Exporting Long Format

I am trying to export a clip from a conference I shot that is over an hour long. I'm having trouble getting it to export in any reasonable time. I tried leaving Compressor overnight, but when I got back, it said there were still 19hrs remaining (15hrs elapsed)

Any thoughts on how to get long footage out of Final Cut Pro X?

Hey mrgreynolds that's HUGE.
As is ever the case here, can you outline your system spec, external drives, source footage spec and export spec, it helps us all be able to point you in the right direction:)

Canon XA10 Source Footage

Transcoded to ProRes422(HQ)

MacBook Pro (Late 2008) 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 8GB RAM

Seagate FW800 Drive

The ultimate place this is ending up is the web. I'm guessing SD is about all that can work for this, but I'm up for pushing the envelope as much as possible

ProRes HQ is huge overkill for something that starts out as H.264. That's going to eat up a ton of unnessisary time. Especially on a MBP. I'd go back into my Project settings and let it render in ProRes 422, and export it as ProRes 422. Leave the HQ alone.

And you're going to put a 1 hour + video on the web? Exactly what is this, and where are you going to put it?

I think you should never have touched ProRes HQ, that's a major bottleneck for a MBP.

1- From the Project Library, select the project, to to the Inspector, Properties tab, wrench button bottom right. Set Render Format to "ProRes 422".
2- Export it as "ProRes 422" or "H.264".

Thanks for the heads up on the ProRes/ProResHQ. Hopefully that will help overall. I shoot with the XA10 and a 7D DSLR, so the idea of the HQ being overkill will help for future. Thanks!

Yes, the H.264 native codec both of those cameras record to have bit rates and color sampling that ProRes LT will handle just fine. So ProRes 422 will be plenty to keep the quality.

Hello,

I was about to write about the same issue myself. I have produced/edited a long performance of a band. The length is 2:30 hours and I used 6 camera angles in FCP X. Three of the camera angles contain several fairly long clips (30-50min). One camera angle is for the main audio recorded on a Zoom. and the others are for a 4th camera (which I couldn't use as the stage was moving so much that the hard drive in it shut down all the time as the camera on its tripod was bouncing up and down because of the poor stage floor) for a few clips and stills. I have made about 800 changes of camera angles in the project.

Anyway, I have experienced very long rendering times when applying effects to the the long clips and also when exporting to H264 at 1080P/29.97. I tried with 540P and even a smaller size with compressor. Also very long rendering times. I transcoded everything to ProRes when imported the footage from the different cameras 2 with HDV,1 x GoPro, 1xSR11 (AVCHD) and this part of the process was fine.

However, the rendering time for applying effects is 20-27 hours long. Never really got it down to a manageable time. I tried to apply the effects in the angle viewer and when that took so long, I tried to apply the effects by opening the clips in their own time lines and apply the effects there.

It makes sense, to me, to apply any effect in the angle viewer. But, as I mentioned I tried it both ways and it takes forever whether its applying an effect or exporting. The effects I used are some looks, vignettes and pulsing colored light effects. No video cleaning yet (waiting for Neat Video).

I spoke to an Apple FCP guy on Monday here in Chicago and explained the problem and he showed me how to share and use the H264. During the latest export was using this method but it just takes forever.

I will try your ideas and I thank you very much. My project is currently set for 1080P. It was in 1080i originally, but that didn't turn out well at all, when I exported. But that's more of my problem not paying enough attention. From now on, I will override the automatic project settings given to you based on the first clip.

Rendering times when applying effects to this footage and when exporting is still a problem. Maybe it just too much media for my machine:

iMac i7/16GB RAM (2GB internal volume with OS and application running on this volume) with media on an external 800 firewire drive. FCP X is 10.0.4 and I'm using Lion 10.7.3.

Yes, 2:30 hours is long, but the purpose of the video is to have it shown in its full length on HDTV-screens at venues (not for broadcast) remembering this performance. Eventually each song will go on the web individually along with an interview with the band.

Anyway, any input is appreciated, especially about applying effects and try to get faster render times. Would a Thunderbolt external drive be an alternative? But, that would require a new machine which I don't want to buy until I know what's in the pipeline beyond today's iMac and Pro solutions.

I really appreciate this site and the wealth of knowledge it provides. I've been editing industrial videos for a long time using FCP along the way. So, I'm new to all the variables when it comes to live/event recordings without a chance to re-record. I try to prepare myself, but if it isn't the background sound, it's the lighting or a camera going bad. Or not enough media or a sound board that gives me four channels of tin can audio. The last unexpected problem was that I ran out of hard drive space because of the large number of unused rendering files. But, I'm sure you all know this.

On another note; I'll probably start a new topic about live broadcasting via the internet after I've searched this forum and others. Anyone with experience in that field? I want to broadcast an upcoming event to the Scandinavian countries. It's probably not for this site, unless FCP X has a hidden feature as a live switcher

Thanks again

Anders
Chicago, Illinois

I'm writing something here because I want to be updated on any feedback (I hope to be editing a feature early next year so I'm going to have the same issues)!

BTW, did you say that you shot the footage in 1080i and are exporting as 1080p? I wonder will that be dramatically increasing your render times?

One more thing. Many moons ago I used to work with Premiere on a PC. I was editing a 30 minute long film that was effect heavy, and had a lot of subtitles (made with the regular titler). Premiere kept running out of RAM during renders, and in the end the only solution was to break the story into smaller segments which I exported using a (mostly) lossless Matrox codec. I then assembled all of the Matrox segments (with all rendered effects, subtitles & transitions) into a new timeline and exported that to my desired output. That solved the memory leak. I don't know if a similar workflow would work with FCPX?

I and we have done project from 1 hour to 2 on Final Cut Pro 7 and Final Cut Pro X and I haven't not came across this is issue.
As Ben mention this might and is probably your book fighting the codec.

Do let us know how it all turned out.

I have also, at least a half dozen times, exported 2.5 hour videos for both DVD and full res media files in FCPX - no problems.

A T'bolt drive would definitely help.

Also, working on such long timelines is not really standard practice. Not even Hollywood features are done that way. You divide it up into scenes, each scene is it's own Compound Clip. Then when you're done, assembly the CC's into one project for export purposes.

Is your FW800 drive 7200rpm?

And don't export as H.264 originally, export simply as is. Cmd-E, "Current Settings". Then transcode that to whatever delivery formats you need.