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Final Cut Pro, rendering using full capacity of 8 cores?

F

fs454

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2007
1,987
1,876
Los Angeles / Boston
When I export a QT video in Final Cut Pro, I look at iStat and my CPU usage is total around 25%, with that usage being spread evenly through the cores. Is there a way to get it to take absolute full advantage of the processors, or is it doing its best job?

I have the new octo 2.8 MP.
 
This is an old article, but has some interesting info:

FCP & 8 Cores Pay attention to the "Virtual Cluster" part... I'm anxious to try this, but my MacPro isn't shipping for a month.

Have you tested a render with compressor?
 
If it's being spread evenly, that usually means that the bottleneck is elsewhere. Are you working with pretty high bandwidth video? You might need faster drives to keep up with it. Could also be memory bandwidth, or just a few too many serial dependencies in the code keeping it from being fully parallel.
 
darthraige said:
Seriously. Lol. I ran a 1 hour video on 1 Core and it took about an hour to do, I threw on all 8 Cores and it took 15 minutes on Best Quality. Fast Encode would of probably taken 6-7 minutes. lol
Click to expand...

*Grunts like Tim Allen on Home Improvement* Now that is what I'm talking about! :D
 
I don't know if I'm using it wrong, but compressor never seems to work right, ever.

I set 8 instances using the qmaster system prefs, and then in FCP, I hit File/Export/Using Compressor, and then compressor launches, I select h.264, my settings for res, location, and hit submit, to the virtual cluster.


This takes an infinite amount of time, no progress is ever made, final cut stops responding, etc. If it does respond and it processes frames, it takes hours.

What am I doing wrong? ahah I'm a compressor noob, I've never really used it before.
 
fs454 said:
I don't know if I'm using it wrong, but compressor never seems to work right, ever.

I set 8 instances using the qmaster system prefs, and then in FCP, I hit File/Export/Using Compressor, and then compressor launches, I select h.264, my settings for res, location, and hit submit, to the virtual cluster.


This takes an infinite amount of time, no progress is ever made, final cut stops responding, etc. If it does respond and it processes frames, it takes hours.

What am I doing wrong? ahah I'm a compressor noob, I've never really used it before.
Click to expand...

I don't think you have enough ram for that many instances...you should only have one instance per GB of ram that you have.

I always use this macworld guide to setup my clusters:

http://www.macworld.com/article/49047/2006/01/marcchreateside.html
 
fs454 said:
I don't know if I'm using it wrong, but compressor never seems to work right, ever.

I set 8 instances using the qmaster system prefs, and then in FCP, I hit File/Export/Using Compressor, and then compressor launches, I select h.264, my settings for res, location, and hit submit, to the virtual cluster.


This takes an infinite amount of time, no progress is ever made, final cut stops responding, etc. If it does respond and it processes frames, it takes hours.

What am I doing wrong? ahah I'm a compressor noob, I've never really used it before.
Click to expand...

I'm able to run all 8-cores with 2GB RAM. Are you using Compressor 3? Once you setup your MacPro cluster you have to make sure you select it before you submit the file. Make sure it DOES NOT say "This Computer." Otherwise it won't work. Also, I never export straight to Compressor through Final Cut. I make a reference file and then bring that file straight into Compressor after its done exporting from Final Cut.
 
No virtual clusters for the Mac Pro 8core?

I'm new to this cluster buisness. I've always used compressor on my powerbook G4, but I'll be getting a mac pro very soon.

Found this article on the apple website. No virtual clusters for the mac pro 8 core unless you render a movie first. What gives?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1099
 
yahoooooo!!!!!! Damn Good!

I am really really really thankful to you for posting this. Man, I always was wondering there has to some way to use all the processors and it didn't make sense that my compressor timings are so freaking long. Now, I am damn happy after using my Mac Pro with 10 GB RAM. Itz now blazingly fast!

I wish i had seen this 4 months back! Any, better late that never.

I have just started to compress a HDV 3 hr footage to SD. It is showing slightly less than 1.5 hrs. I wish it is actually going to be that way!

Thanks again guyz!


flyingscott said:
This is an old article, but has some interesting info:

FCP & 8 Cores Pay attention to the "Virtual Cluster" part... I'm anxious to try this, but my MacPro isn't shipping for a month.

Have you tested a render with compressor?
Click to expand...
 
Vampiresoup said:
I'm new to this cluster buisness. I've always used compressor on my powerbook G4, but I'll be getting a mac pro very soon.

Found this article on the apple website. No virtual clusters for the mac pro 8 core unless you render a movie first. What gives?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1099
Click to expand...

You need only export it as a self contained QT file first which doesn't take too long, there's very little CPU use at that stage. Then import that file into compressor. An extra step which is a bit of a niusance but worth it.
 
I realize this thread is about FCP. Is there any way currently to get Compressor to work with the latest FCX? Or is that just completely out of the question?

Further, is there any way to (legally) get Compressor, without buying the entire Final Cut Suite? It doesn't appear to be available separately, but I'm curious if I may have missed something...

Thanks.

jas
 
fs454 said:
I don't know if I'm using it wrong, but compressor never seems to work right, ever.

I set 8 instances using the qmaster system prefs, and then in FCP, I hit File/Export/Using Compressor, and then compressor launches, I select h.264, my settings for res, location, and hit submit, to the virtual cluster.


This takes an infinite amount of time, no progress is ever made, final cut stops responding, etc. If it does respond and it processes frames, it takes hours.

What am I doing wrong? ahah I'm a compressor noob, I've never really used it before.
Click to expand...

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1099
Check out this Article.
It will fix all your problems.
 
Basically export to QT not as a self-contained, then dump into compressor.

Now that's compression. Rendering if a different matter. I'd love to see FCP render the time line better. I'm hoping we'll see improvements soon.
 
I don't know if I'm using it wrong, but compressor never seems to work right, ever.

I set 8 instances using the qmaster system prefs, and then in FCP, I hit File/Export/Using Compressor, and then compressor launches, I select h.264, my settings for res, location, and hit submit, to the virtual cluster.


This takes an infinite amount of time, no progress is ever made, final cut stops responding, etc. If it does respond and it processes frames, it takes hours.

What am I doing wrong? ahah I'm a compressor noob, I've never really used it before.
Click to expand...

On an 8-core machine, you'll typically set it to 4 instances (one for every two cores). I've found that 1GB per core is the sweet spot for Compressor. With 4 instances, I consistently get 80-90% total CPU utilization when rendering.

Also, like mentioned before, export your timeline as a self-contained QT movie FIRST and then drop that into Compressor. Virtual clusters never seem to work for me when using the "Export Using Compressor" straight from FCP (the batch just locks up). Besides, when you export from within FCP, it locks FCP during the render process, making multitasking impossible.
 
You can't do a cluster when exporting from FCP. Just doesn't work.

I've never exported as a self-contained movie and it works fine. I'm thinking this is faster, and certainly takes up less disk space.
 
( Original: )When I export a QT video in Final Cut Pro, I look at iStat and my CPU usage is total around 25%, with that usage being spread evenly through the cores. Is there a way to get it to take absolute full advantage of the processors, or is it doing its best job?

I have the new octo 2.8 MP.



I have the same problem as this person had. Is there anywhere for a guy to download or buy Mac Compressor without having to buy Final Cut Studio? I have Final Cut Express 4. Will Compressor work with Express?


Thanks in advance!
 
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