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new iMac Rendering Times

photogpab

photogpab

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Finally started working on some video on my new iMac... but disappointed at how long the rendering still takes. For a brand new machine I was expecting fast rendering.

i applied some "Magic Bullet" effects to 2 min of HD video and its taking 34 minutes to render the files. really?? it used to take about that long on my old iMac

this machine is quad core and has 12GB of RAM and 1GB of video RAM vs my old machine which had two cores, 2GB RAM and 128mb video RAM.

what gives? any advice?

working in Final Cut Pro 7
 
Last edited:
FCP 7 isn't multicore. Or at least not totally. So going from 2 to 4 cores isn't going to make a big difference. And video RAM doesn't mean squat to FCP either.

But it also depends on the types of filters you are using as well as the hard drive you are using to render to. Sometimes, if I have my scratch disk set to my SSD, it goes MUCH faster.
 
MovieCutter said:
FCP 7 isn't multicore. Or at least not totally. So going from 2 to 4 cores isn't going to make a big difference. And video RAM doesn't mean squat to FCP either.

But it also depends on the types of filters you are using as well as the hard drive you are using to render to. Sometimes, if I have my scratch disk set to my SSD, it goes MUCH faster.
Click to expand...

so is that where Final Cut Pro X exceeds?

What about iMovie? Multicore?
 
Premiere Pro CS5 would take around 10 minutes for me. I really wish they would have made Final Cut Pro X more like 7, but with the advantages of the newly written software. I understand how some people say once you learn it, it becomes much more efficient, but I like the old way of editing and I am quite efficient at it. Maybe if Apple would have given the choice to switch between the two platforms, but here's to wishing..
 
macdudesir said:
imovie will use half of your cpu's abilities. So, quad core iMac-2 core renders...8 core mac pro-4 core renders...and on and on lol
Click to expand...

so whats the point of having quad core if nothing utilizes it?

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MacOG728893 said:
Premiere Pro CS5 would take around 10 minutes for me. I really wish they would have made Final Cut Pro X more like 7, but with the advantages of the newly written software. I understand how some people say once you learn it, it becomes much more efficient, but I like the old way of editing and I am quite efficient at it. Maybe if Apple would have given the choice to switch between the two platforms, but here's to wishing..
Click to expand...

ive only ever used final cut pro so but i may give premiere a try.

i just hate having to learn new software.

i just dont understand how i can have a brand new computer that is 5 years newer than my old machine and still have 34 min rendering time for a 2 minute clip. i thought my video editing was going to soar with my new machine. im so disappointed.
 
photogpab said:
so whats the point of having quad core if nothing utilizes it?

----------



ive only ever used final cut pro so but i may give premiere a try.

i just hate having to learn new software.

i just dont understand how i can have a brand new computer that is 5 years newer than my old machine and still have 34 min rendering time for a 2 minute clip. i thought my video editing was going to soar with my new machine. im so disappointed.
Click to expand...

Final Cut Pro X is Multicore AND 64-bit (FCP7 is 32-bit), so Rendering would go extremely faster (plus it also has background rendering)

Final Cut Pro X is lacking from what I hear. I'm new the higher end video spectrum. I've mainly used Final Cut Express but got Final Cut Pro X. It is a big difference in design and looks, but if you take the time to learn the new software it would be wonderful for you probably and would take better advantage of your new Mac.

The simple reason is, Final Cut Pro 7 was written for older systems. It never could take advantage of the new systems. You could have a Dodeca-Core Mac Pro and it's probably going to be just as a good as a Hex-Core Mac Pro. It's just the software.
And of course, if you're willing to do Windows, you could always go with Avid DS 🙄
 
photogpab said:
so whats the point of having quad core if nothing utilizes it?
Click to expand...

Well, many things utilize it, such as handbrake and photoshop and logic...etc. Final Cut Pro X utilizes them. And iMovie does that so you can use the remaining two cores to do other stuff without noticing a slowdown.
 
chrf097 said:
Final Cut Pro X is Multicore AND 64-bit (FCP7 is 32-bit), so Rendering would go extremely faster (plus it also has background rendering)

Final Cut Pro X is lacking from what I hear. I'm new the higher end video spectrum. I've mainly used Final Cut Express but got Final Cut Pro X. It is a big difference in design and looks, but if you take the time to learn the new software it would be wonderful for you probably and would take better advantage of your new Mac.

The simple reason is, Final Cut Pro 7 was written for older systems. It never could take advantage of the new systems. You could have a Dodeca-Core Mac Pro and it's probably going to be just as a good as a Hex-Core Mac Pro. It's just the software.
And of course, if you're willing to do Windows, you could always go with Avid DS 🙄
Click to expand...

im going to have to give Final Cut Pro X a spin. my only gripe is Magic Bullet Looks is not yet available for it. and thats my favorite plugin.
 
photogpab said:
so whats the point of having quad core if nothing utilizes it?

----------



ive only ever used final cut pro so but i may give premiere a try.

i just hate having to learn new software.

i just dont understand how i can have a brand new computer that is 5 years newer than my old machine and still have 34 min rendering time for a 2 minute clip. i thought my video editing was going to soar with my new machine. im so disappointed.
Click to expand...


I had a very similar thought and experience with my iMac recently. This past summer I bought a top-of-the-line BTO 27" 2011 iMac that specs at 3.4GHz quad-core core-i7, 16GB RAM, and a 2GB AMD Radeon HD 6970M. You would think that this is one very powerful machine, and to be honest, it is. It is very powerful, when the software takes advantage of it.

With that said, the latest version of Photoshop that I own is CS2, that's right Photoshop CS2. The current shipping version is CS5 and I'm waiting until CS6 ships before I upgrade. CS2 was compiled for PPC while all versions after it are Intel only. I normally run OS X Lion (10.7.2) but when I need to use Photoshop, I have to boot into my Snow Leopard (10.6.8) partition. Here, CS2 runs in PPC emulation under Rosetta. And when I run CS2 it's slow because of two main reasons, 1) it was originally compiled for PPC, 2) it has to run under emulation on an Intel-based Mac. In fact, I went to see how CS2 sees my Intel-based Mac and it sees it as a PPC G4 with AltiVec clocked at 2.1GHz with 8 physical cores and 16GB of RAM but only has 3GB available (not that any of that matters as CS2 will only utilize one core as it isn't multi-core aware or 64-bit).

I first thought that a 2.1GHz G4 would be plenty fast for CS2, it is definitely faster than my old Mac (a real G4 machine with a single (physical) core clocked at 1.3GHz and 1.25GB of RAM). It was no surprise to me how slow CS2 would be running on my core-i7 iMac as I knew what I would be getting into. I was however, really surprised at how slow CS2 actually was when I was running a real-world process. Although it was much faster than my old Mac (about 3.5x faster according to the process I ran) it was much slower than I expected.

At first I was thinking that I would get significantly faster speeds but like you, I was actually disappointed at how slow it ran. Then I did some research and found out why things are the way they are. Unfortunately, there's nothing end users can do but hope that developers take advantage of the power in these machines.
 
iMikeT said:
I had a very similar thought and experience with my iMac recently. This past summer I bought a top-of-the-line BTO 27" 2011 iMac that specs at 3.4GHz quad-core core-i7, 16GB RAM, and a 2GB AMD Radeon HD 6970M. You would think that this is one very powerful machine, and to be honest, it is. It is very powerful, when the software takes advantage of it.

With that said, the latest version of Photoshop that I own is CS2, that's right Photoshop CS2. The current shipping version is CS5 and I'm waiting until CS6 ships before I upgrade. CS2 was compiled for PPC while all versions after it are Intel only. I normally run OS X Lion (10.7.2) but when I need to use Photoshop, I have to boot into my Snow Leopard (10.6.8) partition. Here, CS2 runs in PPC emulation under Rosetta. And when I run CS2 it's slow because of two main reasons, 1) it was originally compiled for PPC, 2) it has to run under emulation on an Intel-based Mac. In fact, I went to see how CS2 sees my Intel-based Mac and it sees it as a PPC G4 with AltiVec clocked at 2.1GHz with 8 physical cores and 16GB of RAM but only has 3GB available (not that any of that matters as CS2 will only utilize one core as it isn't multi-core aware or 64-bit).

I first thought that a 2.1GHz G4 would be plenty fast for CS2, it is definitely faster than my old Mac (a real G4 machine with a single (physical) core clocked at 1.3GHz and 1.25GB of RAM). It was no surprise to me how slow CS2 would be running on my core-i7 iMac as I knew what I would be getting into. I was however, really surprised at how slow CS2 actually was when I was running a real-world process. Although it was much faster than my old Mac (about 3.5x faster according to the process I ran) it was much slower than I expected.

At first I was thinking that I would get significantly faster speeds but like you, I was actually disappointed at how slow it ran. Then I did some research and found out why things are the way they are. Unfortunately, there's nothing end users can do but hope that developers take advantage of the power in these machines.
Click to expand...

thanks iMike. thats a good explanation and I obviously should have realized that before i blindly just assumed my new machine would smoke the old machine.

i have noticed alot of other programs i run are going much faster. Photoshop CS5 runs very fast, and when I encode CDs or FLAC files in XLD it runs significantly faster.

I just wish the video editing was easier. i have no patience! haha
 
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