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Level 1

13 points

FCPX 10.0.6 - Slow render, slow export

Hi all 🙂

I downloaded the Final Cut Pro X 10.0.6 Trial last month and I've been enjoying using the program to edit some videos I've shot recently ... however it is painfully slow when importing and converting to optimised or proxy media (so I tend to use neither so at least I can get on with editing), slow when rendering clips in the timeline, and painfully slow when exporting.

My setup is:

MacBook Pro 15" 2.4GHz i5

8GB RAM

500GB 7200rpm HD

Mac OS 10.6.8

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M w/ 256MB graphics memory

The footage is on an external LaCie 250GB 7200rpm USB2 drive, and I'm using gfxCardStatus to force graphics to be rendered using the graphics card rather than the Intel processor.

My current project is a 55 minute 1080p 25fps AVCHD video from our Panasonic X900 camcorder, and I just added a single title with a cross dissolve at the beginning, and a cross dissolve to fade out at the end.

I left it encoding to 'Apple Devices 720p' last night around 10pm and by 7:30am it had only done 70%. When I tried to use the computer for browsing the web, the whole machine froze up and I had to force restart it. I then copied all the files onto my laptop hard drive so I could try rendering it again at work. I started it at 9:15am and now 3.5 hours later it's at 31% ...

Is this horribly sluggish performance normal? Is AVCHD such a pain to convert into any other format?

I have tried using optimised media but it seems to take just as long to convert the files into ProRes to start with ... If I did use optimised media and I wanted to compress the output to 720p at a sensible bit-rate (so the whole file is around 2-3GB), should I export the 'Master' file first (~53GB) and then re-compress it afterwards? It just seems a complicated and hard-drive-space hungry way of exporting, when I would ideally like to export straight from the ~10GB source files (AVCHD) into the completed file (2-3GB).

Any input is much appreciated!

All the best,

David

PS. Would 10.0.7 offer any kind of speed improvement?

Posted on Feb 14, 2013 4:52 AM

Best reply

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Posted on Feb 14, 2013 5:52 AM

Left to its own, FCP will use the GPU extensively in exporting. So try disabling CardStatus to see whether there is a conflict.

The export may have exhausted your free RAM. Run Activity Monitor to see what's going on with free memory.

Your USB2 drive is not an ideal solution as a media drive. Although there are folks here who use them without issues, my preference would be Firewire at a minimum. How much available space is on that drive? Less than say 20%, that might be a contributing factor.

You should be able able to edit AVCHD and go directly to Share. I tend to optimize when I have that option, but it's mainly force of habit.

Updating is to the latest version is usually a good idea, but if you're in the midst of a project, follow Apple's update best practices and back up both 10.0.6 and your project.

Good luck.

Russ

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31 replies

Hogster86 Author

Level 1

13 points

Mar 5, 2013 10:17 AM in response to Russ H

Hi Russ,

I've tried deleting the render files, but still no discernible difference ...

I'm wondering if my particular graphics card (GeForce GT 330M w/ 256MB VRAM) is just not man enough to render things quickly? It's one of the 'supported' cards, but that's not to say it's guaranteed to work well 😟 I guess there's no way to alter how FCPX does its rendering, to use more processor power than GPU power for example?

What graphics card do you have by the way?

Many thanks,

David

Hogster86 Author

Level 1

13 points

Mar 7, 2013 11:08 AM in response to Hogster86

Hi Russ,

After trying a large number of the suggestions on this website:

http://fcpx.tv/troubleshooting.html

I can't say that little sequence of the images and titles has become noticeably quicker to render / export. However, I've just gone back to my current project (a lecture), and I must say the whole program runs perfectly fast enough with the optimised media, and so far all the transitions (simple cross dissolves) play back just fine even when un-rendered. I think I've just been chasing a problem that's actually rather insignificant ...

I guess I will just have to accept that rendering non optimised media (like images) will take a little longer, but hopefully as the vast majority of my project is already optimised, it should export to a Master File nice and quickly.

Thanks again for all your patience and help!

David 🙂

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Mar 7, 2013 11:25 AM in response to Hogster86

Hogster86 wrote:

I'm wondering if my particular graphics card (GeForce GT 330M w/ 256MB VRAM) is just not man enough to render things quickly? It's one of the 'supported' cards, but that's not to say it's guaranteed to work well 😟 I guess there's no way to alter how FCPX does its rendering, to use more processor power than GPU power for example?

Your graphics card may not be the latest-greatest, but it's fine for most work. I don't think there is any way to change how FCP allocates resources.

If transcoding from native to optimized media is available as an option, it is generally a good idea…and as you indicate in your last post it seems to be workiing better for you. It will be interesting to see whether your exports will be much faster. Try it; I would expect it would be.

Good luck.

Russ

Apr 26, 2013 6:10 AM in response to Russ H

Well have similar problems since i've switch to 10.0.5 to 10.0.6 and still have problems with the 10.0.7

A 5minutes project takes me yesterday 21 hours to be rendered. (I assume adding new plugin on it) But by the way, without that one, it takes more than 5 hours to be rendered.

Never find what the problems, but i'm also on a 10.6.8 OS iMac Core i7 8go, seems not have that kind of problem on project done with a higher OS verssion on my iBook.

During all that rendering time, monitoring CPU and HD seems not realy do something significant for a video rendering.

It's long, realy long, but i'm sure there are something that work not on the configuration OS 10.6.8 iMac.

My GFX was :

AMD Radeon HD 6770M

dlgdon

Level 1

0 points

May 7, 2013 1:50 PM in response to Hogster86

INteresting on the Render times, I'm a little flabber gasted in render times considering the level of MAC I'm using . . Latest iMAC quad core with 32 gigs of 1600mhz RAM, Fusion 1.28 Terabyte drive, running Mountain Lion 10.8.3 and the lastest version of FCPX 10.0.8...

Rendering 4:30 mins of some imported photos with the fX coverflux effects . . And this puppy is bogging down like CRAZY . . 1080p HD with 23.98 frames..

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

May 7, 2013 2:04 PM in response to dlgdon

Wouldn't hurt to do some basic housecleaning… usePreference Managerto delete prefernce files; repair permissions in Disk Utility. Open Activity Monitor as things bog down to see whether there is a memory leak.

Even on a 3 year old iMac I find exports exceptionally fast – usually not much faster than real time.

Russ

May 30, 2013 12:05 AM in response to Russ H

Hmmm still have made a Preference Manager.
I've made some bigger test on my second Mac and it's still really too slow.

Is the original footage would have an impact of this so slow rendering ?

It was .M2T files from my Sony Z5, it's an HDV MPG format in 1440x1080.
Before FCPX would be able to use it, i should convert it with ClipWrap where i choose the output format "Rewrap (don't alter video samples) and have quickly a .MOV file.

Imported in FCPX my file info is 1080iHD, codecs HDV 1080i50 25/MB/s PCM

In the importation options, i use Original media or optimised (not proxy media) and there are backround rendering activated (but stopped when i launch the exportation)