Is this normal?

[iMacZealot]

Is it normal for Final Cut Pro to take 40 minutes - 1 hour to render every minute of video that I've chroma keyed in with two simple overlay graphics?

Or is it just my sluggish 2.0 GHz iMac G5 with 1.5 GB RAM?

I gotta get me one of them Intels these days...

 

[sushi]

Maybe it's time for a new MacPro with a nice chunk of RAM and HD space.

 

[brian9271]

Maybe it's time for a new MacPro with a nice chunk of RAM and HD space.

That's right mate, it all depends on the space you got, the more memory - the more faster

 

[Much Ado]

That's right mate, it all depends on the space you got, the more memory - the more faster

What, for rendering?

OP: Yeah, the G5s can be a bit slow if you're trying to render lots of footage. Mind you, mine's a 2.1 Ghz, so I'm much faster than you

 

[brian9271]

What, for rendering?

OP: Yeah, the G5s can be a bit slow if you're trying to render lots of footage. Mind you, mine's a 2.1 Ghz, so I'm much faster than you

Nice, yea for rendering as IMacZealot had said that it takes an hour...

 

[huntercr]

Is it normal for Final Cut Pro to take 40 minutes - 1 hour to render every minute of video that I've chroma keyed in with two simple overlay graphics?

Or is it just my sluggish 2.0 GHz iMac G5 with 1.5 GB RAM?

I gotta get me one of them Intels these days...

Hmmm.. that still seems a little slow to me. Yes, you have old hardware, but so do I.

What is the format of the graphics you imported? aside: are your graphics showing up as "Preview" (green) when you add them to a track, or do they need to be rendered? Do they have their own Alpha information or are you also chroma keying them? What is their resolution?

Perhaps more important... what other filters to you have on these sequences? A single nonrealtime filter, or just doing things the "unideal" way can really kill your project. For example what composite mode to you have selected for each of your tracks?

For comparison I've got a Dual 1.8GHz G5 ( granted I have 3.5GB of memory ) and I just did a test sequence of 3 3000x2000ish pictures overlaid on top of each other, two of them having the chroma keyer applied. I then gave each one of them a motion path and scaled them down and up via keyframes, made them go all crazy directions etc and it was still playing in realtime. Actual full render was 3 minutes for 10 seconds. Now, change that to "overlay" mode on any sequence and it jumps to 15 minutes.

So I'd play around with your filters, and if possible the order of how they are applied, that can make the difference as well. Good luck! I hope this helps.

 

[iMacZealot]

Layer 1: simple 1440 x 900 png.
Layer 2: HD footage from my HV20, just a person. Choma key filter set in, and works very well.
Layer 3: simple lower 3rd subtitle at 90% opacity.
Layer 4: simple jpg with no alpha or anything, just inset into the top right with a white frame.

When I put in Layer three or four before the chroma on layer 2, it shows up as preview with the green render bar. When the chroma is put in, it goes to orange.

Also, when I finally render it all, it only plays back at medium quality and when I start to play it, it plays for about a second, then stops and shows me the RT warning, and repeats for about three seconds before finally playing.

Maybe it's time for a new MacPro with a nice chunk of RAM and HD space.

Ah, yes. Been on my wish list for a while now. I have about $1200 saved up, but I don't have the time, money, or space to wait to get a MacPro. I'm hoping I have enough money by September or so to get an iMac or MBP.

That reminds me, is it bad that my internal HDD only has 10 GB left, even though it's not the scratch disk (my scratch has about 350 GB left)?

 

[puckhead193]

what version of FC are you using. Since your computer is "older" an older version of FC might run better....
Also you might want to free up more space on your internal drive

edit i see your using HD i think its normal for your system...

 

[Keebler]

a faster machine. rendering is all processor powered. ram just helps if you have more apps open.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Also, when I finally render it all, it only plays back at medium quality and when I start to play it, it plays for about a second, then stops and shows me the RT warning, and repeats for about three seconds before finally playing.

Are you working in a 1080i60 HDV timeline?

That reminds me, is it bad that my internal HDD only has 10 GB left, even though it's not the scratch disk (my scratch has about 350 GB left)?

You should keep all your drives about 15% free. You especially don't want to fill up your system drive 'cause that's just asking to crash your machine.


Lethal

 

[SELFsponsored]

It's really depending where your scratch disks are set and how fast the drives are. Minimum ram should be 2GB

 

[iMacZealot]

Are you working in a 1080i60 HDV timeline?

Yes. Is that bad?

You should keep all your drives about 15% free. You especially don't want to fill up your system drive 'cause that's just asking to crash your machine

That's 10 GB left on a 160 Gb drive....I don't know how it fills up because all I really have on it is predominantly my mundane stuff (i.e. music, photos, documents). For some reason, FCP sometimes like to set the scratch disk to my internal, which is bothersome. I think I need to move some of that stuff around to my .5TB external HDD.

It's really depending where your scratch disks are set and how fast the drives are. Minimum ram should be 2GB

Which is also the max on my iMac. I have 1.5GB in it right now. I'm not sure if I want to go to the trouble of buying another stick and throwing the other out if it's not going to be much of a difference.