FCX export - compressor??

[tarsierspectral]

Hi,

So FCX is very limited in export options. You only get 5 presets and that's it. I have several questions. I have HD footage 1920 x 1080, if I export it out as H.264 I end up with 1920 x 1080 then it takes over an hour to upload to YouTube. I was hoping to do 1280 x 720 instead to speed things up a bit. Well, since there is no option to export out smaller size than original, I just changed my timeline properties to be 1280 x 720 and exported that out instead. It was pretty quick so that was great but it generated 9GB files whereas the original footage was only 1.5GB, how come???? Then I figured why not use the built in tool for uploading directly to YouTube? Well, it works very well if the footage is under 15min but I have a YouTube account that does not have the 15min video length restriction but FCX has the restriction set for all the accounts so I can't upload directly. When I tried to upload directly using footage that was less than 15min, it worked great. It only took 10min (HD 1280 x 720). So what are my options? Using compressor??? I was about to buy it last night but read the reviews and they were bad. No 64-bit compressor, old interface etc? I bought FCX because it's 64-bit, to speed the exporting out but I can't use FCX to export.
So, anyone know any answers to my questions?
I am kind of stuck, not sure what to do.

Thank you
Tarsier

 

[linuxcooldude]

Exporting using just FCP X, I think it does it in ProRes format which is very large file sizes. To give you more options for exporting you need to buy compressor.

 

[mondesi43]

You can change the properties of the project to 720 and then export to a smaller file size. That worked for me when compressor was giving me fits one night. Compressor was worth the $50 to me with all of the settings you can adjust to your liking.

I work on projects, export them to Compressor, apply my settings for Vimeo and save location, then let Compressor run all of the files overnight or while I'm at work. No problems since I adjusted the settings.

 

[colinthedrummer]

Hi can anyone help please! As you will be aware from my post I am new to Compressor/DVD Studio Pro and forums such as this so apologies if I get things wrong.

I have footage shot on the HDV setting (PAL) on a Sony HVR Z1E and ingested into final cut pro using ProRes. The piece has been edited and sent to compressor using the DVD Best Quality setting which is MPEG-2 6.Mbps and the Dolby Digital 2.0. (I hasten to add that means nothing to me!!)

After finishing compressing (about 5 hours!) I sent it through to DVD Studio Pro and burned the disk off. The final footage looks awful, it is very blurred and bears no resemblance to the original footage which is crisp and clear. I know you lose some clarity in the compression process but the degree to which it has change is too great. Could someone kindly advise where or what I am doing wrong.

Thanks

----------

Hi can anyone help please! As you will be aware from my post I am new to Compressor/DVD Studio Pro and forums such as this so apologies if I get things wrong.

I have footage shot on the HDV setting (PAL) on a Sony HVR Z1E and ingested into final cut pro using ProRes. The piece has been edited and sent to compressor using the DVD Best Quality setting which is MPEG-2 6.Mbps and the Dolby Digital 2.0. (I hasten to add that means nothing to me!!)

After finishing compressing (about 5 hours!) I sent it through to DVD Studio Pro and burned the disk off. The final footage looks awful, it is very blurred and bears no resemblance to the original footage which is crisp and clear. I know you lose some clarity in the compression process but the degree to which it has change is too great. Could someone kindly advise where or what I am doing wrong.

Thanks

 

[tarsierspectral]

You can change the properties of the project to 720 and then export to a smaller file size. That worked for me when compressor was giving me fits one night. Compressor was worth the $50 to me with all of the settings you can adjust to your liking.

I work on projects, export them to Compressor, apply my settings for Vimeo and save location, then let Compressor run all of the files overnight or while I'm at work. No problems since I adjusted the settings.

Thanks. Do you send the sequence to Compressor or you export out of Final Cut first and then use that file in Compressor?

 

[cgbier]

Thanks. Do you send the sequence to Compressor or you export out of Final Cut first and then use that file in Compressor?

You just export it to Compressor. No need to export it first.

hint: Export "Using Compressor Settings" blocks FCP. If you send it to Compressor, you can keep on editing.

 

[tarsierspectral]

You just export it to Compressor. No need to export it first.

hint: Export "Using Compressor Settings" blocks FCP. If you send it to Compressor, you can keep on editing.

Everywhere I read people say that it take way longer this way and that you should export out self contained movie and then bring it to compressor. Can someone confirm that? I tried to do tests but can't wait 6hrs to find out.

Thanks

 

[Zwhaler]

I use FCP X and Compressor 4 professionally, my advice (listen!) is to buy Compressor asap and get to learn how it works, forget the reviews they lied, it is one of the best programs out there because it exports in an incredible array of formats and settings for sound and video. When your FCP project is 100% finished, click "Send to Compressor" at the bottom of the Share menu, which will automatically open the program. Then choose a setting (quality setting which I will describe) and a destination (like desktop, documents, home folder, etc) Compressor 4 has a preset called "HD 720p Video Sharing", you'll want to use that which exports at 1280x720, then you can adjust the audio settings which is 128kbps by default, I either use AAC 320kbps or AAC Variable Bit Rate at highest quality. Also for H.264 compression for .mov files you can adjust the quality of the output either by average bitrate (for many cameras its at 24mbps or 24,000kbps) or just go with automatic and choose between the range of high and best quality. This will cut the filesize significantly.

The reason why it is so big when FCP exports it is because it doesn't compress it, it simply exports the raw video footage with uncompressed transitions and effects, etc. In my experience if a video exported 'as is' from FCP is 500mb, Compressor 4 on highest quality will make it 200-250mb with 99.9% quality retained.

 

[linuxcooldude]

forget the reviews they lied

I would not go that far. The majority of problems I have with FCP X is compressor. Nearly every time I finished with rendering in Compressor 4 the only way to exit is force quit. And the occasionally "send to compressor" menu selection in sharing would hang.

 

[tarsierspectral]

I use FCP X and Compressor 4 professionally, my advice (listen!) is to buy Compressor asap and get to learn how it works, forget the reviews they lied, it is one of the best programs out there because it exports in an incredible array of formats and settings for sound and video. When your FCP project is 100% finished, click "Send to Compressor" at the bottom of the Share menu, which will automatically open the program. Then choose a setting (quality setting which I will describe) and a destination (like desktop, documents, home folder, etc) Compressor 4 has a preset called "HD 720p Video Sharing", you'll want to use that which exports at 1280x720, then you can adjust the audio settings which is 128kbps by default, I either use AAC 320kbps or AAC Variable Bit Rate at highest quality. Also for H.264 compression for .mov files you can adjust the quality of the output either by average bitrate (for many cameras its at 24mbps or 24,000kbps) or just go with automatic and choose between the range of high and best quality. This will cut the filesize significantly.

The reason why it is so big when FCP exports it is because it doesn't compress it, it simply exports the raw video footage with uncompressed transitions and effects, etc. In my experience if a video exported 'as is' from FCP is 500mb, Compressor 4 on highest quality will make it 200-250mb with 99.9% quality retained.

I do have compressor 4. It's slow! I can export h.264 out Final Cut X cutting the file from 70GB (about 1.5hrs 1920 x 1280) to about 8GB in 1hr but YouTube very often fails to upload the movie (it eventually works but I have to try like 3 or 4 times, smaller file always uploads fine so I know it's the files size and it takes about 1.5hrs to upload and another 2hrs for you YouTube process my uploaded video). Now when I tried using compressor it was giving me estimated time something like 3hrs and kept increasing so... I guess I don't get it. I even set up a cluster to take advantage of all the cores .
Perhaps you can point to me what I am doing wrong. Thank you

 

[evil_santa]

Hi can anyone help please! As you will be aware from my post I am new to Compressor/DVD Studio Pro and forums such as this so apologies if I get things wrong.

I have footage shot on the HDV setting (PAL) on a Sony HVR Z1E and ingested into final cut pro using ProRes. The piece has been edited and sent to compressor using the DVD Best Quality setting which is MPEG-2 6.Mbps and the Dolby Digital 2.0. (I hasten to add that means nothing to me!!)

After finishing compressing (about 5 hours!) I sent it through to DVD Studio Pro and burned the disk off. The final footage looks awful, it is very blurred and bears no resemblance to the original footage which is crisp and clear. I know you lose some clarity in the compression process but the degree to which it has change is too great. Could someone kindly advise where or what I am doing wrong.

Thanks

Is the footage getting resized? I'm assuming you are making a SD DVD. if so you may need to use the resize filter in compressor.

 

[Zwhaler]

I would not go that far. The majority of problems I have with FCP X is compressor. Nearly every time I finished with rendering in Compressor 4 the only way to exit is force quit. And the occasionally "send to compressor" menu selection in sharing would hang.

Ok, if those problems are affecting you and other people too then I admit there are some things wrong with it, however in my experience the program works flawlessly 99% of the time on my machine.

I do have compressor 4. It's slow! I can export h.264 out Final Cut X cutting the file from 70GB (about 1.5hrs 1920 x 1280) to about 8GB in 1hr but YouTube very often fails to upload the movie (it eventually works but I have to try like 3 or 4 times, smaller file always uploads fine so I know it's the files size and it takes about 1.5hrs to upload and another 2hrs for you YouTube process my uploaded video). Now when I tried using compressor it was giving me estimated time something like 3hrs and kept increasing so... I guess I don't get it. I even set up a cluster to take advantage of all the cores .
Perhaps you can point to me what I am doing wrong. Thank you

My first question would be what makes your video so obscenely large? How long is the movie and what settings did you use to compress it to 8GB ... 70GB out of Final Cut is pretty extreme, even after making it 8GB YouTube will have a hard time uploading it, the biggest file I've uploaded was 8.66GB and that took patience also using the Java based advanced uploader NOT the standard video file upload.
Also if Compressor feels slow while trying to compress a 70GB file, I can assure you that it isn't the programs fault but rather you are asking it to do a pretty incredible feat and would take hours even on a maxed out computer. If you have to upload the whole video, just keep compressing it to a lower quality until it is small enough to upload easily. In my experience with compressor, the ETA for finishing the job isn't very accurate and sometimes will say over 2hrs remaining, and then finish after only 15 minutes.
Another tip, when uploading long videos (more than 20-30 minutes) I don't waste my time with 1080p and just do 720p, it helps with uploading and also many people won't sit around for an hour and a half waiting for the 1080p YouTube file to buffer, when they can watch in 720p in just a couple minutes of waiting.

 

[tarsierspectral]

My first question would be what makes your video so obscenely large? How long is the movie and what settings did you use to compress it to 8GB ... 70GB out of Final Cut is pretty extreme, even after making it 8GB YouTube will have a hard time uploading it, the biggest file I've uploaded was 8.66GB and that took patience also using the Java based advanced uploader NOT the standard video file upload.
Also if Compressor feels slow while trying to compress a 70GB file, I can assure you that it isn't the programs fault but rather you are asking it to do a pretty incredible feat and would take hours even on a maxed out computer. If you have to upload the whole video, just keep compressing it to a lower quality until it is small enough to upload easily. In my experience with compressor, the ETA for finishing the job isn't very accurate and sometimes will say over 2hrs remaining, and then finish after only 15 minutes.
Another tip, when uploading long videos (more than 20-30 minutes) I don't waste my time with 1080p and just do 720p, it helps with uploading and also many people won't sit around for an hour and a half waiting for the 1080p YouTube file to buffer, when they can watch in 720p in just a couple minutes of waiting.

It's a recording of 1.5hrs 1920x1280. To get about 8GB I use FCPX h.264 setting. Unfortunately, FCPX won't let me do 720p or anything else for that matter but it's FAST. It takes about 1hr to do the whole export.
Where do you find the Java based advanced uploader?

 

[Zwhaler]

It's a recording of 1.5hrs 1920x1280. To get about 8GB I use FCPX h.264 setting. Unfortunately, FCPX won't let me do 720p or anything else for that matter but it's FAST. It takes about 1hr to do the whole export.
Where do you find the Java based advanced uploader?

8GB is definitely possible to upload. On the right side of the page when you are viewing the standard uploader look for it under the YouTube direct mobile uploads button.

 

[tarsierspectral]

8GB is definitely possible to upload. On the right side of the page when you are viewing the standard uploader look for it under the YouTube direct mobile uploads button.

Yes, it's possible but it takes 4 hrs to upload and process and MANY times I get
Failed (upload aborted) so after 2 hrs I need to do it over again. I never have these issues with smaller files. Thanks for the tip in Advanced Uploader.

 

[pecisci]

Final cut X SLOW!

I run FCX on my I5 Macbook Pro with 8 GB Ram and I3 IMac with 12GB ram. On both, I find that editing can be a nightmare, particularly when adding effects such as keying. It make it very hard to edit, because the video preview is choppy, if it runs at all! I transcode the media on import, so I don't see why it is this bad! On my MacBook it even says 'Run out of Application Memory' and tells me to close programs. Everything runs slow, like a crash scenario.

When I try to export projects, it takes AGES, much slower than Premier on the PC. Now I have a project which seems to not export at all!

Any ideas would be welcome!

 

[CaptainChunk]

I run FCX on my I5 Macbook Pro with 8 GB Ram and I3 IMac with 12GB ram. On both, I find that editing can be a nightmare, particularly when adding effects such as keying. It make it very hard to edit, because the video preview is choppy, if it runs at all! I transcode the media on import, so I don't see why it is this bad! On my MacBook it even says 'Run out of Application Memory' and tells me to close programs. Everything runs slow, like a crash scenario.

When I try to export projects, it takes AGES, much slower than Premier on the PC. Now I have a project which seems to not export at all!

Any ideas would be welcome!

FCP X relies a lot on OpenCL, so if both of your machines are running on integrated Intel graphics or an NVIDIA IGP, that could explain why the performance is "choppy". What graphics chips do your Macs have?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Much easier solution: Get your video the way you want it at 1920x1080. Export from FCPX to Pro Res. This file will be HUGE. Run that through Handbrake at whatever resolution sizes you desire (or just use the TV2 preset if you want 720p). This will render a 720p file in a small file size (quicker than I've ever been able to get anything out of Compressor).

If you need an even smaller file size than it yields, you can slide the quality slider up a bit (which reduces the quality of the file). Try it a notch or half-notch at a time until you hit some arbitrary file size target. You can move it several notches from the preset default and it will still look great- especially if the aim is Youtube.

I use both Compessor and Handbrake and the latter covers all such needs most of the time. Try it.