So we've been trying to give FCPX a fair shake. In theory, it should be ideal for our purpose. We deliver small projects with minimal editing, in the past primarily to DVD using iMovie '06, which did everything we need (except work with AVCHD natively). In fact it still works on OS 10.6.8, which is possibly a good sign for everyone wanting to keep FCP 7 running as long as possible. So if FCPX is truly iMovie Pro, then it should be perfect. Right?

Now I want to switch to HD (AVCHD), and deliver as:
1) individual clips (~1 minute each) as .m4v files for computer/iPhone viewing or the customer to upload to YouTube/whatever.
2) SD DVD, with menus and chapter markers, sometimes with slow motion and background music.
3) some kind of HD physical media option. AVCHD-DVD may be a viable choice here.

FCPX, with some finagling to get footage in, works fine for the editing part of the equation. But it seems to be astonishingly slow at exporting files. A 2.5 minute clip (1080p60, 28Mbps h.264), exporting to YouTube, took an HOUR to convert on a new MacBook Pro (the faster 15" version). Exporting to MPEG2 for DVD using Compressor barely taps the CPU, and is so slow that I have yet to have the patience to let it finish (probably also an hour). The only thing that has been acceptable is exporting to AVCHD-DVD (which looks good, but had one reproducible playback stutter that I haven't investigated further).

Am I doing something wrong? Is there some magic trick to get FCPX, or Compressor 4, to export at a reasonable speed? I can use Aunsoft MTS Converter or other apps to convert clips to suitable formats in a fraction of the time FCPX and Compressor are taking.

And are there any options for burning a real DVD with menus and chapter markers where we want them? Right now FCPX doesn't have the functionality of even iMovie '06 (or iMovie '11, for that matter, which doesn't work for us because of its limited background music capabilities). Setting markers in Compressor would be astonishingly tedious.

-Terence

I've been contemplating FCP X but I will stick with iMovie 6HD for a bit longer. I do work with AVCHD by importing into iMovie 8, then point iMovie 6 to the file and import. Works great. I have allot of plugins already invested in iMovie 6. Was hoping FCP X would be a good solution. Guess I will wait awhile and see how apple updates FCP X.

For real DVD Authoring, Apple expects you to go back to DVD Studio Pro (which the EOL'ed) or go to Encore (a competitors' product). Setting chapter marks in FCP X isn't possible.

Ugh.

I'm pretty interested in seeing that you have slow experiences with the rendering. I just opened the software a couple of times, and watched some tutorials, so I haven't rendered anything out yet.

I hope it all changes quickly, because Adobe is looking better by the day.

I heard Roxio Toast is pretty good for authoring DVD's and BluRays on a mac (including chapter markers).