Compressor 4.1.3 - FCPX 10.1.3 (times differ)

Hey everyone!

I have one problem. When I export a Master File H264 from FCPX I get it done around 3 times faster than when using compressor. What's happening?

FCPX has some built in presets. All of them are present in Compressor too. When I export using these same presets, times are exactly the same.

The Master File H264 isn't available in Compressor, so I built my own. I've been around 4h with this now, and I can't figure out why it is much slower in Compressor... What am I doing wrong? I have made sure all settings are the same, and the ones that are not present in FCPX... I have tried them all. I never go below 11 minutes, while the Master File in FCPX takes 4 minutes.

Thanks!

Oh, let me add that I own a Mac Mini, so no dedicated graphics card. It's got an i7 and 16GB of RAM.

Also interesting noting that FCPX exports in 4 minutes and averages a use of the CPU of around a 25%. Compressor in the other hand uses a 75%.

The i7 included intel's Quick Sync Video hardware acceleration which FCPX knows how to use. If you use compressor and turn off multi-pass you'll get the same hardware acceleration. I also select high profile CABAC for better results.

See www.larryjordan.biz/compressor-4-1-hardware-acceleration/ for more info.

marchyman wrote: The i7 included intel's Quick Sync Video hardware acceleration which FCPX knows how to use. If you use compressor and turn off multi-pass you'll get the same hardware acceleration. I also select high profile CABAC for better results.

See www.larryjordan.biz/compressor-4-1-hardware-acceleration/ for more info.

Hy Machyman! Thanks for your reply. I had single-pass enabled, or better said, multi-pass disabled. It still is much slower.

I found out though, that if I enable that preset in FCPX as a Compressor Output it then is muuuuch faster. So confused... lol

Thanks anyways!

When I had some time on my hands a few months ago, I did some comparative testing of export speeds with the two apps.

Like you I found that the Final Cut exports were consistently faster – and that was across different rendering codecs and resolutions. Hardware acceleration was enabled in the Compressor tests.

Russ

There is something wrong here. Some time ago I tested FCP X vs Compressor export to single-pass H.264 and (my recollection was) it was about the same. Both were apparently using Quick Sync on my 2013 iMac 27 with 3.5Ghz i7.

I just re-tested this and Compressor is now significantly slower -- even for the exact same output parameters. E.g, exporting a 2 min H.264 1080p/30 clip takes 0:33 in FCP X 10.1.4, vs. 1:13 in Compressor 4.1.3.

Going to multi-pass makes both FCP and Compressor a lot slower (5:38 for FCP vs 6:20 for Compressor). This is expected since without Quick Sync they both must use software transcoding. However FCP is still faster than Compressor.

I don't know if FCP got faster, Compressor got slower, if I remembered incorrectly the previous performance, or if I did something to make Compressor slower. But I tried many different settings and Compressor now always exports slower than FCP X.

Russ Haskell wrote: When I had some time on my hands a few months ago, I did some comparative testing of export speeds with the two apps.

Like you I found that the Final Cut exports were consistently faster – and that was across different rendering codecs and resolutions. Hardware acceleration was enabled in the Compressor tests.

Russ

joema wrote: There is something wrong here. Some time ago I tested FCP X vs Compressor export to single-pass H.264 and (my recollection was) it was about the same. Both were apparently using Quick Sync on my 2013 iMac 27 with 3.5Ghz i7.

I just re-tested this and Compressor is now significantly slower -- even for the exact same output parameters. E.g, exporting a 2 min H.264 1080p/30 clip takes 0:33 in FCP X 10.1.4, vs. 1:13 in Compressor 4.1.3.

Going to multi-pass makes both FCP and Compressor a lot slower (5:38 for FCP vs 6:20 for Compressor). This is expected since without Quick Sync they both must use software transcoding. However FCP is still faster than Compressor.

I don't know if FCP got faster, Compressor got slower, if I remembered incorrectly the previous performance, or if I did something to make Compressor slower. But I tried many different settings and Compressor now always exports slower than FCP X.

Hey guys. I found out that if you create an output from FCPX using Compressor's Preset then times are exactly the same. So yes, compressor is definitely doing something wrong...