Wrong Configuration To Imrove Rendering Speed?

[Alan Okey]

Hard drive throughput is not the bottleneck for rendering. Rendering speed is limited by CPU speed and how well the software is optimized to utilize multiple cores/CPUs. In the case of FCP, it\’s not well optimized at all, especially compared to Compressor / Qmaster. This is one of the biggest complaints about the current version of FCP.

[Mark Fanjoy]

Thanks Allen, for the response. I’m a little bit technical, but I think you are basically saying my rendering speed is what it is based on my current computer system and the Dulce Drives will not help much in that Department. Bummer.

I’m on FC6.06. Has that issue been addressed and will I improve rendering performance with a V7 Upgrade?

Thanks again.

Fanjoy

Wherever I am…I’m lost!

[Jeremy Garchow]

No. Hard drive speed will help rendering minimally ( as you have seen). Processor performance is what helps ended times. That and efficient coding. You still did the right thing by buying the raid, though.

[David Roth weiss]

As the others have said, the RAID is not about faster renders, that’s purely about computational speed.

A fast RAID is all about vastly imp[roved throughput, which means fewer renders, as it helps to achieve substantially improved realtime playback of complex sequences and added layers without hitting the “render wall.”

Your renders may not be faster, but what you’ll find with your new RAID is that your day to day editing experience will be much better and your productivity will increase in spite of the renders, because you’ll be able to do the renders on your own time rather than when compelled to render when constantly running out of system overhead.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

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

[Alan Okey]

[Mark Fanjoy] “I’m on FC6.06. Has that issue been addressed and will I improve rendering performance with a V7 Upgrade? “

Unfortunately not. In fact, there is evidence that shows that if anything, FCP7 is slower than FCP 6 at rendering. That has been proven to be the case with Compressor:

https://www.barefeats.com/fcp7.html

All we can do is hope and pray that the next version of FInal Cut Studio will bring better optimization for multicore machines and perhaps even 64-bit support, although that hinges entirely on Quicktime becoming fully 64-bit capable first.

[John Fishback]

Your graphics card’s GPU can also make a difference in render times. Certain effects like FXPlug use the GPU as does Motion & Color. I’m not up on the current “best,” but the ATI 4870 is very good.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Will Griffith]

… try Adobe CS5.

I use it to export when finished with edit in FCP.

FLV, H.264… basically any format in Adobe Media Encoder renders much faster than Compressor.

No hardware upgrade needed. 🙂

-will

[Alan Okey]

[Will Griffith] “FLV, H.264… basically any format in Adobe Media Encoder renders much faster than Compressor. “

Faster, maybe. Quality, not so much. Adobe Media Encoder’s deinterlacing and scaling quality is downright abysmal.

At my day job we actually preprocess output from FCP using Compressor to perform deinterlacing and/or downscaling, using Best for scaling quality and Better for deinterlacing. AME (at least CS4) has no equivalent to the Frame Controls section of Compressor. We output a ProRes intermediate file from Compressor that is then encoded to .flv in AME. The results are substantially better looking than encoding from the original full-res master using AME alone. It does add more time, but the quality improvement is worth it to our clients.

[Mark Fanjoy]

Wow! A lot of great input. Thank you everyone! Makes me feel more comfortable about my expensive purchase, if nothing else. I bought the RAID primarily for peace of mind to protect my client data. But was hopeful increased rendering speed would be a lucky bonus.

Thanks again everyone for your insights.

Fanjoy

Wherever I am…I’m lost!

[Mark Fanjoy]

[Your graphics card’s GPU can also make a difference in render times. Certain effects like FXPlug use the GPU as does Motion & Color. I’m not up on the current “best,” but the ATI 4870 is very good.]

John, one more question on this topic for you if I may (or anyone else is appreciated!)

I have in my Mac Pro an ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics card. Am I adequate, or could I do better in relationship to potentially improving my rendering time?

Thanks,
Fanjoy

Wherever I am…I’m lost!