Issues converting to ProRes

Hello everybody,

I got my 1st gig from craigslist and met with a guy who transferred files to my external to do some work with. I'm pretty excited to do some outside work. Anyways, I tried to import the .mov files into FCPX one night and went to bed. I woke up to their being very little progress. Transcoding froze. I noticed it was having issue with the larger files (3 GB and up), getting stuck around 35%. So, I downloaded Compressor and had the exact same issue. It seems like I wasted $50. However I was able to convert to ProRes proxy and didn't seem to lose any quality and it only shaved off a small amount of hd space.

Anyways, my main question is why is it having a hard time converting to ProRes? I looked at the Quicktime Inspector of the files and they are in H.264 format. I did some research and the intrwebs tells me editing with those files could take ridiculously long to render.

Is there a real point to converting them to ProRes (optimized)? And did I waste the money on Compressor?

On an actual Mac, and I am using a Macmini, there's very little need to convert h.264 ....

Your issues are probably due to not enough disk space...? Haven't seen in your specs 'external hrad drive(s),',a single 3gb h.264 could instantly being blown ip to 40-100 (!) gigs.

But, as said, little need to optimize/convert anyhow .....

Cromonius wrote: ...
Is there a real point to converting them to ProRes (optimized)? And did I waste the money on Compressor?

As Karsten said you normally don't need to convert to ProRes (aka "optimized media") on import. You can import with "leave files in place", don't use proxy, don't use optimized, don't do any analysis and it will import very fast.

You did not waste money on Compressor -- it gives a lot more options on export should those be needed.

Thank's a lot for the info. I imported as native h.264 and it was no problem, fast even. I just assumed optimizing would be better. I supposed in this situation it is not. This is a continual learning experience, but it's fun in the process.

Again, I very much appreciate the feedback!

Maybe you can tend to ProRes 422 (LT) instead of HD which has smaller size with no quality drops. Converting time depends on files' size.

I would never use LT for HD material, the bit rate is just a tad too low for my comfort.