48 Hour Render for grading 1 Hour of ProRes 422 LT?

S

Sheldon Charron

Well-known member
Hi everyone.

I'm pretty new to final cut pro, but have been managing okay. I have a 7D and my 13 year old son shot 1 hour of video for me last Saturday of a presentation I was doing at a local university. There were 6 different clips total. The video was mistakenly set at 60fps 1280 x 720p. The audio was recorded on a zoom H4n and 44k wav file (I think it's supposed to be 48k).

I'm using Final Cut Pro 7. I imported everything using log and transfer with the EOS conversion to ProRes 422 LT and then edited and synced everything just fine (we used a clapboard each time he had to restart recording lol). I wanted to use Magic Bullet Looks to color grade, and after applying a saved grade to each clip, I tried to render it out. It is telling me 48 Hours! I hoped it would speed up, but I left it all night and there was 36 hours left so I cancelled. I'm using a MacBook Pro, so I realize that it's not the greatest, but 48 hours to grade one hour of video? Does that sound right to you? Can I expect similar or worse times to export the finished product?
 
Oh, as an aside, I was planning to export this to 24 fps or 30 fps. If I convert the video first, that should cut the render times down, correct? Will this mess with my audio syncing? Will the 44k audio do anything? It seems fine right now? Just hoping to cut the time down. ugh.
 
Have you tried grading it with the 3 Way CCC?

Magic Bullet isn't optimized for FXPlug in use, and a MBP isn't the most powerful machine.

Is this a straight timeline or multiple layers?
 
David S. said:
Have you tried grading it with the 3 Way CCC?

Magic Bullet isn't optimized for FXPlug in use, and a MBP isn't the most powerful machine.

Is this a straight timeline or multiple layers?
Click to expand...



Why isn't a MBP a powerful machine?


A New MBP i7 is faster than a Mac Pro 8 core ( last gen late 2008 early 2009 non nehalem processor ).
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4374/geekbench.jpg

It truly boggles my mind how people speak without truly knowing what they are talking about. To the op please list your systems specs to see if I can help you out.
 
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stephenmick said:
Seriously, chill out. He said it wasn't "the most powerful machine."
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Um what are you bringing to this conversation? Also what do you mean it isn't the most powerful? Please post the system that is then? IF the above poster had a 2008-2009 Mac Pro then I can show him that a new MBP is faster than his computer. So for someone to say that a MBP is not the most powerful of computers they need to be really clear on what they are talking about.



Do you people have any idea how fast the new MBP is?
 
You're assuming (possibly correctly, possibly not) that the OP has the latest MBP. David was assuming (again, possibly incorrectly) that the OP didn't have the latest MBP. The fact is that if you're trying to color-correct using Magic Bullet on a Core Duo or even a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, your render times will likely be disappointing, to say the least. Now, 48 hours seems a bit on the long side, so there's probably something else going on in the render that's creating the lag time. We simply need to know more about the OP's render settings to make an educated judgment.

My issue is with your attitude, and specifically your reference to David S., a long-time member and FCP encyclopedia, as someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. A little respect goes a long way at DVXUser. Perhaps you might try showing a little bit.

And yes, I know how fast the newest i7 MBP is. I spent plenty of time working on one editing and color-correcting RED footage.
 
stephenmick said:
You're assuming (possibly correctly, possibly not) that the OP has the latest MBP. David was assuming (again, possibly incorrectly) that the OP didn't have the latest MBP. The fact is that if you're trying to color-correct using Magic Bullet on a Core Duo or even a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, your render times will likely be disappointing, to say the least. Now, 48 hours seems a bit on the long side, so there's probably something else going on in the render that's creating the lag time. We simply need to know more about the OP's render settings to make an educated judgment.

My issue is with your attitude, and specifically your reference to David S., a long-time member and FCP encyclopedia, as someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. A little respect goes a long way at DVXUser. Perhaps you might try showing a little bit.

And yes, I know how fast the newest i7 MBP is. I spent plenty of time working on one editing and color-correcting RED footage.
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:lipsrseal

The only person taking something serious here is you. David could be the first camera operator in the world, that does not mean he is above the truth. Now if you are someone that feels because of your age and experience that you can do no wrong that is another issue.


I assume you, David and everyone else here are cool people and have amazing talent, but the problem lies when people are not current with the times. For someone to just say a MBP is not a strong/fast computer is a VERY bold statement that must be corrected.


It's no different then a famous director who says an HDSLR is not a proper film camera, as to which you must correct them and show them different.

Before any further assumptions are made we need to know what exactly is the ops actual computer specs. Even an older MBP 2.4 with an external HD should not be taking that long even with Magic Bullet.

I have done 10+ minute projects and the render times have been at max 1 1/2 hours with heaving color grading. Would an extra 50 mins multiply that 40+ times? I don't think so but you never know.

Without the OP giving us full details on his actual FCP settings and computer specs it's hard to tell.
 
(I can't believe I'm jumping in on this one, but here goes...)

It's not whether you disagree. It's how you disagree.

There's a marked difference between:

"I'm not sure that the computer's power is the issue. Here's an interesting link that shows it up against the desktop and concludes that the current laptop is impressive."

and:

"Why do you people keep insisting that this laptop isn't powerful? You need to be corrected, and to speak only when you know what your speaking about."

So... which one looks more offensive and is bound to come across as rude and arrogant? I'm with Stephen on this one. He never asserted than either he or David were "above the truth." He never asserted that David was absolutely right, or that you were absolutely wrong.

Disagree to your heart's content, just try to avoid what can be construed as condescension. This place is full of talented and experienced people... who also make mistakes once in a while. It's mutual respect that keeps DVXUser a nice place to hang out.
 
ill have to agree with C2V & stephen on this one.

i think david's comment was fairly innocent and didnt merit such a strong comback as Cieloent gave. it seemed over the top as i read it especially since david and the OP were without details in their comments about what MBP was being used.

with all of that said...barefeats shows an i7 iMac whooping the i7 MBP in some preliminary test no real surprise.
http://barefeats.com/mbpp18.html

ive got the top of the line 8 core Nehalem fully loaded, a slightly older 8 core loaded, a brand new iMac i7 fully loaded and a somewhat older MBP. my general feeling is that although laptops are convienent they dont ever seem to compare to their larger counterparts.

Magic Bullet "LOOKS" isnt optimized for multiprocessor in FCP. wish it was though.

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
Holy. OK everyone calm down. Lol. It's a 2.16 Ghz MBP with only 2GB of Ram so yeah it's pretty slow. A 500 GB WD FW400 drive that's formatted for Mac OS Extended and has 465 GB available. Second scratch is a 2 GB WD Caviar Sata/USB 2.0 drive with 1TB free space.

Minimum free space on scratch disks is 10 GB. Application usage for memory is 90%. Levels of undo = 25.Audio playback quality is set to low. Limit real time video to 22 MB/s on RT Safe mode. Video is 59.94, 1280 x 720 Apple ProRes 422 LT and square pixels. Anything else?? What is CCC? Nothing else is running while I do the render.
 
"What is CCC"?
i think he meant the FCP 3 way color corrector?

i think you have the same laptop i have. mine is the earlier "Core Duo" and not the "Core 2 Duo" which followed...which are all outdated now anyway.

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
This one is just the Core Duo also, but with a 500GB 7200 spin drive instead of the factory one. I have other machines but this is what I'm using from this hotel. It's a backup macbook pro that I was forced to use. I forgot to mention I think this is single layer. It's a straight edit of 6 clips from an hour long seminar so it's all in a single track with only the clips, one audio track that is recorded in stereo using one rode NTG-2 Mic, simple cross dissolves and some rolling text in and out. Nothing fancy. I tried the 3 Way color filter which worked pretty well, but although it passes gamma checks, the pixels are flickering and video is not very sharp. I used the Superflat profile since I planned to grade with MBL later. Should I convert this to a different FPS before grading? Thanks everyone.
 
Sheldon Charron said:
Holy. OK everyone calm down. Lol. It's a 2.16 Ghz MBP with only 2GB of Ram so yeah it's pretty slow. A 500 GB WD FW400 drive that's formatted for Mac OS Extended and has 465 GB available. Second scratch is a 2 GB WD Caviar Sata/USB 2.0 drive with 1TB free space.

Minimum free space on scratch disks is 10 GB. Application usage for memory is 90%. Levels of undo = 25.Audio playback quality is set to low. Limit real time video to 22 MB/s on RT Safe mode. Video is 59.94, 1280 x 720 Apple ProRes 422 LT and square pixels. Anything else?? What is CCC? Nothing else is running while I do the render.
Click to expand...



Ok here's some options that will make your system faster. First and foremost you need to upgrade your ram to 4gbs. Second , get an ESATA express 34 card for your system. This will allow you to get an external hard drive with a Esata connection.

Make sure your external hard drive is at least 7200rpm 16mb cache. So after you upgrade your ram, express card and hard drive do a system update, After all of that you will notice an increase in your system.


----------

Now to the people feeling my response was harsh :undecided


All I said is why MBP is not a powerful machine? Then went on to say that people have no idea what they are talking about.


If somehow someone is offended by that then I have nothing more to say about that subject.

To the one poster who said an Imac I7 is faster than the new MPB i7 that is correct, but then again that was NEVER my argument. A Mac Pro or Imac without the Nehalem processor was exactly what I was talking about. They have 2008-2009 models without those processors.


At the end though, it's all good no more arguing here
:Drogar-SunGlass(DBG
 
good suggestions Cieloent on getting better performance from the OP's MBP! since that MBP maxed out @ 2 gigs of ram back in the day the question i have is, would it accept more than the 2 one giggers? lack of more ram is a big downfall of this specific computer for me. 4 would be nice for photoshop when on the road.

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
david_p said:
good suggestions Cieloent on getting better performance from the OP's MBP! since that MBP maxed out @ 2 gigs of ram back in the day the question i have is, would it accept more than the 2 one giggers? lack of more ram is a big downfall of this specific computer for me. 4 would be nice for photoshop when on the road.

david
www.davidprobst.com
Click to expand...


http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade


2.16 can be upgraded to 4gbs, I have the 2.26 version which can be upped to 6gbs, you have no idea how much this helps.


Also you can even get a Solid State drive with an ESATA controller and it can write even faster.................

Day and Night I'm always up at it, reading, reading, reading
 
really guys that fuss was kind childish, very to say the truth. Anyway.

Sound too long, I edit in my macbook 2ghz, using premiere. One hour of video, using magic bullet normaly take just a few hours to export, and its everything at 1080i.

Maybe you set the bitrate too high didn't you? If you going to use it for web set 5mbps for 720p using h264 and I belive is going to be faster.
 
I'm truly confused at that geekbench jpg. I'm willing to bet that they used the stock videocard in the mac pro machine, and used that to creat the geekbench score. A new i7 MBP just doesn't come close to the rendering power of an octo-core mac pro. For software that only utilizes 2 or occasionally 4 threads, the MBP is probably going to hold a fair fight, since it's got 2 cores (4 threads). But... throw any serious amount of rendering at it, and the mac pro is going to crush it. I've got an i7 MBP and use an 8-core last-gen Mac Pro at work ... for rendering, the mac pro is still the winner. 8 threads (1 per physical core) vs 4 threads (2 per physical core) ... the faster i7 bus just can't make up for that, no matter how much faster it is.

To the OP: I know from personal experience that Magic Bullet is a snail ... I have no idea why, but it's just so...bloody...slow. Probably a programming issue.
 
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Attack the problem, not the people

Attack the problem, not the people

I'm not going to touch the issue at hand here, but I do want to address the communication. I try to go by a simple rule - attack the problem, not the people.

When we attack the problem at hand, we're dealing with facts and opinions. While people sometimes have strong opinions, most of us are willing to change our minds if we are shown a better alternative. I.e. we focus on the problem, it ain't personal.

OTOH, when we attack the person, it has nothing to do with the problem under discussion and destroys communication. If we say, "You're a schmuck if you use a Mac", the Mac becomes irrelevant. What the listener hears is, "YOU'RE A SCHMUCK!" We've just lost credibility and the target starts defending him/herself. We just lost the argument whether we are right or wrong! The target is no longer listening!

Communication rules I try to live by:

  • It's the sender's fault - The sender of a communication is responsible for the receiver sending the message correctly. If the listener get's my message wrong, it's my fault and and not the listener's.

  • Don't use "You" - If giving negative feedback to someone, NEVER use "You" in the message. E.g. "Your analysis sucks!" is NOT good. "Your analysis has some issues" is better. "Let's discuss the analysis" is better still because it focuses on the analysis.

  • Focus on the problem - Try to stay away from a person's core and focus on the problem. For example:

  • "Let's discuss that analysis" is fine. Problem only. No "you".

  • "Your analysis has flaws" is not as good. It starts getting personal.

  • "The way you write stinks" is bad. The problem becomes irrelevant; it criticizes your writing skills.

  • "You don't have the ability to write" is extremely bad. It attacks a person's ability to even learn to write - an attack on the core person.
I'd love to say that I thought up these rules because I'm so bright. The truth is that I learned them from some really bright communications experts on the last several decades. I hope you find this useful.

Regards,

Dan.

p.s. I don't care about the discussion. My workstation is a Core i7 OC'd to 3.8Ghz with 12Gb of very high speed memory, raid, fast disks, yada, yada. So I'm happy.
 
paulohlp said:
really guys that fuss was kind childish, very to say the truth. Anyway.

Sound too long, I edit in my macbook 2ghz, using premiere. One hour of video, using magic bullet normaly take just a few hours to export, and its everything at 1080i.

Maybe you set the bitrate too high didn't you? If you going to use it for web set 5mbps for 720p using h264 and I belive is going to be faster.
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to export right now. I'm just trying grade and render. I'll export later.
 
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