Compressor Speed

I've been running some tests to try to find the fastest workflow for compressing to H.264/720p for Youtube from FCP7 ProRes LT/1080p. After trying Compressor 3 and 4 in different configurations this is what works best for me:

1. FCP7: render file and Export with current settings to a self-contained movie
2. Quit FCP7 and any other open programs.
3. Compressor 3: Reset Background Processing. Compress to 720p

Doing this takes approximately 2.5 times the actual length of the clip. I'm using an 8-core 2.26 GHz Mac Pro with 14Gb RAM.

I tried Qmaster with Compressor 4 and this workflow is still faster.

Is anyone getting better speeds using a similar setup? Anything else I should try?

I posted details of my testing here: wp.me/p2gorK-1w

H.264 isn't really a very fast codec at all.

Have you simply tried to open that clip in Quicktime 7, resize it the way you want and then export a H.264 file? That's what I do now (courtesy tip from BenB) and it encodes fast and clean. I leave all settings automatic and vary the quality slider from medium to high based on the movement in my clip.

dgwvideo: Thanks for the tip. That works, and is actually a little faster than Compressor, but you can't queue up a bunch of clips if you need to encode more than one. I went ahead and bought a Matrox CompressHD card and it works great, with a few quirks. It encodes to h.264 in better than real time.

Here are my first tests: wp.me/p2gorK-1Z

Yes, directly there is no batch function in QT 7 to make that happen. But I am quite sure you could create an Automator script to handle that. Automator is one of the most overlooked and underutilized features of OSX. I have recently started to use it to batch process image files and the like and if I get some time, I'll work on an encoding script for QT 7 files.

Use the exact same settings from what you do in QT 7, go into Compressor and make a Droplet. Super simple, takes 2 minutes, automation, done. Quality as good as anything else, and since it's encoding in the background, you can go about other work and not bother with it. No need to spend extra money or time.

Leave it to BenB to find the simpler solution

Wasn't sure if a droplet could handle multiple files at once.

Dude, you can drop a whole folder onto a Droplet.

Well, there's the answer then...a droplet. I never really used them that I can think of but sounds like that is clearly the way to go. Thanks for another great tip.