I'm new to FCP and HD so hopefully there's something I don't know here -
Converting my HD footage, with very minor filtering, to SD m2v (for DVD) is taking a little over two seconds per frame, which is over a minute per second, an hour per minute - it would take 2 days non-stop to convert my video of one band's set at a club to DVD.
I'm using the lowest settings that produced decent quality (it's rendering now so I can't look it up) but this seems awfully slow.
The in-camera down-convert ( Canon XHA1 ) looked pitiful, but maybe there's something I'm missing here.
Any ideas, info?

Thanks

Just out of curiousity, what kind of Mac do you have?

It's a G5 dual processor 2.3Ghz, 2.5GB RAM

I think the issue you have is those filters---when you apply a filter to the whole movie, each frame has to be rendered...hence the long render times.

I have a 20 minutes sequence in HD from my HV20 and it looks like it will take 2.5 hours to convert it into SD DVD on Dual 2.0 G5 PowerMac with 2.5gigs of ram.

"Scotty, we need more power!"

The xha1 downconvert looks pitiful? That's a bummer. Hadn't heard this about downconverts from camera. I was hoping to start shooting hdv with my xha1 and downconvert out of camera to fcp. Was hoping to avoid rendering times and distribute in sd. Then if needed recapture for hd delivery.

Maybe not -

I tried down-converting straight to a consumer DVD recorder and that looked good.
I'm still experimenting - there might be a combination of settings or something I'm missing.

GRF

I just shot a project with the A1 in HD, and down-converted to SD in-camera,
and the footage looked fantastic.

What settings did you use?

I have tried dozens more settings and all I get is 8-blocks - it all looks viewed through a grid. Unacceptable even for iPod.

Please, what capture/sequence settings? What I'm getting can't be right.

GRF

Really, is it a simple preset? No one could ever use what I'm getting here.
I'm wondering if something is wrong with the camera.

Hours more variations, the same 8 by 8 pixel blocks, no relief, no help.

Unusable $8000 setup.

I'm sure the answer is simple.

Glenn,

Try dropping your HD timeline into an SD timeline and export from there.