Compressor taking FOREVER!

[blando3]

I have a project that I am exporting from FCP 6.0.5 to COmpressor and eventually to DVD Studio Pro. Right now Compressor is processing, and it seems to be processing the same number of frames over and over.

I have a 24 minute timeline and about 15 video tracks. Would that explain why it's taking so long?

Once Compressor has finished, how do I view the file to make sure it exported properly? Quicktime?

Thanks...

 

[Alex H.]

I have never had any decent result, time-wise, exporting from FCP using Compressor. The quicker solution is to export your porject as a full-rez FCP movie and then use Compressor standalone for the conversion.

 

[Cools]

and it seems to be processing the same number of frames over and over.

It will do that if you have 2-pass encoding enabled, which means the encoder will go through your footage twice: the 1st time it will analyze your footage, the 2nd time it will do the actual encoding. Because on the 2nd pass the encoder already knows the qualities of the footage it is working with (amount of motion, etc.) it can do a better job at encoding it which could translate to smaller files and better quality.

Performing export using Compressor ties up your FCP and can be very time consuming depending your project settings (sequence preset, footage, number of tracks, etc.) and the hardware you are using so it is usually recommended to export to a Quicktime movie and then send that to Compressor. This way you can run the encoder in the background and continue using FCP if you have to.

Technically, exporting to Compressor out of FCP directly should yield better results (because there is no intermediate conversion) but in practice I've never really noticed major differences with exporting to a standalone Quicktime file first and then running Compressor.

 

[grimrebes]

With regards to motion artifacts going from HD to SD, I've found going directly from FCP to Compressor yeilds better results, significant if your producer has a good eye.