are a few? Also Prores I know takes up alot of space and Im not sure if I can Export back to HD Web which is what i want to do mainly HD web showing for my short films and product adverts.
Any advice or suggestions would be great. I was looking at getting a Mac Pro with following specs:
Processor: two 3.0GHZ Quad Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 4GB
Hard Drive: 500GB 7200-rpm
Graphics: NVIDIA GeFORCE 8800 GT 512MB
Optical Drive: Two 16x Superdrives
Apple Display: Apple Cinema Display 20” Flat Panelbut might have to wait till funds allow me
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3 Replies
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If you upgrade to a Mac Pro, you could capture your HDV as ProRes, and speed those renders up big time… You’d want to populate the internal hard drives with SATA’s… they would capture prores in their sleep… and they cost less than FW enclosed drives.
In general, your workflow will be much better with an 8 core machine all round… might want a touch more RAM though if you run a bunch of apps at the same time. 8 gigs for a really happy experience doing this.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO, CD’s
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Thanks Jerry, Im really only going to use this for FCP so wont need much more ram Im guessing. Do you think what Im trying to achieve is too much for my imac then? Also if I didnt want to go prores as I know it takes up alot of space and not sure of what issues ill encounter when exporting to web hd Id rather stay native hdv if possible but render quicker
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Renders are faster if you set the sequence to render to ProRes. Done by selecting the sequence then typing cmd+zero… look in the Video Processing tab..
But there’s no doubt about an 8 core running circles around an iMac… it’s likely 2 times faster at least, and if the hype surrounding Snow Leopard pans out… it will be even faster yet (mulitcore processing improvements are said to be part of Snow Leopard). There are benchmarks you can see too at https://www.barefeats.com
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO, CD’s
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