FCP HD rendering at DVinfo.net

Pete Cofrancesco · August 21st, 2007, 12:10 PM

Recently, I did a HD project and FCP needed to render almost anything I did that SD doesn't require. For example, adjusting the speed, color correction filter, or transitions. So my question is this a hardware or software issue, or is it the nature of HD? Having to render a 2 hr dance recital just because I've adjusted the brightness is a deal breaker for me.

Btw, I'm using FCP5 on a G5 dual 1.8 tower. I tried it on imac Intel Duo 2.0 and it also needs to render a lot too. I don't want to purchase a new system just to find out its a little quicker but still needs to render every little change I make.

Patrick Pike · August 21st, 2007, 02:39 PM

Even in SD, unless you are going to print to tape, any change that you make to the original video will require a render. Some effect may playback in realtime, but they still have to be rendered before exporting. To make matters worse, working in HD (not knowing your codec) requires a lot more horsepower because your working with larger images. HDV can be painful to work with on an old system.

One more reason to get everything right when filming.

Boyd Ostroff · August 21st, 2007, 04:51 PM

Rendering SD DV on my dual 2.5ghz G5 is trivial unless you've done something unusual like slow motion. You can use the 3 way color corrector overlaid tracks with opacity changes and it renders that really fast.

Not so with HDV unfortunately. And dropping an HDV clip into a 16:9 SD sequence results in a really long render - around 5 hours for a one hour sequence on my machine. The results were not so good either, as discussed in another active thread here.

At this point I'm waiting until I can get an Intel machine before upgrading to FCS 2, and that might be a little while since I decided I needed a new car more than a new computer :-)

Pete Cofrancesco · August 21st, 2007, 10:03 PM

I did some research and discovered its mainly because its HDV codec that requires a lot of cpu power and as a result real time rendering doesn't work. So while a faster cpu would render faster I just need to use a less compressed codec. thx for the input guys.

Patrick Pike · August 22nd, 2007, 01:08 PM

Pete-

You're right to look for a new codec. HDV is very time consuming because of the temporal compression. I have had good luck with AIC, but it has put a limit on the number of projects that I work on at a given time due to hard drive constraints (expect 1 hour of footage to be @ 43gigs). In the newer incarnations, AIC looks great to me and moves quickly. Although, it still is not as quick as DV, the quality trade off is worth it to me.

August 21st, 2007, 12:10 PM	#1
Pete Cofrancesco Inner Circle Join Date: May 2004 Location: USA Posts: 3,005	FCP HD rendering Recently, I did a HD project and FCP needed to render almost anything I did that SD doesn't require. For example, adjusting the speed, color correction filter, or transitions. So my question is this a hardware or software issue, or is it the nature of HD? Having to render a 2 hr dance recital just because I've adjusted the brightness is a deal breaker for me. Btw, I'm using FCP5 on a G5 dual 1.8 tower. I tried it on imac Intel Duo 2.0 and it also needs to render a lot too. I don't want to purchase a new system just to find out its a little quicker but still needs to render every little change I make.

August 21st, 2007, 02:39 PM	#2
Patrick Pike Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Mariposa, CA Posts: 200	Even in SD, unless you are going to print to tape, any change that you make to the original video will require a render. Some effect may playback in realtime, but they still have to be rendered before exporting. To make matters worse, working in HD (not knowing your codec) requires a lot more horsepower because your working with larger images. HDV can be painful to work with on an old system. One more reason to get everything right when filming.

August 21st, 2007, 04:51 PM	#3
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	Rendering SD DV on my dual 2.5ghz G5 is trivial unless you've done something unusual like slow motion. You can use the 3 way color corrector overlaid tracks with opacity changes and it renders that really fast. Not so with HDV unfortunately. And dropping an HDV clip into a 16:9 SD sequence results in a really long render - around 5 hours for a one hour sequence on my machine. The results were not so good either, as discussed in another active thread here. At this point I'm waiting until I can get an Intel machine before upgrading to FCS 2, and that might be a little while since I decided I needed a new car more than a new computer :-)

August 21st, 2007, 10:03 PM	#4
Pete Cofrancesco Inner Circle Join Date: May 2004 Location: USA Posts: 3,005	I did some research and discovered its mainly because its HDV codec that requires a lot of cpu power and as a result real time rendering doesn't work. So while a faster cpu would render faster I just need to use a less compressed codec. thx for the input guys.

August 22nd, 2007, 01:08 PM	#5
Patrick Pike Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Mariposa, CA Posts: 200	Pete- You're right to look for a new codec. HDV is very time consuming because of the temporal compression. I have had good luck with AIC, but it has put a limit on the number of projects that I work on at a given time due to hard drive constraints (expect 1 hour of footage to be @ 43gigs). In the newer incarnations, AIC looks great to me and moves quickly. Although, it still is not as quick as DV, the quality trade off is worth it to me.