Encoding Tests
A couple of days ago, I was able to make some encoding time comparisons – betwween 4.07 and 4.1. For curiosity's sake I also ran some tests comparing SL and Mavericks (on the same 2010 iMac)
There were some surprises – perhaps the biggest one being that Send to Compressor, a workflow that I've typically avoided, is now much faster using the latest versions of FCP and Compressor. Time will tell whether it also proves to be reliable. And I only tested it for a single setting, but the results were impressive enough to encourage its use going forward. Another surprise was that the "good old" Quick Cluster days for this particular target weren't so great after all. YMMV – especially with other targets and longer sequences.
My source clips were 1080i – the Canon MPEG encoding in an MXF wrapper. I assembled those into a simple 6 minute and 25 second sequence with no effects added. My objective was to produce a 720p 24 fps mp4 file. So there were multiple processes in this job: de-interlacing; down-scaling; re-timing and transcoding. I used a 2 pass quality setting for all tests.
Here are the Mavericks results:
In 10.1 Share>Master File Pro Res 422, 2:44 (quick, as expected). In 4.1, encode to mp4, 15:.38 Total combined time from native FCP sequence to mp4: 18:22. (not very impressive – but again, a lot going on – and it was multi-pass).
In 10.1, Share > Apple Devices>Settings>720p, 12:14.
In 10.1, Send to Compressor>mp4 setting, 10:07 (surpise #1).
In 4.07, Quick Cluster (3 instances), the Pro Res Mastr file encoded to mp4 in 16:22; so total time from native FCP sequence was 19:04. (surprise #2; requires more investigation).
Here are the 10.0.9/Snow Leopard results; (expecting everything to be slower…and I wasn't disappointed):
In 10.0.9, Share>Master File, 3:04. (pretty quick, but 11% slower than 10.1 on 10.9). In 4.0.7, Quick Cluster (3 instances) to mp4, 25:56. Total combined time, 29:00 (painful).
In 10.0.9, Send to Compressor>mp4, 40:17 (yikes!).
Russ
