Three times slower master h264 export in 10.2.2

Hi,

After I updated to 10.2.2 on my iMac it seemed the export time had increased significantly.
So I did an export test before and after updating my macbook air and sure enough the difference was huge!

I did a test on the same 30 sec timeline and exported a master h264 file.
On 10.2.1 it took 18 seconds and on 10.2.2 it took 1 min 5 seconds!

Does anyone have similar experiences?
Maybe they switched from single-pass to multi-pass? If so it is a shame you can't change this setting on a master export.

Thanks!

You can change anything you want. Go into Compressor and create your own custom preset to whatever you'd like. I'm not aware of any changes made to the built-in H.264 FCPX Destination preset.

No, I have to do a master export since I need multiple audio outs using Roles. This isnt possible with compressor presets.

Not sure what you mean by multiple audio outs. Multiple channels in one file, or multiple files?

What model year is your iMac?

I'd never expect any sort of good performance on a Mac Air.

File with 4 tracks of audio. 1+2 for on air, and 3+4 clean without VO. This is done with roles.

The iMac is a new maxed 5K iMac. I didn't do any timed tests on this. It just felt much slower after updating, so I ran a test on the macbook air before and after updating to compare 10.2.1 and 10.2.2. This confirmed that a master h264 export was three times faster on the old version.

AndersM wrote: Hi,

After I updated to 10.2.2 on my iMac it seemed the export time had increased significantly...Does anyone have similar experiences?
Maybe they switched from single-pass to multi-pass? If so it is a shame you can't change this setting on a master export....

I have not seen any slowdown in export times on 10.2.2. You can control whether export from FCP X to a master file is single-pass vs multi-pass H.264. This is done by selecting under settings>Video codec either "H.264 Better Quality" or "H.264 Faster Encode". Faster Encode uses the on-chip Quick Sync transcode hardware which is why it's so much faster.

The difference in export times you mentioned are a factor of 3.6x, which is in the range normally seen between Quick Sync on vs off. I would suggest checking this setting to make sure you are using Faster Encode.

Yeah, I was going to say I don't see any slow down at all on the latest Mac Pro (maxed out).

I think we have crossed wires here. When you export Format: Video And Audio, Codec: H.264, you do NOT have the choice of faster or better. But you DO have the option to make a multitrack QT file.

When you switch Format to one of the three "Publishing" options (Apple device, computer, web hosting), only then do you get the options to faster or better encoding, but you lose the ability to make multitrack QT files.

BEWARE that if you set up the multitrack settings while Format is set to Video and Audio first, then switch to one of the Publishing options, it looks like the multitrack settings tick, but it does NOT create multitrack files. I've just tested to confirm this.

As far as I can see you cannot set video codec "Better" or "Faster" when you do a Mastering export. Only when you do a Publishing/Computer export. The problem is that you cannot set multitrack audio export when you do a Publishing export. Only when you do a Master.

It is the "Mastering" export with H.264 chosen as video codec that seems to have been changed to a slower export(multi-pass). This is the option I HAVE to use since I need multitrack audio based on roles.

Ok, I Time Machined back to 10.2.1 on my 5K iMac to do some tests with a 1 minute basic project and these are the results:



As you can see this confirms what I saw on the macbook air and what I felt was going on on the iMac.
Also notice that there is no difference between "Faster" and "Better".
And even the "Better" setting on 10.2.1 is almost twice as fast as 10.2.2.

This project is 1080 25i so this might be related to my issues?

One of the new features of 10.2.2 was "Export interlaced H.264 video". However this has always worked when doing a Master H.264 export. Now the .mp4 files I get when doing a "Publishing" export is also proper interlaced files which they wheren't on 10.2.1.

But I still don't see why the Mastering export should be so much slower since this worked properly with interlaced exports in 10.2.1. Also it makes no sense that Better and Faster have equal export times.

AndersM wrote: ....notice that there is no difference between "Faster" and "Better"....

I confirm that something has changed, although my results differ from yours.

I just exported three projects on 10.2.2 three different ways, each. For each one I used:

(1) Master File>Computer>H.264 Faster Encode
(2) Master File>Computer>H.264 Better Quality
(3) Master File>Video and Audio>H.264

One project was 4k the other two 1080p. All material was progressive, none interlaced. Faster Encode was consistently about 2x faster than Better Quality. Exporting to Video & Audio using H.264 was about equal to "Faster Encode".

Previously the difference between Faster vs Better was about 4x-5x but I don't have the numbers and I don't have time to roll back to 10.2.1 right now. So based on this limited test either Faster Encode got slower, Better Quality got faster, or some combination.

In all cases I fully pre-rendered the storyline to avoid any uncertainty about rendering time vs export time.

This is on a 2013 iMac, i7 @ 3.5Ghz, 32 GB, GTX-780m, 3TB Fusion Drive with media on 8TB Pegasus R4 RAID5.

hmm… since exporting interlaced h264 is new in 10.2.2, do you see similar times when exporting interlaced h264 as when exporting progressive h264?

I have done some tests with a progressive timeline now, and I'm seeing similar and even somewhat better exporting performance in 10.2.2 compared to 10.2.1. I also tested prores and xdccm exports with the interlaced project and they work as expected.
So this is definitely a problem with h264 export of interlaced projects. I know most people here probably don't work with interlaced footage, but can anyone confirm this bug?

Thanks!

Interlace should take longer than progressive. Not sure it is a "bug", rather a simple performance issue with the coding. Poor performance is just that. A bug is something that is not functional at all.

Well something happened between 10.2.1 and 10.2.2 making it over 3 times slower. Also the fact that "better" and "faster" takes exactly the same time to render means something is not as it is intended. I would call that a bug...
"A software bug is an error, flaw, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways."

BenB wrote: Interlace should take longer than progressive. ....

btmk, encoders work dividing a frame into 'blocks'; interlace now rips such a 8x8-block into parts, the fields; so, there's lots of back'n forth calculation involved, what could be compressed in this field or the other .... = time.-

interlaced is no 'up to date' technique...... stay away from it :lol:

You're comparing the speed of one software version to another based on something one version can do and the other cannot. That's just ridiculous.

Not sure where you got that definition from, but it's incredibly stupidily phrased. An unexpected result is based on an assumption of foreknowledge of an expected result. You can't do that in this instance because you have no previous knowledge or result to compare it to. No previous version could encode interlaced H.264.

Yes it could. You could do a "mastering" export of an interlaced timeline and choose the H264 codec and get a correct .mov h264 interlaced file. This is what takes 3 times as long now and this is the real issue for me.

What's new in 10.2.2 is the ability to do an interlaced h264 output using the "publishing" export. However this is irrelevant to me since I need to use "mastering" to get multiple audio track using roles.
Either way this feature is also broken since "faster" is just as slow as "better".

To sum up: You could always do an interlaced h264 export using "mastering", but in 10.2.2 it is over 3 times as slow as in previous versions. That is the main issue.

I'm not seeing any slow downs on my system.

That is interesting, thanks for replying.

Are you exporting an interlaced project?

Thanks!

It took a lot of digging through my archives, but I found some old interlaced files. Different systems will perform differently, depending on hardware/software configurations.