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To Render or Not to Render, That is the Question….
Just curious about the FULL RENDER option in the Sequence > Render All menu… FCP ships with this turned off by default.
We have almost always laid off to DigiBeta without doing this FULL and final render. The dark green FULL only shows up on clips with various Color correct, lower 3rds and stuff… ie clips with more than a few FX. So far in all the years of doing this there has been no apparent loss of quality.
Now as I understand it the FULL render line shows up on the timeline when FCP decides that your computer CAN handle all the FX with no problems…. but on the rare occasion FCP does the math wrong and it can NOT push it out at FULL quality, and thus something is lost – I assume quality rather than frames…
I talked to a one person and it seems that on ‘high end’ show a FULL render is done – even if it takes ages…
So please guru’s please pipe in… do you or don’t you? Is my understanding of what the FULL option does correct?
System: Dual 2.0 G5, OSX 10.4.?, 4 GIG of Ram. As this is a multi-year question its been FCPro 4 to 5.1.? Mostly with a Kona 1 card, more recently with a Kona 2.
Thanks.
Thanks,
Harry.Forum Cowmunity Leader: Indie & Doc
Forum Cowmunity Leader: HDVDual 1.8 G5 ** 1GB ** 10.4.8 (Office / Photoshop)
Dual 2.0 G5 ** 4GB ** 10.4.8 Kona 2 (FCP Machine) -
7 Replies
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At the office,, on dual 2.0 g5’s (4gig ram), the news break guys use Targa GFX that transition from one to another, using simple dissolves, over video on an hourly segment,, with “render full” off, the GFX shift a line or 2 and slightly pixelate during the dissolve transitions.. It looks aweful. The same goes for PSD’s. With “render full” on, everything looks like it should.
as for myself,, If i’m working on larger projects that are not time sensitive (of course everything is,, i mean live broadcast deadline day of…) then I leave it off until im ready to output a rough cut for review, or final project.
When I am working with a fast approaching deadlines, I leave render full on,,Colin McQuillan
Vancouver BC -
As long as your prefs are set to output to tape at full quality you can get away woth working in dynmaic or even medium to low res to push the capabilities of your hardware with FCP. Once you lay off to tape FCP will render anything that needs it into full res for layoff.
Keith Larsen
Founder
Connecticut Final Cut Pro User Group
CTFCPUG -
I render full just to take the load of the CPUs on output. To learn that the quality is better if you render emphasizes the fact that you really should do this. I would also do this in Avid as well.
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters -
I always have it on and render as I go, not one final time at the end, not towards the middle, always. Mostly for the reasons that Colin says about still frames. After rendering the PAR gets corrected properly and sometimes FCP doesn’t calculate this well on the fly.
Really, FCPs rendering is still pretty fast and I’m working on a Dual 2.0 G5 and working in 10bit HD and SD. If I wanted more rt and shorter render times, I’d work in a lower rez, which I do for offline and preview purposes. I online @ 10bit as close to the end of the project as I can (within reason). Once everything is rendered fully, you really don’t have to wait that long for subsequent changes/renders.
Two pennies:
Jeremy
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I always do a full render before I output to tape. I just consider it “best practices.” It just opens the door to something going wrong later if I don’t.
-Russ
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Same here.
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Thanks for all the answers. I love it when they are all the same rather than a smattering of conflicting advice.
Thanks,
Harry.Forum Cowmunity Leader: Indie & Doc
Forum Cowmunity Leader: HDVDual 1.8 G5 ** 1GB ** 10.4.8 (Office / Photoshop)
Dual 2.0 G5 ** 4GB ** 10.4.8 Kona 2 (FCP Machine)
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