Render / Exporting curiosity

Jay Rodriguez

Jay Rodriguez

Coffee Member
I wonder.....

do I have to render my sequence before exporting it if I have some of those red "render me" flags on the top of the timeline?

I usually just go ahead and export it and never had any noticeable problems but I wonder if I should be rendering first.
 
Final Cut Pro will preform any required rendering when you export, so if you don't need to preview the sequence then you don't need to render before exporting.
 
ive always found this interesting as well.

i prefer rendering before exporting because...
if you export without rendering, it will take longer to export the movie
(due to the render during export)

in the end, it still takes more time to export an unrendered sequence
and when its done you DONT have a rendered sequence.

i would be curious to know a bit more of the technical insight of the differences.

good thread-

shawn
 
I have also read from one or two FCP "experts" that while you can export without rendering, it is actually faster to render first, then export. FCP will render during export, but it isn't as fast as rendering first. It was awhile ago, and I can't remember where I found the source. But so far that's what I've been doing.

Whether this is true or not, I can say that doing the two step process kinda breaks the time up a bit. At least it fools the mind into thinking it's not taking as long because you have that interaction time halfway. If that makes any sense.


As far as Compressor is concerned, it IS quicker to export a move and then run that movie through Compressor Vs. sending a movie to compressor from within FCP. That I have timed. Definitely faster. Plus you can go back and actually use FCP while Compressor is doing it's thing. Sending to compressor via FCP locks you out of using FCP for anything else. Not very efficient.

And one more note.... if you have the computer that can do it, use QuickClusters/Virtual Clusters. It will literally cut your render times in half!
 
Yes, but if you export it as a QT file, then go through Compressor, aren't you compressing it twice, hence getting a lower quality file? I thought that the whole point of Compressor was giving you the best quality, multi-pass mpeg.
 
if you export with current settings are you really adding that much compression?

TECHNICALLY i guess it is another generation, but i was under the assumption
"digital generations" are very hard to tell apart. (unlike the analog world)

yet another great point tho!
would love to hear any other insight.

shawn
 
in the digital world you theoretically lose no quality if you are outputting uncompressed. A QT file is (I believe) using a form of compression. Then the file would be recompressed at whatever settings you use in compressor.

Someone correct me if I am wrong here, but if you are happy with the output in a simple QT format, you don't really add anything by then sending the file through COmpressor, correct?
 
true uncompressed is "lossless"
and i think your right if you send right to compressor your eliminating a 'generation'

i guess my question would be...

if you were working in SD and output a QT movie with current settings (DV compression)
are you adding artifacts to that file?....and if so, how many generations before noticeable degradation

*obviously filters & the such would effect the video

shawn
 
Jim Brennan said:
Yes, but if you export it as a QT file, then go through Compressor, aren't you compressing it twice, hence getting a lower quality file? I thought that the whole point of Compressor was giving you the best quality, multi-pass mpeg.
Click to expand...

It all depends on how you export. For instance, if you export using H.264 then of course you are compressing on first export. The key is to export your "Master" in as high a quality as you can. If your footage is NTSC DV, you want to export you "Master" in the same format/codec. Its not re-compressing anything if you export the same format as your source files are. Your simply creating a edited copy of the footage into one video. The time it takes to write that master file is simply the time it takes to copy the footage. (roughly) Just as if you were transfereing from one drive to another. Only your taking the edited segments from a bunch of videos and merging them together into that master video.


From there you would take your "Master" and create all the compressed versions you need for DVD, streaming, etc...
 
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Okay, then I have 2 questions for you, so that I understand what you mean.

1) What settings do you use to export lossless from the FCP timeline in a format that can be re formatted in Compressor?

2) What is the point of taking that file and putting it through Compressor if you have already out put it? Shouldn't you be able to take that file right to DVD SP4 for authoring (or what ever else you want to do with it)?
 
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hi, new to dvx, u can file export quicktime file, custom and set the compression to none and custom the settings to million+ with current frame rate, that will eat up the disk space, and i dont think u will be able to use fcp that much while compression is working(specially with the quicktime uncompressed files), no matter what machine ur using, u will clearly see a performance drop in fcp while compression is working in the background, i think u can open fcp and send something to color, if ur carefull not to upset the mac, u could get away with it.
 
the only point would be to free up fcp, or to send a file to a different application that u couldn't before, specially if ur saving to an external disk, after the save is complete(it takes much less time to encode uncompressed than to transcode to anything and it's more disk speed intensive operation than processing), another machine can take over the encoding work entirely, which is better than any render farm, if ur working on multiple projects back to back(and if ur not using a render farm setup).also it's cool if u have any old computer that u can use.
obviously, u could be organized and have all the footage and the project file in one folder in which case u can copy that folder to the external drive and open the project on another computer, which if organized would be light years faster.
different ways same results from the footage at the end,

sometimes u need to encode something while working on another,
sometimes u'll save projects and start encoding when ur not using the computer,
it's a personal preference thing, u can look at all the options available to u, and choose what u like.
 
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Jim Brennan said:
Okay, then I have 2 questions for you, so that I understand what you mean.

1) What settings do you use to export lossless from the FCP timeline in a format that can be re formatted in Compressor?

2) What is the point of taking that file and putting it through Compressor if you have already out put it? Shouldn't you be able to take that file right to DVD SP4 for authoring (or what ever else you want to do with it)?
Click to expand...


1. Most of the source footage I edit comes to me as Mini DV. So it gets ingested as NTSC DV. Normally exporting the final "Master" at that same format is enough. Anything higher quality such as DV50 or even ProRes won't add quality to the already highly compressed source footage. You really can't de-compress DV footage to a higher color space. The camera already threw out that info when it transfered the signal to MiniDV Tape. The only reason I would export at say, ProRes is if I do any heavy color correction or effects ( I often get amatur camera footage too dark or badly white balanced if at all ) where the corrections / effects might benefit. ( But that may just be a personal theory and it just makes me feel happy :~)

If you capture/ingest footage compressed, it will generally stay compressed. Even if you export as "lossless". You wont' regain what was already lost. So export at the highest quality format that equals the source format at minimum. You can go higher, but your just adding file size for no reason, and making FCP do more work then it really needs to do. If I export the footage to any other format then the native source format, then you are indeed transcoding the footage. Again, more work then simply coping and pasting clips together into one master end product.




2. The reason you want to create this Master file is for archiving and distribution workflow. You can think of editing and distribution as two different workflows. Once you edit and spit out your final master, you can close out FCP and ignore it for any future tasks. Think of the Master file like you would a Master Film print. You will make all your copies and versions from this master file. This ensures that every copy you make whether it be DVD, Podcast, Streaming, etc... you know they all come from the same source Master file. So the thinking is NOT to have FCP compress anything. Export as lossless as your source material will allow you. From there use Compressor or another program.

You can send that master file to DVD Studio directly and have DVD Studio compress the footage to DVD format. That will work. I have found that using Compressor to render out your DVD versions is much faster. Especially when using quickcluster/virtual clusters on multi-core machines. You can also tweak the settings giving by Compressor to get the most bang for the length of footage you have instead of relying on DVD Studio to make the compression decisions. Compressor gives you more control. You'll find the build/format or burn steps to be much much quicker when DVDStudio Pro does not need to recompress the footage.


was I of any help at all with that? I tried to shorten it up best I could. I have a bad habit of over writing everything.
 
amrrahmy said:
the only point would be to free up fcp, or to send a file to a different application that u couldn't before, specially if ur saving to an external disk, after the save is complete(it takes much less time to encode uncompressed than to transcode to anything and it's more disk speed intensive operation than processing), another machine can take over the encoding work entirely, which is better than any render farm, if ur working on multiple projects back to back(and if ur not using a render farm setup).also it's cool if u have any old computer that u can use.
obviously, u could be organized and have all the footage and the project file in one folder in which case u can copy that folder to the external drive and open the project on another computer, which if organized would be light years faster.
different ways same results from the footage at the end,

sometimes u need to encode something while working on another,
sometimes u'll save projects and start encoding when ur not using the computer,
it's a personal preference thing, u can look at all the options available to u, and choose what u like.
Click to expand...

Well said!! probably even better then my essay.
 
I understand what you are saying, but that's not what I am asking.

If I have DV footage, editing in a FCP timeline that I export using QT conversion with DV/DVCPro compression settings, you are saying that the file will be lossless from the original clips, correct?
 
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