Render Time

I'm confused, I'm working on a simple project and don't understand why it would take so long to export.

Sequence is DV-PAL 4x3
Main material DV-PAL 16x9
Powerpoint Slidshow overlays all exported a jpg's
Overlay logo created in PhotoShop and saved as a png.

Here is what it looks like laid out in the canvas window:



And this is a timeline snapshot:



I'm now exporting it to a final 4x3 Quicktime file and it's saying it's going to take 9hrs to export...?

I've done this many times (using FCS2) and have never experienced these export times.

Could there be a problem with FCS3 render engine? I'm noticing even when I render files in compressor, my render times have increased.

It's very hard to tell from that screenshot, but it looks like you've got more than an hour of material there, with butt-tons of in-the-timeline compositing going on. Depending on the beefiness of your edit system, no, a 9:1 ratio doesn't sound crazy to me.

(Totally unrelated tip: Start your timelines at 01:00:00:00, not at 00:00:00:00.)

The render time estimates aren't accurate. If you have an 8 layer thing in a long sequence, the render time estimates will explode until it is done rendering that section.

If you haven't already, scale down the stills to your frame dimension, and try to use tga or tiff, as png takes longer to decode.

Another thing to check is your storage space.



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks for the advise Jeff & Strypes.

I think you've just pointed out where my problem is. The background jpg being used is 5120x3390 in pixel size, i'm guessing that's the main problem!

Just out of curiosity will a TGA or UFF retain the alpha channel?

BTW: Storage space left on the working HDD is 355GB

>The background jpg being used is 5120x3390 in pixel size, i'm guessing that's the main problem!

Oh yea!


>Just out of curiosity will a TGA or UFF retain the alpha channel?

You mean tiff. Yes, both of those formats are able to carry an alpha channel. Tiff and tga may take up more space than png (at the same frame size, of course), but the compression isn't as complex as png.



www.strypesinpost.com

Sorry that was meant to be TIFF not UFF lol....

I've just changed all the jpg's to tiff's and guess what! render time is now estimating 46min

I can't believe I made a stupid mistake like that

BTW Strypes, I tried re-saving the png overlay as a TIFF & a TGA, however when I re-connected it in FCP, it came up as white, any idea why?

You have to specify that you want the maintain the transparency when you export as a tiff in PS. It's a checkbox in one of the popups that happen as you save out.

Ah ha.... Thanks Jude