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Should it take 6 hours to render 3 minutes of footage?
Hello. I don’t know much but have to get by just the same. Any help appreciated.
I’m making a video and using chrome key and mask. The background is a still image. I tried to just render the first three minutes and it took over 6 hours. Is that to be expected?
To render it i “sent it to compressor” and used the compressor to render it to a MPEG-2 422 Program Stream. When i use the Apple ProRes 422 it doesn’t take as long but the three minute file takes up 3gigs of space and i can’t have that). Is there a way to render it so it sources the original files like the old FCP did? (i don’t know if i worded that right)
I’m using FCP X my computer is a MacBook Pro, 2.66 Ghz core 2 duo with 4g RAM.
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8 Replies
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I’d strongly suggest not using send to compressor in this case – it’s very slow and generally not a desirable workflow.
FCPX can be very slow to render but it’s very much quicker – impressively quick, in fact – if you simply use the Share menu to Export a movie using the current settings. You can then take that file into compressor and do whatever you need.
I’m afraid you are going to have to live with the “large” file size – but really 3GB is absolutely tiny in today’s terms and storage is ridiculously cheap.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
In addition to what Simon said, I hope you are not rendering to the Macbook Pro system drive. At the very least you should have an external Firewire 800 drive hooked up.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style! -
Simon/Jason thanks for the response.
No, i’m rendering to my built int hard drive. does that slow it down? I plan on upgrading my RAM to 8 (from 4), is that worth it? is that going to make a good difference? Enough of a difference anyways to make it worth it?
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You will definitely get better performance by letting your system drive do its thing and have all your projects, video, rendering, etc, on separate drive. The best cost/performance ratio you can get will likely be an external drive unit with a Firewire 800 interface. I’m assuming your Macbook Pro has a Firewire 800 port. Upgrading your RAM to 8GB will definitely help you out as well.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style! -
Instead of Send to Compressor, try Export-Using Compressor Settings. They may sound like the same thing but you’ll find the latter to work much faster. Hope that helps.
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I’m not sure if this quirk is limited to my system, but I find that Compressor doesn’t kick in full force until after I quit FCPX. I’m not doing any work in FCPX while Compressor is rendering, just having it open causes Compressor to grind to a halt. It’s worth trying. I’d be interested in hearing anyone’s experience with this.
Tokyo
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have a look to the Activity monitor and have a look to how much CPU is busy.
Anyway I agree with Jason about an external disk and more RAM.
At least an external HD for media and render files.
If you say that you can’t export to Prores because makes too big files, you need to fix that.
rafael -
Great stuff, thanks for the help!
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