XDCAM EX to DVD-SD Compressor time seem too long.
 

XDCAM EX 18 minutes sequence take only (if my memory is accurate) 2H15 Minutes to encode for Blu-Ray.

The same sequence send to compressor ( Export using Compressor ) for a DVD SD using a preset of 90 Minutes 6.5 Mbs two pass best quality said 10 Hours.

Any help or link is more than welcome to get the best from that exellent camcorder with the use of Final Cut Studio 2.

If you got a great workflow please tell me about-it , i dont have a clue about this.

Mac Pro Dual 2.66 Ghz (2006) with 4 GB Ram ATI RADEON 3870 HD.

Why does this seem too long?

18 minnutes = ~24fps * 60s per minute * 18 = 25,920 images you are asking your computer to recalculate (from 1080 to 480), recalculate color space, and then recompress. That's a pretty heavy load....

When you go from XDCam to BluRay the footage does not have to be resized, and the color space does not need to change. It's a LOT less work for the computer to do.

Need for software
 

There is need for software to take the MPEG-2 files of the EX-1, unwrape it and move it to Blue-Ray without re-rending it. I hope Vegas figures this out.

I cant explain it but this is what have done and please follow me :

I have redo the editing and only render at the end (one render only).

Export using Compressor with a preset for a DVD 90 min. with 16:9.

5 minutes have only take 40 minutes to transcode from HD to SD and give me the MPEG 2.

So 4 X 40 minutes would have take 160 minutes (2H40M) far les than the 10 hours before.

Toast 10 multiplex-it and burn-it and the result seem much better ......

Have you checked to verify that all your CPU Cores are enabled and working in Compressor or even in FCP for that matter?

There is a simple utility called "Menu Meters" that will show among other things the CPU activity for all your computer cores. Menu meters displays realtime activity in the top bar of your computer screen. So when Compressor is working you should see all cores operating around 95-98%.

Start by going to your "System Preferences" and open the "Apple Qmaster" pane. In the "Options for selected service ..." you should see "Selected Service On (8 Instances)" These number of Instances refer to the number of CPU cores in the MacPro that are allocated to Compressor. If this service is off then open the options button, set the instances to the maximum number of cores for you machine. Then at the bottom right corner make sure "Start Sharing" is selected.

Finally there is one last detail that can be missed when processing a job in Compressor. When you submit the job, a drop down window appears as usual. In the "Cluster" option make sure you do not select the default "This Computer" rather there should be a second option entitled as "computer_name Cluster" This last option is the one that needs to be chosen to submit your job to Qmaster for slicing and making use of all your CPU cores. When you submit this job you should see all the CPU bars in menu meters go into action. If you want more details on how the job slicing is going start up the compressor "Batch Monitor" utility in Applications_Utilities folder.

Apple's Snow Leopard 10.6 is due out the end of August or early September. In it we will see added video encoding power from the use of the CPU cores in our Video graphics cards. Snow Leopard's "Grand Central Station" is also new technology based upon the "OpenCL Industry Standard" to make more efficient use of our multi-core processors. It will be interesting to see how Snow Leopard performs with our HD video encoding jobs. Cheers!

I'd also like to add a plug for iStat. It's a nice little utility that allows you to monitor CPU core usage along with HD space, fan speed, CPU and system temps. Very nice free app.
iStat menus, a Mac app by iSlayer