WHY RENDER IN PRO RES ?

Why must FCPX render to ProRes? It should be possible to render in H264 why? I have a clip with Neat Video and some other filters. It takes 1min 45sec to export to Pro Res 422. The H264 takes 15 seconds. Having H264 as an alternative rendering format would save a lot of time and for me it is good enough quality..

Hi!
If you are talking about the rendering setting for effects in the timeline, I think it is because H264 use a lot more processing power than ProRes, also quality should be fine to the naked eye but ProRes is a much better codec in every aspect except for file size compared to H264 (less compression, 10 bit, 422, no GOP).
If you are talking about exporting a mater file, you do have an option to export to H264 from the drop down menu.

I've never seen Long GOP formats like H.264 render faster than ProRes. If it is possible, I'd really like to see it documented. Just saying...

If you are talking about in the timeline, H.264 takes longer, falls apart faster, doesn't playback as easily as ProRes. As previously stated.

I checked the tes file and by mistake I have disabled the neat video filter on the 264 so it was all wrong but the export times not longer for H264 almost the same.

maclamb wrote: Why must FCPX render to ProRes? It should be possible to render in H264 why?...Having H264 as an alternative rendering format would save a lot of time and for me it is good enough quality..

There are two different things here:

(1) Timeline render format which is a cache of rendered data. FCPX does not really edit in a native codec but internally converts this to a user-specified render format such as ProRes 422 (the default). You specify this when you create a project and select "use custom settings". You can also view/edit this for existing projects by selecting the project, then in Inspector click "Modify". That allows choosing or changing the render format for timeline operations. Picking H264 is not an option here.

(2) Exporting to an output file. This is commonly called rendering but that isn't the best word because rendering and encoding are two different things. You can select whatever output codec you want, within those available to FCPX. On a computer with an i7 CPU Sandy Bridge or later, FCPX can use Quick Sync to accelerate the encoding (but not rendering) of this.

Neat Video or any other effect must be rendered before it is encoded in the output file. Whether the output file is H264, ProRes or anything else, that rendering must take place. The performance of the render phase is mostly unrelated to the performance of the encode phase. I think Tom or somebody once said there are code paths where FCPX may combine those two logical phases -- rendering and encoding -- to a single phase, but from a logical standpoint both discrete activities must be performed.

As Ben said, even though FCPX (on i7 hardware with Quick Sync) can encode very quickly, I haven't seen a case where it's faster than encoding to ProRes. This might be because even on an H264 timeline it is already (or must be) rendered internally to ProRes before the encode phase. However FCPX is faster at exporting to H264 than any other editor I've seen, and since this is so commonly used for distribution and web uploads, that's a handy feature.

Neat Video is inherently a slow algorithm. If you open the Neat Video interface there is a performance optimization tab which allows testing your hardware CPU and GPU. Neat Video will then recommend the best combination of CPU cores and GPU for fastest performance.

Instead of asking Why render in ProRes? one could ask Why render in the background?

Answer: because, given you have disc space in great profusion, you will always have the smoothest timeline playback possible.

I found that to be not always true. Apparently background rendering gets in the way of other background tasks (like analyzing for optical flow), which I'd call a bug. If at any time I lose real time, usually due to Neat or many effects in combination, I just ctrl r (render selected).

I once thought that if everything was rendered in ProRes already and exported to ProRes in the end, the process would be significantly shorter, since the app just had to copy all render files to a single, self-contained master clip.

I still find this assumption logical, but in real life there doesn't seem to be a huge difference. Therefore: Why ever render all?

Rendering is sometimes necessary in order to play back a complex timeline. I have background rendering on all the time but I have it set to start after 15 seconds. The advantage of this is that background rendering doesn't happen while I am actively working, I can force a render when I need to (Shift Control R or Control R) , and if I am not actively editing the timeline will render automatically. This approach works fine for me.

"I once thought that if everything was rendered in ProRes already and exported to ProRes in the end, the process would be significantly shorter, since the app just had to copy all render files to a single, self-contained master clip."

I helped with the technical testing for an article macProVideo did about this when FCPX first came out. Our findings were that yes, in SOME cases, depending on codecs used, export times can be shorter if you render first. But not always. Flip side of that is, you also spend time rendering the timeline. The time spent rendering the timeline, then exporting, is way, way longer than just exporting a totally un-rendered timeline.

I render only sections of a timeline I need for smooth enough playback to edit. And that is not every day. I really have never had a need for background rendering, personally. Even on the old 2010 Mac Pro we have at the TV station.

My 2 cents: Leaving background rendering on all the time I believe can lead to corrupt render files. At least in many previous versions of FCPX libraries would sometimes fail to open and the cure was to either a.) thru FCPX or b.) in some cases manually, delete the render files. It seems that constant re-rendering may have been the culprit. I have never turned background rendering on since maybe the first few releases of FCPX and like others, render a particular clip only if and when needed.

A utility that would do clean up on a schedule would be nice. Include deleting all render files. The option to delete proxies, maybe thumbnails, preference files. That would be an interesting utility. All the clean up stuff for FCPX in one control panel, not spread out over a dozen place. Just a thought...

FCPX.guru wrote: A utility that would do clean up on a schedule would be nice. Include deleting all render files. The option to delete proxies, maybe thumbnails, preference files. That would be an interesting utility. All the clean up stuff for FCPX in one control panel, not spread out over a dozen place. Just a thought...

In part you can do this with Library Manager, you can delete Optimized, Proxy, Renders and Float separately. I particularly like how it gives me a graphic representation of where everything lives and how much space it consumes.

I was thinking in a scheduled, automated manner, so I didn't have to both with the manual work of doing it regularly.