Fast Export from FCP X using Compressor?

Martin the benefit I've found having Compressor 4 is that I no longer background render in FCX, unless I need to see a title animation play back smoothly, only then do I render that portion.

When my project is complete, I choose Share>Send To Compressor from FCX. Compressor then takes care of your rendering while you can keep working in FCX.

Now that's in a perfect world, however I and many others are experiencing some minor problems where FCX is chewing RAM and causing other apps to run extremely slow, including Compressor. Unfortunately till this gets fixed, my workaround is that I export a ProRes 422 from FCX, then use Compressor to transcode to whatever codec I need at the time.

Hope that makes sense.

Playhead...!!! Oh don't go there... That's taken 10 years of my life.

Yeah definitely buy compressor, I've always found it to be a big plus.

Would buying Compressor save me this time? If I export from FCPX via Compressor, will it export any faster?

Sending to Compressor is in fact much, much slower, even slower than export to ProRes. You can of course continue to work in FCP, but that will only slow down Compressor further.

If you transcode for YouTube, VIMEO or DVD then yes it's definitely worth it.

A more efficient workflow is to export a high resolution master, which you probably want to do any way, and take that to Compressor. Apply your multiple settings for compression and let it go. It really is better than using FCP while Compressor is calling it up for frame and audio mixing information. I have also found it creates odd audio dropouts.

Martin what Tom is saying is 100% correct, compressor is much slower, however if you want to transcode to H.264, what other option do you have.

Also the advantage in having compressor is being able to set up multiple or batch encoding.

Re: Transcoding for YouTube from FCX, I can't say I've tried it but from what I've read on other posts, there are many others experiencing problems.

My advice would be to export a ProRes422 from FCX, then use compressor to transcode to H.264

I can only speak for myself here, I use a 2011 MacBook Pro 2.3ghz with 8gig ram, and I'm finding it impossible to run any other apps while FCX is running, especially when synchronizing, optimizing or even as little as generating thumbnails or wave forms for my imported media.

Speaking for myself also. I always export a master file as Tom suggests then use compressor to produce the desired final video.

If you take the time to set up a quickcluster or cluster if you have more than one Mac and configure compressor to use all the cores, transcoding goes extremely fast as opposed to export directly from FCPX.

I have an 8 core Mac Pro, and using compressor with the quickcluster configured blows through the transcoding so much faster than a direct export from FCPX. Last night compressor transcoded a 20 minute SD video to both DVD (mpeg2 video and ac3 audio) and to SD Apple TV in about 15-20 minutes. Not bad at all.

Ken, you would happen to have a step by step in setting up a cluster?

Sorry no, I don't. I just followed the instructions in the manual. And I can't check settings right now because I'm not at my home workstation. I will relay the settings I use this evening if you still would like to know.

I have gotten multi-computer cluster to work, adding my dual-core Macbook Pro to the cluster, but it didn't really increase the speed much since you lose time by moving large amounts of data back and forth over your network.

I usually just use the Mac Pro, as its own cluster (used Quickcluster), just be sure in one of the option settings to enable all the cores. If I remember Compressor installed with a default to just one core.

When you submit your job(s), be sure to submit it to the cluster, and not "This Computer"