Final Cut Pro X Export SUCKS- Am I missing something?

[mmmtastybusch]

Let me start this off by saying that I really love using FCP X as far as editing goes. It's wayyy more intuitive than Premiere in my opinion, which is what I was stuck on before switching to Mac. So much so, that even after dealing with the nightmare that has been the last two days, I'll probably still try to use it...

BUT: What is up with the super-****** export (share) process? First of all it's really slow. I mean REALLY slow. This is even when exporting as a Quicktime movie—forget it about it if you want an .mp4—it was a whole process even figuring out HOW to export as an .mp4 and then took about 6-8 hours for a THREE MINUTE VIDEO. That's just insane. I'm running a '14 MBA with an i7 processor and 8GB Ram.

Why is there no option to just export a movie to .mp4 like Premiere did? Why is everything on FCP so intuitive EXCEPT for this process where it looks like NASA engineers put it together or something...

Am I missing something, or is FCP's export process supposed to blow this hard?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

You're probably going to get several answers to send the file making job to Apple's Compressor. However, I suggest "share"ing to ProRes and then running the ProRes file through Handbrake for the compressed mp4. A 3 minute file should be fast in both cases and I generally find Handbrake an excellent choice for packing the file small while keeping the quality high.

 

[mmmtastybusch]

I have heard of handbrake before. I will give this a shot, and try the ProRes option for the initial export. (You say this is faster than the Quiktime export?) Hopefully it will go a little smoother. Thanks!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

As I understand it, Pro Res is minimally compressed. It is exported as a Quicktime file too but the end result is a Quicktime ProRes file instead of Quicktime MP4 file. It will export much more quickly than trying to make a MP4 directly.

Since it's ProRes, when you export it, you get a BIG file. Don't let that freak you. Send that (seemingly too) big file through Handbrake with the desired setting (maybe High Profile or Apple TV 3) and it will squeeze it down to a small, high quality (looking) file.

Compressor can work well too and it's job is pretty much to deal with your issue. However, for me, I find the ProRes out, then Handbrake it into a MP4 to be a good way to go.

 

[mmmtastybusch]

Just wanted to update and thank you, HobeSoundDarryl, as well as update for anyone else who's been looking for a solution to this problem.

I haven't need to edit any video for a couple weeks, but I had to do a couple tonight and your method worked tremendously well! I couldn't believe how fast everything went, and the end quality looks great. I did the ProRes422 to share from FCP and then used handbrake to compress it into .mp4

Thanks again man, you kick ass!