Extra Long Export Times? I know why...

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Mauna2004 Author

Level 1

0 points

Extra Long Export Times? I know why...

I've been searching around, and found plenty of gripes about uber-long export times for clips of any length. I've seen one with 12 hours export time for 2 hours of video, and have had an even worse experience, having my brand new MacBook Pro quad core taking 20 hours to export two half hour 720p videos with just some titles on it. Thats just to export with the H.264 encoder, and I have to do 8 a week just to stay above water.

Anyways, I seen this video on youtube, best export settings for FCPX. It just went through the same new project process, but changed the audio to custom, surround to stereo, and the frames to 30p. then when exporting, just using the H.264 encoder (The last part wasn't that important). So, when I started doing this, and copy pasting, I found that, if I gave it time to render, it would save 30 minutes of video in about 20 minutes. The reason for the special settings in the video doesn't apply for the version of FCPX that I have, but it still worked.

I started to wonder why, and I figured it out! On the custom settings, FCPX will render not only the events, but everything in the project, including the titles and transistions. If I don't make the project a little weird when I'm creating it, and just leave it on the current settings, FCPX will of course have all the rendered events in the storyline, but when you begin to put on edits like cross fades, titles, or anything other then rendered event clips, FCPX won't recognize the need to render it, and thus when you try and export these files, the program has to render, transcode, and publish at the same time, and it burns itself out.

I'm no expert or anything, I just noticed when I did what the guy did in the video, the only real difference is that all that orange above the titles disappeared, (and if I tried to export before the program got a chance to render it, it was the same as before), and then the program would export quickly.

Why doesn't the program have a force render option, or render all, or something like that, why don't we have any real control over the background tasks? I mean, rendering and transcoding is so important, why is it that FCP will only render what it recognizes as important, and I the user have no control over it?

Final Cut Pro X, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Nov 30, 2012 3:05 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 30, 2012 7:33 AM in response to Mauna2004

hi,

Render All and Render Selection are availble under the Modify Menu.

adam

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Answer 2

Nov 30, 2012 9:08 AM in response to Mauna2004

You are being a little vague on what codec you started with so it's a little confusing to figure out where you have gone wrong. Since the first version as a general rule if you are looking for export speed and don't care about space used. Import using optimized media, edit in pro res 422, render the timeline, export current setting directly to drive. Use compressor and transcode to the required end codec using clusters.

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Answer 3

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Nov 30, 2012 10:13 AM in response to Mauna2004

With a new MBP, your exports should fly from start to finish– with or without rendering. As A.S, and W.G. indicated, you have more control over the process than you think. I don't mean to sound preachy, but if you want to learn FCP, the best way is to invest a small amount of money in a tutorial.

Good luck.

Russ

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Answer 4

Mauna2004 Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 30, 2012 3:14 PM in response to Mauna2004

You guys are awesome!

Mauna

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Answer 5

Nov 30, 2012 3:33 PM in response to Mauna2004

Mauna2004 wrote:

If I don't make the project a little weird when I'm creating it, and just leave it on the current settings, FCPX will of course have all the rendered events in the storyline, but when you begin to put on edits like cross fades, titles, or anything other then rendered event clips, FCPX won't recognize the need to render it, and thus when you try and export these files, the program has to render, transcode, and publish at the same time, and it burns itself out.

1: There is no 'weird' project settings - only settings that is different from your source material (or parts of it!)

2: FCPX will never "render, transcode, and publish at the same time"! It will always:

Render/Transcode first, then export to a file (temp or visible location) and then upload, if it's part of the destination.

Why some people have long export times, I don't know, but it sounds like a bug!

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Answer 6

Mauna2004 Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 2, 2012 2:27 PM in response to Wild Giles

The problem was that FCPX wasn't rendering my titles and transitions, so when I export, it would take a very long time because, I'm guessing, it had to render first, then export. Regardless of the codec, or even the source file, or the destination's format, it just took forever. What was weird for me is: 1) Why doesn't FCPX just render the titles and stuff in the background? I know that the titles and stuff are always moving, so maybe that is why FCP is designed not to do it all the time, but I think there should be some process so that when I go to sleep, and wake up the next morning, the whole program is rendered. 2) Why is it that the process to render/export takes so long? It would be faster for me to import new media, set my edits, render, and export than it is to have old source media that's already rendered, add some titles (which a century later would still be unrendered), then tried to export. The first new media import process might take about 4 hours for a half hour video, the second process would take 8-12 hours! I mean, I know (now!) that you can, and are supposed to, render all, but in my head that should be like a priority setting, and it should do that for everything, and why does it take so much longer for it to render in the export process?

Thanks everyone, can you guys please go comment on my other discussion: How to set trim options for transitions? I seperate my audio, then blade different sections to adjust different sections. When I add transitions, it cuts out some frames, and then everything gets out of sync. The different sections that I blade are not parts of different scenes, it's just that the Jazz band I filmed gets very loud, then very soft, depending on who is soloing at the moment. Between the loud sax solo (which I turn down) and the soft piano solo (which I turn way up) the shift between the two is pretty dramatic, so I apply cross fades, then I run into this problem.

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Answer 7

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,819 points

Dec 2, 2012 2:50 PM in response to Mauna2004

Turn on background rendering in your preferences.

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