Exporting on an iMac long periods of time.
 

I'm currently exporting and compressing quicktime file of my 80 minute movie from an imac. From the looks of it, it shall be 10 hours process. My biggest concern is: Should the screensaver and the energysaver be turned off or on?

The new imacs tend to really heat up and I'm concerned with such a long duration of exporting, the mac may damage itself?

Can't speak to the BRAND new iMacs but my 3 year old iMac churns away on renders, sometimes for more than 24 hours for LARGE exports, without a problem. I leave the screensaver set to go dark after about an hour and I have never had an issue with waking up. I don't allow my drives to spin down though.

OSX10.4.11 on a white iMac 2.16GHz w. 2GB running FCS2 (FCP6.0.6)

Hey Phil, I run 21'5 iMac with 3.06 Intel for about 7 months and it's been handling those long 8-10 hr renders pretty stable.
Screen server - off
Display sleep - on
Computer sleep - Never
AirPort and all unnecessary apps - off
It heats up, you can cook your breakfast on it when get up to check on render in the morning. But it does not seem like a big deal. Mine sometimes stays on for 3 days and keeps rendering one project after the other.
Use and abuse, it should be fine. That's why we pay top dollar for this brand.

My bad - as Alex says ScreenSaver Off Display Sleep On is how I run... sorry for the misinformation...

I have an iMac 21.5 that is four months old. I routinely render for 5+ hours at a time. The aluminum case makes it feel hotter than it actually is. I have measured the temperature at the exhaust slot on the top rear, it never gets above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. That really isn't bad for modern circuit boards.

Jeff