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Using clusters to speed up Compressor renders
Hi
Can anyone shed some light on the benefits of using Virtual Clusters with Compressor & Qmaster?
I set up a virtual cluster on a Mac Pro ‘Nehalem’ Quad core, instructing Compressor to use 4 instances.I tested it out on a 3min HVD clip, transcoding to ProRes. The cluster setup took 3 min 45 sec, while the normal render took 1 min 57 sec.
Can anyone tell me why the cluster is taking longer? Is it something to do with ‘stitching time’, and does this mean that clusters only save time when dealing with footage over a certain length?
Ultimately I would like to implement the use of a virtual cluster on my own Harpertaown 2.8 Ghz 8 core Mac Pro, if someone can explain how to make it actually work.Cheers
Franco
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3 Replies
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Yes, overhead will kill you with a small file like that. Do an hour-long file and the multi-core process will smoke your single-core compress.
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With that in mind, how should I set my compressor cluster up if my computer is the 27″ iMac with the 2.66ghz i5 processor inside? (8GB Ram) people hae suggested 1 virtual thing per every 2 cores, but I use 3 and it seems to go faster?
😀
Tom Morter-Laing
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
Production Assistant, Grace Productions
Degree; TV Production -
Experiment! Use the settings that works best for you.
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