Exporting To Quicktime
 

I have a 20 minute movie that I shot with the HD100 that I want to export to a small mangeable size for internet transfer... It's taking my comp three hours plus to export this movie to quicktime h.264 codec 480 x 270 bitrate around 100-200 kbps WhY is it taking so long? What's wrong with my computer? Is this normal? Why should I wait 3 hours to export 20 minutes worth of footage? What's the problem, someone please help, deadlines are approaching and jobs are on the line!! Sorry to sound so desperate BUT HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes it's normal, though this depends on the power of your computer. Quicktime is SLOW and h.264 is complex to encode and processor intensive. Does it have to be h.264? Is datarate/resolution that critical?

Sorenson will encode much faster (albeit of a much higher datarate at that res), alternatively you could try encoding to H.264 with FFmpegX or iSquint; these are much faster, but you'd still have to export to another intermediate before hand (and there's also the learning curve to get the best from a new piece of software).

In addition, if this is from a Final Cut timeline, it's also having to render all the effects (FCP renders output file from the original source files via filters afresh in order to cut down the number of recompression passes, but this slows things down for output considerably.)

Sorry to be the bearer of bads news.

yeah, it takes me a long time to export in h.264 as well. However, I have been very happy with the output quality, so I think it's all worth it in the end.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it does take that long, in the end you'll be happy with the quality.