Quicktime export re-renders everything FCP
 

I have some very effects heavy sequences shot on xdcam hd that took ages to render. When I try to export them using the same sequence settings it re-renders them all again...is there anyway around this?

Thanks

you're exporting quicktime? If you have self contained checked it takes longer to export. Unchecked it should be quick UNLESS you prject is not rendered. Then you have to keep in mind that your movie is not self contained, and relies on your project as well as all your renders and capture scratch. So you if you put the file on another computer it won't work.

Hi Aric

Yeah the project is fully rendered yet when i export as qucktime same as sequence settings it takes forever. Even when it isnt checked as self contained. Very odd

any ideas? do I have a render setting wrong somewhere?

Long-GOP file handling
 

Phil,

The reason it's taking so long is because XDCAM is a Long-GOP codec. If it were an "i"-frame type codec such as HDCAM, DVCPRO etc where every frame is independent from others then rendering wouldn't be such an issue.

The only way you can avoid this would be to use the Convergent Design box coupled with a KONA or BM card and convert the long-gop XDCAM into another codec during import/ingest or, using FCP 6 import into ProRes 422 which will do virtually the same thing, but that requires the HD IO from AJA. AFAIK.

Hi Robert

it's not that...it does it sometimes on DV sequences too...in the same project. Some take forever to export, some take seconds...all have heavy effects. Am stumped!

That sounds more like a hardware related issue; HDD starting to go bad (or an array not talking properly if that's what you have), RAM or kernel panics getting in the way of data throughput OR... if you have an external E-SATA array that will definitely cause it because there is no controller cache on E-SATA setups of any kind, and when the drive cache fills up it will bog-down everything until the drives can purge themselves.

Fill in the blanks with exactly what hardware you have and I might have some suggestions for drilling down into what the cause might be.