Timecode generator... realllllly slow render times??

Hi:

I've got a soccer game I've filmed. It's shot on DSLR, and consists of varying length of clips (due to DSLR card behavior, as you all well know, can't run it non-stop). There are 48 total clips. I selected all, drug them to the timeline and then laid the TC Generator on top. Simple, eh?

Well, it's creeping on the render. I don't know what would take so long. I know you usually don't have a 2nd layer of text over your entire video (this video's run time is 1 hour, 11 minutes), but still, what could be causing it to crawl like this? There aren't even any filters (no color correction, etc.). Everything is in optimized, too.

Suggestions would be welcome. I've been rendering for just over 2 hours and I'm at 3% complete.

Have you tried putting timeline in a compound clip and applying the timecode to that? I often CC projects when I add global effects/overlays to the whole project. It may make no difference or it may be useful if the timeline prerenders and then the TC comp is less intensive. Just a theory...

Something else is wrong. I added timecode just yesterday to a multilayer project (lots of picture-in-picture etc) with at least two or more colour grades to each shot. Rendering even with time code added was half real time (i.e. a 50 minute video rendered in just over 25 mins).

The first thing I'd do would be shut FCPX down and reboot, then try again.

How fast does it render if you disable the timecode layer only? That would tell you if it's the time code causing the problems or something else.

In FCP7, adding a timecode generator was really slow, REALLY slow.

In FCPX, we are getting (compared to FCP7) VERY fast export times, because we often make a quad image with 4 images, with all 4 on them having unrendered timecode generators on them (all 4 are actually sometimes 7-hour compound clips).

One question: are you working with Prores Material? If not, try that. It *really* speeds up effect-work in FCPX. We noticed that FCPX seems to work a bit slower with XDCAM for instance, then old FCP7 did.
FCPX is *really* fast in some render operations, but it also *really* likes Prores...
Try optimizing your media, if it didn't happen yet. Yes, you will take a hit on storage.
Storage is cheap. Time is not

Did you find the problem?

Yes, sorry. Been deep in the middle of it....

I've gotten a good workflow now. What had happened the first go round was I was trying to just use Proxy clips to speed things along. I don't believe you can export Proxy. Once I figured this out (thanks to these boards), I switched everything to Optimized media. I also made all the clips into a compound clip. Before transcoding, I trashed the first project and started over (making the compound clip). I also restarted my machine.

Once everything was transcoded, and I laid the TC generator over it, it rendered out fairly quickly. I think it took 90 mins - 2 hours for the entire thing. The length of my clip was 1 hour, 11 mins. Not too bad.

When I shared the project, I was using the HD720 setting. AFter some more reading on the boards, I decided to use the Master File option. With this, I chose the 854x480 size. The projects export out in about 1-2 hours, then I upload them to Copy and send them on their way.

Thanks for you guys' feedback. I ordered some more RAM last night. This will double my RAM (going from 8GB to 16GB). I know this doesn't always make rendering/exporting faster (I think the CPU is the main driver on those issues), but I think it can't hurt the overall system speed.

Can someone help me please. My render times are terrible. For example a 3 minute video will take 45 minutes to an hour. I have one title transition and my logo added to entire clip. Is this normal? Should I change everything to Compound clip before rendering? I also have background music provided by Youtube

i have found that if a clip is a MTS file, forget it.. the rendering is pathetic..
try sticking to 422 clips or have fcp convert them on import.
I also see slow rendering when i add a TCG above a clip on the timeline.
Now, if i can, i dont use one in fcp. Instead when i render it out for someone to see, i have compressor stamp in the time-code.
Its not perfect, but in this new version, if you have the skimmer on where it shows the info, and also have the new orange line on the clips showing what areas of the clip are used, you can skim over the clip in the event to get an idea where you are in the timeline... again not perfect but in some cases better than dealing with the render time when adding the TCG

kurt