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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

May 31, 2013 1:59 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Well,

I've made some test around other seen i've read in this thread.

My last project was a "bigger" one starting from M2T files from my Z5 (converted as i mentionned yesterday). The final project time is 15 minutes and i added some Red Giant FX. My usual export options was (in french : Dispositifs Apple 720p). I didn't let FCPX do render in background.

After 24 hours, i was at 40% of exportation.

Then, i choose the option 'Render Master' that i never chosse before because my project will be only uploaded in Vimeo.

The result was realy better, it takes me 8 hours. But i reported some entrelacement disagrement in the master file.

On my second mac, i let it do backround rendering during some times. I can't measure it, but was sensibly quicker than 8 hours ! After that when all the background rendering was finished, a Render Master only take few minutes !

FCPX 10.0.6 - Slow render, slow export