export times

Question

Level 1

19 points

export times

I am wondering if taking a hour to export a 2:30 long project to a 1080P h.264 file is normal? I am using the original media, h.264 files from a Nikon D7000 and they play fine on my machine. I have several effects on half the files, including Neat Video noise reduction. Should I use background rendering or not? (I am using it now) Also I am using the X264 codec. Is that slowing me down? I am thinking about how long it will take to export a 15-20 minute project. All day?

I am using a MBP, 2.5 GHZ, 8 GB RAM, my events and projects are on a separate firewire 800 7200 rpm external drive, OS 10.7.4, FCPX 10.0.5.

Thanks

Posted on Jun 18, 2012 7:30 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 18, 2012 8:22 AM in response to pcalvin

It is excessively long for normal formats but I don't know about the weird non-standard codecs Nikon may be using.

That video should take less than 10 minutes unless there is something we don't know about.

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Answer 2

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 18, 2012 8:40 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

I am not sure what other information you may need. I have sent the project to Compressor and it has been running for 25 minutes and it is only half way finished exporting. This is the kind of thing that might send me back to Premiere Pro CS6.

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Answer 3

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 18, 2012 9:14 AM in response to pcalvin

I tried the "export media" setting, choosing h.254 and it only took 10 minutes or so. If I choose "export using compressor settings", or "send to Compressor" and use the 1080P selection for Vimeo, it runs for an hour or more to export 2:30 of project. Is this a single pass vs multi-pass thing? Does Compressor take longer becaiuse it outputs a superior result?

Thanks

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Answer 4

Jun 18, 2012 9:53 AM in response to pcalvin

Could be.

What Compressor settings are you using?

Multi-pass, VBR and Max Quality as opposed to High Quality can easily quadruple or more the encoding times.

They do result in better quality but as with all claims of a video nature, the difference is often hard to see and rarely justifies the excessively longer compression times.

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Answer 5

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 18, 2012 4:31 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

I have the Compressor setting at single pass, high quality and it tells me in the share monitor that it will take over an hour to export the 2:30 video, but when I select h.264 under "export media" in FCPX, it took less than 5 minutes to export the file.

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Answer 6

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Jun 18, 2012 4:49 PM in response to pcalvin

This is for FCP7, but in my experience, applies also to X.

Good luck.

Russ

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Answer 7

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 18, 2012 6:27 PM in response to Russ H

I exported the project as the tutorial suggested, but when I dropped the file on Compressor, it wasn't much quicker. However, I found that mpeg stream clip would convert the Prores422 file to h.264 as multi-pass, 100% quality in about 8 minutes. An extra step, but it saves me an hour or more.

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Answer 8

Jun 19, 2012 4:46 AM in response to pcalvin

I think your problem may be the Compressor Presets for YouTube etc.

They have ridiculously high data rates of 20.5mbps plus all the bells and whistles of multi-pass and frame reordering.

None of these things is necessary and they all combine to create huge files and excessive encoding times.

You need to create your own more efficient custom preset.

If you don't know how, email me and I will send you one.

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Answer 9

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 19, 2012 7:29 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Thanks for the advice. I built presets for 1080P and 720P using Vimeo's posted settings, and the exporting is much faster. I am still exporting as Prores and then running it through Compressor. So the question is, really, what settings provide for higher quality, without taking forever to export?

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Answer 10

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,004 points

Jun 19, 2012 8:53 AM in response to pcalvin

Can you save the presets as droplets and post them somewhere? I'd be curious to see what settings you're using. Thanks.

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Answer 11

Jun 19, 2012 8:57 AM in response to pcalvin

I don't know if your using qmaster quick clusters, but that speeds up the rendering in compressor.

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Answer 12

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 19, 2012 10:29 AM in response to Wild Giles

I tried to set up the clusters, but must have left a step out because after I click on submit in Compressor, I don't see anything except The Computer under clusters.

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Answer 13

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 19, 2012 10:35 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Tom,

I'll see where I can park them. I used to use mobileme for that, but that seems to be no longer an option.

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Answer 14

Jun 19, 2012 10:45 AM in response to pcalvin

If you have nowhere to put them you can email them to me and I will pass them on to Tom. (Click my name for my address).

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Answer 15

pcalvin Author

Level 1

19 points

Jun 23, 2012 3:43 PM in response to pcalvin

Progress. I figured out why virtual clusters didn't work for me. I left on box checked that should have been checked. (Thanks for the link, Russ) And I followed Ian's advice and backed off on the quality settings on my presets. I started with Vimeo's suggests and inched up the mbps, used high quality, not maximum. The output looks good, not artifacts, etc.

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