Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Rendering takes too long? (FCP)

illegalprelude

illegalprelude

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 10, 2005
1,583
121
Los Angeles, California
hey you guys. ill begin with my setup and programs, then tell you the problem.

G5 1.6
1GB Ram
Radeon 9600
OS 10.3.2
Final Cut Pro 4 HD

okie. So here it goes.
ive been messing around more and more with editing as im trying to learn as much as I can to start my editing career. Im kind of frustrated with my setup and im not sure if its my system, some setting or just works like this?

when I import a 2:45 quicktime movie lets say in FCP and place it in the time line, I spend a good 25min just rendering it. then once im done makin the video I want from it and want to export it out as a small quick time file so i can post on the web, the video is now down to about 1:20 and it takes it a good 30-40min just to export out?

am I missing something here or does it seem that its taking my system a tad to long to do these or just normal?
 
Sounds a bit slow to me, my 1Ghz PowerBook will export 10 mins of video to MPEG2 in about 35 mins.

Some codecs are slower than others and if you have to perform a frame resize as well it'll take extra time.

Are you using the system drive and how much room have you got left on it if you are?

OSX doesn't like video or audio being written to the system drive, as UNIX writes to the drive all the time. Much better to get an external FireWire drive dedicated to the AV files.
 
indeed system drive. im just exporting it out to a folder the MOVIE foldier. I have a good 90GB left on the drive so space is not an issue. As far as my knowledge goes, im not resizing anything.

I just go to File > Export > Quicktime Conversion> and I set the quality on per say mediu, tell it that its hinted for streaming or something and hit save. im doing all that correct?
 
Your setup sounds pretty speedy 2 me, but that rendering time is very long.

Did you mean 2 min 45 sec QT movie or 2 hours 45 min?
 
Try updating to 10.3.9.......should speed it up a little......and 10.4 will proberly help too........but updating to 10.3.9 is FREE ;)
 
I think it's probably a mixture of OS issues and codec choice, are you resizing the render or the export?

Every change you make will slow down the rendering of individual frames, any filters you add will also slow down the process, as will lost of fades or dissolves, as the computer has to calculate all the new frames.

Incidentally, could you edit your sig down to the regulation 6 lines please, see eXan's sig for an example of how a long sig should look.

Thanks.
 
It sounds like your Sequence Settings dont match the source video! Look in the media manager to see if the video size and frame rate match those in your sequence.

Your computer is fast enought to handle it... trust me... even if your source is on the main hard drive (which I don't recommend). I have done lost of editing on a much worse setup (also in FCP HD).

It depends, but in most cases you should NOT have to render a quicktime movie at all if your just playing it. If you add effects and transitions, thats when you start to render.

Also you might want to check your RT settings.
 
illegalprelude,

What kind of quicktime are you importing? What codec is it? I think Mydriasis is on to something that this might have to do w/your Sequence settings not matching your source video.


Lethal
 
Alright. sorry about the long sig. didnt know the regulation but fixed now :D

As far as importing goes. The movie was just a quicktime movie. I didnt see any othe extension to it. I just imported onto my bin and the min I slaped it on my timeline, it took a good 25min to render it. My render setting is on Safe RT.

(the vide I posted was the final product that I had finished and as far as my knowledge goes, its self contained because I had to post it via the web so I dont know if that makes it compressed or not)

umm. Not sure what you mean by what kind of codec. sorry, new to all this :( but I can tell you I have quicktime 7. when I go to export and I set my settings, it is being exported as a H.264 conversion.

It sounds like your Sequence Settings dont match the source video! Look in the media manager to see if the video size and frame rate match those in your sequence.
Click to expand...

How would I go about this? I dont know much about the sequence settings and rechecking them with the orignal and such.

thanks again for all the input so far you guys. Kinda sucks being the only guy of friends who has a Mac so hard for me to turn other places. Viva la Macs! :D
 
illegalprelude said:
umm. Not sure what you mean by what kind of codec. sorry, new to all this :( but I can tell you I have quicktime 7. when I go to export and I set my settings, it is being exported as a H.264 conversion.
Click to expand...

H.264. Story of my life :p

That's what's slowing you down. H.264 is a new codec from apple which makes your videos nice and small. However, you need Quicktime 7 to view it (which is still beta on the PC).

Try exporting to MPEG4 or 'Sorenson Video 3'. You'll see your encoding time will be a lot smaller..

Hope this helps,
Asif
 
The quicktime you are importing into FCP where did you get it? If you open the QT file w/QT and hit command+J it will bring up a movie properties window. Select "video track" in the drop down on the left and "format" on the drop down on the right and tell us what it says.

You might want go thru the tutorials that came w/FCP. That will cover a lot of the basics and help familiarize you w/FCP.

Also, IIRC, H.264 takes a good amount of time to encode.


Lethal
 
Yeah.

Sounds like you are importing a H.264 codec Quicktime file. If you do, your sequence settings have to match the codec, frame rate and size of your source clips or else FCP has to render the timeline.

First you have to convert your source clips in QT player to a suitable editing format such as MJPEG, Photo-JPEG, DV Stream or Animation codec.
 
sorry for the long pause. Ive been on set the last few days.

LethalWolfe said:
The quicktime you are importing into FCP where did you get it? If you open the QT file w/QT and hit command+J it will bring up a movie properties window. Select "video track" in the drop down on the left and "format" on the drop down on the right and tell us what it says.

You might want go thru the tutorials that came w/FCP. That will cover a lot of the basics and help familiarize you w/FCP.

Also, IIRC, H.264 takes a good amount of time to encode.

Lethal
Click to expand...

When I try that, it gives me a chance to buy quick time pro 7. :mad: yea, wish I had it.

I had quick time 6 pro. upgraded to 7 and it went poof! not sure what happened there.


indeed all the help as been really appreciated. ive gotten my exporting time down alot now, due to converting not in H.264. that tricky bastard :p

still not sure why importing a quicktime is needed to be rendered but cant really check due to no quicky 7 but thanks again!

Heres the final product for now

Advent Children
 
illegalprelude said:
still not sure why importing a quicktime is needed to be rendered but cant really check due to no quicky 7 but thanks again!
Click to expand...

Quicktime is just a container, not a format or a codec. Divx can be .MOV, DV can be .MOV, HDCAM can be .MOV, etc.,. It's kinda like if I handed you an opaque sports bottle. You know it's a liquid in there but you don't know exactly what it is. The sports bottle is a physical container capable of carrying different kinds of liquids just like QT is a software container capable of carrying different kinds of media.

You are having to render the QT movie in the timeline 'cause of improper settings (assuming you can even edit h.264 w/o needing a render). You have FCP expecting "format X" but you are giving it "format Y." Therefore it has to render "format y" into "format x."


Lethal
 
LethalWolfe said:
Quicktime is just a container, not a format or a codec. Divx can be .MOV, DV can be .MOV, HDCAM can be .MOV, etc.,. It's kinda like if I handed you an opaque sports bottle. You know it's a liquid in there but you don't know exactly what it is. The sports bottle is a physical container capable of carrying different kinds of liquids just like QT is a software container capable of carrying different kinds of media.

You are having to render the QT movie in the timeline 'cause of improper settings (assuming you can even edit h.264 w/o needing a render). You have FCP expecting "format X" but you are giving it "format Y." Therefore it has to render "format y" into "format x."


Lethal
Click to expand...

ahh I see what your saying. so even quick time is opening, you dont think its a true .Mov eh? another format that quicktime can just read. Kinda how windows media player opens .Avi .WMV and etc. eh?
 
illegalprelude said:
ahh I see what your saying. so even quick time is opening, you dont think its a true .Mov eh? another format that quicktime can just read. Kinda how windows media player opens .Avi .WMV and etc. eh?
Click to expand...

Errmmmm... no. ;)

Quicktime is a kinda like a generic thing. Kinda like "video tape." There a dozens of different types of video that can come on video tape just like there are dozens of different types of video that can come as a QT file.


Lethal
 
LethalWolfe said:
Errmmmm... no. ;)

Quicktime is a kinda like a generic thing. Kinda like "video tape." There a dozens of different types of video that can come on video tape just like there are dozens of different types of video that can come as a QT file.


Lethal
Click to expand...

I think thats whati was trying to say. just botched it up :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back