0

How do I increase render speed on FCE? I have several overlaid HD video tracks, and it is SLOW.

EDIT: I am on a MBP 13", 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3. The render disk is an external USB drive.

EDIT: I found out that FCP has a feature that allow you to only render video to a certain quality (or bit rate...something like that). Does FCE have a feature that does this same thing?

EDIT: Oh, and...if I upgrade to FCE 4, will rendering be faster?

EDIT: I am on FCE 4.

Improve this question
3
  • So, is this perhaps to do a "draft" render so you can view the video and see what changes to make, and in the end you will render in the standard way for the final product?
    – GEdgar
    Aug 24, 2011 at 15:35
  • 1
    Can you tell if you are CPU bound or io bound? Open activity monitor and see what read/write speeds you get copying a rendered file from the internal to the external. Quit all apps except FC and report what portion free+inactive RAM is of the total.
    – bmike ♦
    Aug 24, 2011 at 22:46
  • @bmike I will let you know when I export something.
    – daviesgeek
    Aug 25, 2011 at 19:51

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
2

I imagine the USB disk is probably a source of the bottleneck. Try using a Firewire 800 disk.

Improve this answer
2

Adding RAM is usually the cheapest way to improve speed. I went from 4 GB to 12 GB in my iMac and FCPX improved dramatically.

Also I recently upgraded from a USB Drobo (1st Gen) to a Firewire 800 Drobo (2nd or 3rd Gen) and my disk speeds increased a lot.

A few other quick things: Make sure you're not running any other apps when FCE is running. And you should run a utility like Onyx or Applejack to clear up any file permissions issues or other cruft that comes from running a modern OS.

Improve this answer
2
  • Ok, I am not exactly looking to buy anything else, but it's a good tip. Thanks!
    – daviesgeek
    Aug 24, 2011 at 22:44
  • I wouldn't bother with onyx/applejack or permissions as they cause pass/fail issues, not speed issues. We need to know your ram summary to tell if RAM is constrained.
    – bmike ♦
    Aug 24, 2011 at 22:48
2

Ok, so after much research, I finally found out that the reason it was taking so long to export was because I was exporting from the external drive to the external drive. I fixed the problem by exporting from the external drive to the internal drive. I am also probably going to switch to a Firewire 800 drive.

Improve this answer
1

What version of FCE are you running? It sounds like it's less than version 4. If you're running anything less than version 3.5, it's a PowerPC version, and thus is running a lot slower than it would be if you ran v3.5 or higher, which is Intel-native. Can't guarantee this is your problem, but it's what I would check first.

Improve this answer
2
  • Although my post says 3.5, I am now running 4, and it still has some problems.
    – daviesgeek
    Aug 24, 2011 at 17:22
  • 1
    Edit that, p'haps?
    – please delete me
    Aug 24, 2011 at 18:02
0

Convert all footage to The Apple Intermediate Codec ( AIC )first before importing. Makes a big difference in rendering time. Use MPEG Streamclip to convert

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .