Fast exporting for quick delivery

Our workflow is very different and I hope you can help me speed it up.

We have 3 iMacs i5, 7200GHz HDD with 10.7.4 FCP 10.0.4 and compressor 4.0.3 connected with Gigabit ethernet.
We importing AVCHD 1080i from 7 different cameras, doing basic editing (trimming, overlapping, few titles, short slow motion and a reverse clip) with music. the all project is about 12min long. we repeating this process every 30min 10-20 times a day.

We need to play the project to the customers on projector screen while burning it to a DVD and putting it on USB ready for youtube upload.

"Sending to compressor" takes a lot longer then 12min. only 25% of the footage can be optimized as we getting it about 15min before the rest of the footage and we need to start editing.

so that's what I came up with:
After finishing the edit, we export with "current setting" to another computer over the ethernet, that takes about 6min (for a 12min video). then adding that QT file to compressor (over the ethernet) back to the editing computer, submitting then in FCP X making the projector a secondary display and playing the project through mini DP. then the other computer makes the DVD with compressor.

That make the DVD in time by the end of the movie and the USB about 4 min later.

BUT

With some delays (which happens often) while customers sitting in the screening room, that export time is too long to wait and making the all workflow not possible in time before the next group come to watch there video.

Putting the events on external 800FW drive did not make much different to the speed.
Optimized media made it export in 3:30min (and not 6min) but it takes longer then 2:30 min for the media to be optimized.

Is there a better workflow? any hardware that can speed it up?

I've been searching the net (and my head) for a while now, any help will be great.

Thanks

First, drives are measured in RPM, not GHz, that's a 7200 RPM drive. Tech trivia for the day.

Once you export as Current Settings, why not just screen it in QuickTime Player? In v.7 use Cmd-F to go directly to full screen mode and play. In v.X use Cntrl-Cmd-F.

Encoding Long-GOP format to another Long-GOP format is going to take time, period.

Exactly which export is taking too long? What is happening differently between an export that is fast, and one that is slow?

All you can do is add T'bolt drives, max out the RAM, not much else you can do to an iMac to make it process faster. You can't upgrade the GPU or CPU or anything.

If you create a droplet in Compressor to transcode the originals into ProRes LT, how long does it take all the footage to process?

All I can think of is those iMacs simply are not fast enough for the on-the-spot turn around you need. A Mac Pro with a beefy GPU and 16GB RAM and a second internal drive would be faster.

Sound like a very challenging workflow! Kinda fun actually.

So what is the weak link in your chain, or the part that is really causing problems?

- the initial export from fcp x
- DVD creation time
- USB version creation ( h264 I'm guessing)
- YouTube export/upload

I think there are lots of ways to speed this up.

T.

Thanks for the replies and sorry about the GHz it was late when I was writing.

In the way we do things now it feels like the exporting to QT is what slow us down. We finish
editing as the customers are ready to start watching and getting into the screening room, then we need to wait 5-7min for the QT file when nobody doing anything, that's way it feels like it's the part that slowing us down, but I couldn't find a way to do it with out it or speeding up the writing of the QT file.

We got iMac i5 with 16GB RAM, would a MacPro will make a significant different? which one?

We not playing the QT because the 1080i doesn't look good on the projector when using the mini display, FCP X doing a much better job.

Ones we got the QT file on the second computer, the DVD burning and the converting to H.264 seems to be in time (the H.264 does take a bit longer and it would be good to get it done faster but we can deal with it).
We don't upload to YouTube (internet is too slow here) we let the customer do it in there own time from the USB drive.

E.

Well the GHz this is unforgivable. You know one mistake and you are outta here

Of course we are kidding. Seriously, so you said:

We not playing the QT because the 1080i doesn't look good on the projector when using the mini display, FCP X doing a much better job.

Can you explain that further. What do you mean you are not playing the QuickTime file? How are you playing it to the projector? Though FCP X? What is the "mini display"?

Also let me see if I have this straight on your workflow. Let's call your iMac's A, B, & C, and this is in sequence.

1. iMac A - Bring in multiangle footage and edit down to approx. 12 minutes (how long do you spend doing this edit?)
2. iMac A - Share > Export Media using current settings to iMac B. (6 minutes.)
3. iMac A - in FCP X playback video to projector. (12 minutes)
4. iMac B - in Compressor create a DVD (using what settings?)
5. iMac C - in Compressor create h264 file.
6. Upon leaving playback in step 3, audience gets a DVD and h264 file on USB (?)

We not playing the QT file in QuickTime player because it looks bad when you play the 1080i from Quicktime player through the mini display port to HDMI to the projector. but when doing it from FCP X by making the projector the second screen, it looks great. ether way I don't think playing it in QuickTime Player we'll make things faster.

The sequence you wrote is correct apart from number 5, we do it on iMac A

Cheers

Just wondering: As you have your iMacs networked together, did you ever try to create a render farm with Qmaster? That'll save you a lot of time with your renders. You could run a batch with mpeg and h.264 while you are presenting your show.

For fast h.264 render there is that 99 dollar or so Elgato USB stick thingy. It speeds up things a lot. The results are good enough for YouTube.

Networked rendering will only work with some codecs, and depending on the size of the project, and speed of CPUs. I doubt iMacs on Ethernet with H.264 for something so short would benefit.

My projects are normally around twelve minutes long. At least for the mpeg rendering I could cut my time in half, even with a five year old c2d iMac as second machine. The speed advantage for h.264 is lower though - I save about 30%.

That's my experience. YMMV.

Yes, I have tried Qmaster with compressor 4.0.3 but I found it failed most times (maybe because the other computers need to do other tasks while been used by Qmaster) or didn't made much different.
The h.264 need to be full 1080, do you think the Elgato thingy will make much different, we tried it then the Elgato HD came out but it wasn't amazing.

E.

Look into a Matrox MXO2 Mini with Max (h264 render box) which has true 1080i HDMI output for your projector too. You might not need the the third machine!

Would it work well without the QT file just with "send to compressor" command?

Screw interlaced. Shoot, produce, deliver progressive.

It seems the most time consuming process is the initial export from FCP X, therefore I would try to eliminate the need for it.

For example instead of exporting a file for compressor to use on other Macs, move your event/project to another Mac and let FCP X do the h264 export and DVD export. Obviously you are going to need to test and try this, but it would look something like this.

1. iMac A - Bring in multi angle footage. Before editing duplicate event to fast external drive.
2. iMac A - while event is duplicating and edit down to approx. 12 minutes
3. iMac A - when edit is complete duplicate project to external drive. Quit FCP X and disconnect external drive.
4. iMac A - in FCP X playback video to projector. (12 minutes)
5. iMac B - in FCP X create full rez h264 file via Export Media, or Share > Apple Devices
6. iMac B - in FCP X Share > DVD

There are other variations of this of course. You would just need to see what you could do to get the event/project on another machine quickly.

BTW I have found that exporting from FCP X is at least twice as fast as using compressor because FCP X will use the GPU while Compressor does not. Unless you have a specific need for compressor I would see what happens if you avoid it and just use FCP X.

Another idea I had, which is a little nuts would be to create a h264 file and DVD on the fly from your Mac A FCP X output. You would split your HDMI signal to something like a Elgato Game Reocrder

( www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/produc...t/GameCaptureHD.html )

and then down convert HDMI to s-video with something like this for a DVD recorder:

www.atlona.com/Atlona-HDMI-DVI-to-Compos...-Down-Converter.html

Thanks mate, I hope they'll make sharing easier in the next update.

I tried the workflow you suggested. FCP X use compressor for the DVD even when you share>DVD and compressor can only do one conversion at the time so to do the H.264 at the same time on computer B I had to do Share>DVD>use compressor, submit, then Export>H.264 in FCP. that did it at the same time but took very long time for the H.264.
The other way was to send to compressor to do the H.264 on computer A and playback on computer A, and computer B does the burning but that took even longer for the H.264.

The Elgato option would not suit our place for many reasons, but you right it's an option.

Thanks E.
(BTW do you know how to subscribe to a topic? I've done it before but I can't seems to do it even for this topic)

Indeed, I don't know how to subscribe. I used to get notifications via email but I don't any more.

Are you not seeing the subscribe buttons?

There appears to still be a problem, peteramwiggins. When I go to my profile and then preferences, there are notification checkboxes that appear momentarily and then quickly disappear.

Yeah, for me, about everything in my profile space is messed up. Trying to edit text in my profile is pretty hit and miss for one.

Thank you, the subscribe button is back.

E.