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Fast Export from FCP X using Compressor?

I've switched from FCP 7 to FCP X and one feature which frustrates me is that the export is so slow. In FCP7 I could export a sequence as a QuickTime reference file, and (provided there was no rendering do to) it was finished in seconds. Under FCPX we can no longer export as a QT reference, so there's around 40 minutes to wait - not for any rendering or heavy CPU work, but just while FCP writes an enormous file to my hard drive.

And this is 40 minutes when I can't do any useful work with FCPX.

Would buying Compressor save me this time? If I export from FCPX via Compressor, will it export any faster? I'm hoping that FCP will shift all the work straight to Compressor, and let Compressor do the 40 minutes writing, while FCP is left available for me to do useful work.

Thanks in advance for any help on this one.

MST

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.1), 12GB RAM

Posted on Oct 13, 2011 3:38 AM

33 replies

Oct 17, 2011 10:51 AM in response to Ken Hart

More horsepower isn't going to help, is it? The problem is how long it takes to write a 70GB file to my hard drive, and no amount of horsepower will speed this up.

In FCP7 you could save a file as a QuickTime reference movie, which is only a few KB long, and points to the relevant parts of the original media, so it saves very quickly indeed.

Anyhow, so far no one has given me any compelling reasons for buying Compressor 4 as opposed to continuing to use Compressor 3. The only reason I can think of is if Send To Compressor... sends the file directly to Compressor without writing it all somewhere, so that it goes to Compressor instantly (well, within a minute or two), even if the actual processing is subsequently very slow.

MST

Ken Hart

Level 2

185 points

Oct 19, 2011 6:07 AM in response to Martin S Taylor

Martin S Taylor wrote:

....In FCP7 you could save a file as a QuickTime reference movie, which is only a few KB long, and points to the relevant parts of the original media, so it saves very quickly indeed...

MST

Ooh, Good point. I forgot about referenced files, I used those myself. We need to submit feedback back to Apple. Actually I want to have the "Export with Quicktime option" back in FCPX.

Nov 13, 2011 7:18 PM in response to Martin S Taylor

Compressor offers superior quality, but it is certainly much to slow if you need get something done in a reasonable amount of time. I export native resolution from FCPX (shortest export time) and then use Quicktime Pro to compress to H.264 with the "Export to Web" preset. After compression, I change the file extension from .m4v to .mp4 and upload to server for web and IOS device playback (non IOS as well). Works great!

Fast Export from FCP X using Compressor?