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Level 1

40 points

Compressor VERY SLOW

I have just updated to FCP 5 and Compressor 2. Did all the updates. My Problem is when exporting out of FCP5 to do just a "60 min. Fastest Encode 4:3" takes 8 hours???? This I NEVER remembered about Compressor 1. Even in DVDSP3 when I bring the same file, but just exported out of FCP5 in a Quicktime DV format it encodes a LOT faster. I know compressor does a better job at encoding but it should still not take 8 hours....should it? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

Posted on Aug 2, 2005 6:32 PM

20 replies

paulclark

Level 2

190 points

Aug 17, 2005 5:47 PM in response to Robert Sheridan

I really am beyond trying to figure out why Mac's are soooo slow at compressing video!

There's always some issue or other to make them slower than PC's.

Back in 98 I had to use $5,000 ICE cards to encode QuickTime files on G3's and G4's, and here we are in the era of dual G5's and it is STILL taking forever to compress video.

What gives Apple?

Aug 17, 2005 7:42 PM in response to paulclark

IMHO it is a problem with the FCP --> to Compressor. When looking at the Activity Monitor, FCP seems to lock up the system resources (mine was using 122% of the processors) while Compressor was running at 21%. I think I remember reading that one of the advantages to a direct export from within FCP was that Compressor would automatically insert an I-Frame at each cut. If you export a self contained movie this of course can't happen. However, if I export a self contained file and then drop that into Compressor, I go from over 12 hours to under an hour. Something isn't right!!

Mike

Aug 23, 2005 11:52 AM in response to Mike Bisom1

Direct export from within FCP

Do not export direct from FCP. Instead, render to a Ref movie and compress that. FCP is very slow in sourcing frames to QT exporters. Ours has exactly the same behavior.

Take the same timeline and bring it into QT Player Pro as a ref movie, and the encode will sail on a top speed.

Gen Kiyooka
Digigami

Aug 24, 2005 2:33 PM in response to Nizulfashizl

Has anyone noticed simply a general slow down the user interfaces of the new updates? With only Compressor 2 open, I draged in a file to export, and it took five minutes of the spinning beach ball before it let me choose a codec, then another 5 to go from there. Granted, I am working on a Powerbook, but the old compressor didn't take this long. Also, with activity monitor open, I notice Compressor isn't using that much of the processor, only around 30%. Is that normal? Shouldn't it be able to use more? Its not using RAM much either. Overall, I'd say these updates just made a lot of things slower and buggier. I love the new features, I use them daily, but the new problems make it a lot harder.

Waymen

Level 5

5,722 points

Aug 24, 2005 3:51 PM in response to John Nightingale1

John, are you trying to import .m2v or elementary MPEG2 files? That can cause very long delays in either Compressor v1.X or v2. That problem doesn't have anything to do with the recent updates. Here is a link and post (solution) to the slow import of elementary MEPG2 streams:

Waymen, "Compressor User Interface: GLACIAL" #3, 03:19am Aug 19, 2005 CDT

There is also a post there about the slow import of Motion files -- no apparent solution for that.

Compressor VERY SLOW