export time- 9 hours for 1 hour video?

It depends on how you're exporting it. If you just export as a Quicktime it will go pretty quick, but if you choose "Using Quicktime Conversion" it could take quite a bit of time. How did you export it? What did you click?

Hello Brian,

+I'm a full on, total beginner on FCS, and I'm working on my very first project.+

In that case you might want to check that your system is set up the right way: do NOT store your media on your start up disk. Use an external FW 800 drive and set it as your scratch disk.

+The video is 1920 x 1080, and the audio is stereo aiff+

Tell us what codec this video actually uses. What camera did it come from and how did you import it into FCP? If your video is any kind of AVCHD/h.264 or HDV you better transcode to something less processor intensive like ProRes LT or ProRes 422.

+I've started exporting about a half an hour ago, and the progress bar is at 3%, and the countdown time is bouncing between 9 an 10 hours. Is this normal? It takes that long to export a 1 hour video?+

How exactly did you export and to what codec? QT movie, QT conversion? If you export as h.264 it CAN actually take quite a while ... what are you exporting for? DVD? Web? Playback on Mac?

let us know

mish

But did you click "Quicktime Conversion"? Because the default for this is a h.264 codec, which will take hours to proces. If you had clicked "Quicktime Movie" it would have only given you the option to make it self contained or not, either shouldn't take more than several minutes.

The quickest way to get a movie out of FCP is to go to Export -> Quicktime Movie then check self contained, but you will have a huge file (something like 60gigs for 1 hour). But using Export -> Quicktime Conversion using the default settings, you'll get a much smaller file but it could take the full 9 or 10 hours.

Hi

And free space on the Internal/Start-up hard disk. How much ?

Going low on this - less than 25Gb and all processings get's slower
at 1.3Gb (ABOUT - varies) one might run into a Stand still.

Use of an external FireWire hard disk is essential esp for movie projects more
that just a few minutes.

(Has to be Mac OS Extended formatted - else doesn't work with VIDEO)

Yours Bengt W

Hello Brian,

+I don't have any external firewire drives. A handful of USBs, but no FW. So the original files are on the internal hard drive.+

If you absolutely must, use the USB drive ... but the higher speed of a FW drive is recommended. In any case, DO use an external drive as your scratch disk so your start up disk doesn't have to deal with the OS, the app AND your media at the same time.

+The video was shot on a JVC GZ-HD30U, so the original file was an .MTS which FCS won't accept so I converted it to at QT .mov in Toast 10.+

Your camera shoots AVCHD so that definitely needs to be converted ... but you didn't say to what exactly you converted with Toast. Mov is just a container which can hold any number of codecs.

+I know it's exporting as a Quicktime movie. I don't remember what any of the other settings were in the export window. I know I didn't click anything other than start.+

Sorry, if you can't be more specific as to your settings there's not much I can suggest from here apart from a generic workflow: Use ProRes to edit, then export your sequence as a self-contained QT movie using the sequence settings (do NOT use QT conversion).
If you want to create a DVD import your previously created QT movie into compressor and use one of the DVD presets.

mish

As mish has already suggested, it's hard for us to give you specific troubleshooting ideas when you don't provide the data that's been asked for. We still need to know the following:

1. Specific format of your source footage. (In FCP, press Command 9)
2. Sequence settings for the timeline you've been editing on. (In FCP, press Command zero)
3. What are you selecting as you export, Quicktime Movie or Quicktime Conversion? Are you changing any specific export settings?

Also, to back up what's already been said, it is not wise to use an internal system drive as a scratch disk. That single drive is not only running your OS, but all open applications, as well as trying to access source media, and in your case, write an export file ... all at the same time.

Move your source files and destinations to an external drive.

Converting to a QT .mov in Toast doesn't tell us anything.

What codec did you convert to? Was it an editing codec?

And what are your sequence settings in FCP?

This is basic information necessary to help.

My guess is that you didn't convert to an editing codec and that is the reason everything is slow.

Also, editing off an internal boot drive will slow things.