Long HD Compression Time!

[Filmatic]

First time HD user, compressing 30 second HD footage from FCP (H.264) has taken over an hour?!! Is there a better way...??!!

My Editor Specs:
Dual 2 GHz PowerPC
4 GB DDR SDRAM
2 Terabyte HD
FCP 5.0

 

[Filmatic]

Oh, I was using Compressor. I know Quicktime was much faster, but for Compressor are there special settings that are faster?

 

[Stork]

This is not going to be software or hardware specific advice, but when our company made the leap from SD to HD we were aware of the huge jump in the data stream and amount of information recorded; nothing prepares you for the amount of time it actually takes to capture, conform, render, or even compress HD video. There is just an immense amount of data being worked with that my only advice can be patience, make a pot of tea, go catch a movie and then hope it will be done when you come home.

Short run of the story, HD takes considerably longer to work with on even a $3000-$5000 setup than SD. Sorry mate.