export final cut express takes damn long time

[roslee7]

i try to edit some videos from my canon ixus 100 hi definition video into final cut express ver 4 and the setting for export that i chosed was - using quicktime conversion>H.264>Best quality>1280x720p. It takes so long to export the video and sometimes i get frustrated and i switch to imovie and it does not take that long compare to final cut express. can anyone help me ? btw, the original video that i import from my canon ixus 100 camera was in hi defintion quality.

 

[freiheit]

FCE4 is not the fastest

Final Cut Express 4 is not the fastest piece of software around. And it does not scale with more than 2 processor cores. On my quad-core Mac Pro it uses at most 200% CPU. I would be curious to know what what system you have and what /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor shows as the CPU % for iMovie when you're exporting. If it's using more than 2 cores, I might switch.

 

[roslee7]

thanks for your help. i am using macbook air first generation. is it normal to export 1 min for more than 20 mins?

 

[huntercr]

thanks for your help. i am using macbook air first generation. is it normal to export 1 min for more than 20 mins?

No... that's not normal, but there are alot of factors that can trip this up.

How many filters did you use in FCE?
Did you already have everything pre-rendered in the timeline?
What were your H.264 export settings?
Was your notebook plugged into the AC adapter at the time?