Final Cut Pro Exporting Slows to a near Stop

[JonathanB]

Hey Everyone!

First of all, these are my computer details: MAC OS X 10.5.8, 2.93 GHz Quad-Core-Intel Xeon, 8GB 1066 MHz DDr3, 1TB HD + 8 TB External. Also I am using Final Pro 6.

This week I began editing 1920X1080p.mov video, thinking the computer would be able to handle it. Turns out it I was totally wrong. I had the most impossible time editing and reviewing because the computer just could not handle that much HD. Anyway, somehow I managed to complete all my edits, and I attempted to export over night. 17 Hours later I return to my office and see that the export made it about 4% through a batch list of 7 videos at ten minutes each.

So I decided the HD was too much. I decided to re-export my source footage into 1026 X 576 MPEG4 format using H.264 codec at a bit rate of 2,114. I then reconnected my video files in a Sequence with the new settings. I set everything up and then tried to export to wmv. at 95% quality. Same problem. The wmv. export stops at around 3% and the file that is being created only seems to be growing by about 1 mb every 5 minutes.

What the heck is going on? Also, why is such a powerful computer having such a hard time with the HD? Thanks to you all for your time and consideration!

[Baldrick]

Moving you to our mac section.

[rumplestiltskin]

Seems like you are exporting your original footage to another extremely compressed format. ".mov"? That's the container; what is the format of the video track?

Best format to use for FCP is either Apple Intermediate Format or ProRes. Either is only minimally compressed and your Mac won't have to grunt so hard to even play it properly. Downside: You'll need lots of HD space.