When does FCPX transcode, render, etc.?

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Level 1

6 points

When does FCPX transcode, render, etc.?

What makes FCPX decide when it needs to transcode, analyze, render, etc.? It's very confusing for me (a newbie).

Sometimes it begins one or more of those activities immediately when I import. At other times, I've seen FCPX wait until hours later, or even the next day, before it transcodes or renders — and this is not necessarily in response to any new activity I've initiated, FCPX might simply have been open in the background all that time, not being used at all. Then suddenly it decides it wants to do something (transcode, render, etc.). Like it's saying, "Oh, I forgot, I need to do that."

As a consequence, I never know whether it's done everything it needs to do before I can export a project. I've learned that just because I see "idle" all across the Background Tasks window doesn't mean that FCPX's to-do list is empty.

For sure I'm not understanding something about FCPX's workflow. Can anyone get me oriented? What I'd like is to be able to see FCPX's to-do list, and tell it to get on the ball and do it.

And BTW, I often see some activity stuck at less than 100% in the Background Tasks window. Sometimes 1% or 2%, sometimes 50% or 60%. Progress bar is animated, but not moving anywhere. What to do?

Running FCPX 10.0.6 on OS 10.6.8.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Dec 19, 2012 11:39 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 19, 2012 11:50 AM in response to gyandev

First off, update to FCP X 10.0.7.

Secondly, don't worry about background tasks when you want to Share (export) a project. Just go ahead and Share it whenever you want. It doesn't matter if there is a background task or not.

There are a few options for FCP X when you import something, like analyzing the media for color, sound, etc. If you select those options, it has a lot of work to do when/after importing. You can start working on the project with the media even though it hasn't finished doing all that, it's just those features that depend on that analysis won't work for the clips not yet analyzed. For example, if you click on the auto color option for a clip that hasn't been analyzed, the auto color won't be right.

Personally, I deselect all that and I don't have it analyze anything. I have found the sound analysis to be a waste of time and I do coloring manually. Even if you want to have coloring done automatically, the preset coloring built in and the inexpensive plug-ins that do coloring are better than the analyze on import feature, in my opinion.

The other rendering FCP X does is of the timeline. I think the default is after 5 seconds of inactivity, it starts rendering huge ProRes files and puts those files in a folder on the same hard drive that project is located. This isn't required. You can turn off background rendering in the preferences. You'll have the orange highlight in the timeline for things not rendered. Depending on your system, you may find FCP X can playback your project just fine without rendering it. For specific areas that bog down without being rendered, you can select those clips and then press CNTRL R to render just those clips.

Good luck.

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Answer 2

gyandev Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 28, 2012 8:18 PM in response to Scot Walker

Thanks so much for your reply, Scot. Makes sense, and it's very hery helpful. There's so much new stuff to know in the video world, and I appreciate the assistance as I get my feet wet.

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Answer 3

gyandev Author

Level 1

6 points

Jan 11, 2013 12:20 PM in response to Scot Walker

One more thing, Scot: Just to confirm, it really doesn't matter if FCPX doesn't think it has finished rendering yet — I can still share the video? Seems a bit counterintuitive. Yes, I do get a finished product if I share while FCPX is still rending, but will it be of the same quality as if I wait until rendering is done?

Thanks.

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