help! FCP/E Appletv export times exorbitant!

[Megadooomer]

Hi everyone,

Am I doing something wrong if it takes a 60 min video 35-60 minutes to export using the export>quicktime conversion>"Apple TV" setting on a MBP 13" (10.6, 4GB, 2.4) ?

The media resides on a 2TB FW800 external, and I have tried exporting using both FCP (7) and Express (latest), with similar times for each. The movie is a straight (~60min/4GB) .mov recording, and there are no titles/etc, just fade-in/out and the standard (FCP) audio compressor plugin. I also chose the "modify sequence settings to fit clip" popup when given the choice.

Normal?

 

[evil_santa]

sounds about right to me.

 

[handsome pete]

Yeah, that time seems very reasonable.

30-60 minutes is nothing in the world of compression/rendering.

 

[matteusclement]

sounds right

yeah, MBP isn't a speed demon.
check out activity monitor in utilitiies. Look at your CPU usage. If it's taxed (100%) then you're as fast as you're going to go.
If not, then your hard drives are the bottle neck.

 

[Megadooomer]

Hm ok thanks for your feedback. Looks like its using quite a bit of CPU (~100%) so I suppose that's the bottleneck. Never worked with videos of this length, guess I will have to learn patience!

 

[martinX]

35 - 60 minutes to export a 60 minute video? Luxury, sheer luxury.

Think of it this way: compression is the last thing you do, your Mac will be around 100% CPU utilisation so you can't do much else on it anyway, so it's a perfect opportunity to go outside and ward off venous thromboembolisms and hypovitaminosis D

You want faster and no CPU utilisation? Try a turbo.264 HD from El Gato. Never used one but it looks pretty good.

 

[mattjk]

You want faster and no CPU utilisation? Try a turbo.264 HD from El Gato. Never used one but it looks pretty good.

I can recommend that. My workflow from FCE is to do a standard, full res, no tweaking export which produces really really large files (++Gbs) but in a matter of seconds/minutes. Then using the Elgato stick I convert it to the format needed. My Elgato will convert at somewhere between 100-120fps so again it's done in a matter of minutes.

There's a little criticism elsewhere that the Elgato produces a flat, less vibrant colour but it's a good trade off and to be honest it's difficult to spot unless you have the two up against each other.

The Elgato's also useful for many other things as well.