Seven hours to compress HDV to H.264 - to be expected?

I'm looking to buy a desktop to replace my laptop as my primary video editing/rendering tool, but I want to check that I'm doing everything I can to make my video compression run as quickly as possible as it is right now.
For example: I had 43GB of HDV video, all of it fairly high motion sports clips, and Compressor took a little over seven hours to compress it all into H.264 clips at 800kbps, totaling 1.3GB. I'm ready to buy a very powerful machine in order to drastically cut this compression time down, but I wanted to see how much of this is because of software limitations, as opposed to hardware limitations.
Thanks.

r daws,
I switched from a macbook pro to a mac pro 2.26 Nehalem. The simple answer to you question is that it will speed up your compressions dramatically if you know how to do it. I would estimate a factor of 10. That's right, it will take about 1/10 the time on a new mac pro vs a macbook pro, if you set it up right.
Now that is just using compressor. Rendering in FCP is faster, but not by that big of a factor. My experience is roughly 40-80 % faster.
Many of Apple apps, like iLife, you won't notice a ton of difference.
It all has to do with the number of cores and the utilization of the cores.
If you set up compressor to use qmaster, you can set up a quick cluster of 6-8 cores, and then compressor splits up the videos and runs 6 different instances ( separate copies of the program) which greatly speeds up the process.
Also, using multiple internal hard drives makes it much more convenient, and faster as well.
All said and done, it is hard to describe how happy I am with the speed difference between the Mac Pro and my MacBook Pro. Never go back.
But, the long answer is that 7 hours to compress could either be really great or really horrible depending on the settings.
It takes me roughly 4 - 5 Minutes to compress a seven minute video using the default settings on DVD-90 Best Quality. When I change the frame controls to produce a higher quality vid, the same sequence takes 45 Minutes.
Time is all dependent on the settings.
Ken

Similar Messages

HT1386 Hi All, I plugged my iPhone into my laptop and I was asked to upgrade my iTunes software. It took more than seven hours and just to be told that my SIM card does not appear to be supported. Since then I can not use my iPhone. I am lost plse help. J

Hi All, I plugged my iPhone into my laptop and I was asked to upgrade my iTunes software. It took more than seven hours and just to be told that my SIM card does not appear to be supported. Since then I can not use my iPhone. I am lost plse help. Jam53
Every time I switch on the iPhone, the iTunes icon is displayed together with a USB icon and Emergency call message appears on the screen in many languages. When I touch the i symbol I get the following information IMEI: **** AND ICCID: ****
However, the iphone is visible in the Devices directory in iTunes. I changed my SIM card but still can not be recognized by the iPhone.
<Edited By Host>

Do you mean when you say its locked to another carrier other then the one im using, that maybe my insurance sent me an iphone thats for a different network for example orange and not mine which is o2?

My ipad says the ios needs seven hours to update. I tried the reboot but no success help!

THe ios is very slow and says seven hours help me

Hello steppphhhhh!
Do you have a PC/Mac?
If you do, install iTunes and try updating from there. Then try one of the solutions written in the font Arial Black which is at the bottom of this reply.
Is your internet very slow sometimes?
If it is, this may be the problem. You'll have to be patient and actually wait that time. Sometimes it doesn't really take that estimated time.
Where you messing around with anything?
if you messed around with anything such as jailbreaking/messing around in file viewers in iFunbox or iExplorer, this might be the problem. You might have dine something wrong. As you might know, jailbreaking disables updating your iOS sometimes.
Try resetting all settings:
Go to settings>General>reset>reset all Settings..
This process will NOT erase any data.
Try a restore from backup:
Backup your iPad using iTunes/iCloud. Then, reset to factory settings and then restore your iPad from the backup you've backed up. Doing this will automatically update your iPad to the latest version of iTunes, and will un-jailbreak your iPad if it is jailbroken.
If none of these Work,
Contact Apple and see if they can help.
Regards,
Ab

How to compress HDV files in the browser.

I want to compress HDV files in the browser to DV 16/9 without having to drag them all into the timeline and combined and compress them all into one file.

The Sony HDV X1 camera can convert your HDV footage to a variety of DV configurations. I would highly recommend this route to avoid the system performance penalties of working in native HDV. Also the camera gives you a much better HDV to DV conversion than FCP 5 (at the moment).
The only benefit of staying HDV is if you are mastering to HD.

HDV to H.264 color loss

Anyone know why when I convert HDV to H.264 Quicktime media, that the color saturation washes out significantly? This appears to happen in Compressor with whatever H.264 settings I choose, however it doesn't happen going to MPEG 4.
Thanks,
Russell

Premiere is not the best tool for deinterlacing. You might get better results if you leave it as is and let your TV or PS3 do the upscaling.

Compressing HDV footage to download ond the web

Hi,
I just finished putting together a simple HD music video for my brother's band. What I want to do next is to compress it using H.264 in compressor 2 to make a full res 1920x1080 video much like what is on the Quicktime movie trailer site. I have tried many different settings but have been unable to get a good looking video, thats not choppy or with a way to big file size. I have been unable to locate any tutorials, web articles, or anything on the matter. If anyone has had any success with the matter please let me know you amazing secret, and if you can e-mail me the settings file from compressor located in User/library/application support/Compressor.
Thank you for your time
Ryan
Power Mac G5 DP 2.0GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6) Final Cut Studio

Please Help

Capturing HDV as H.264

IM using fcp 6 on a Mac book pro I’ve been asked to capture 2 HDV tapes as H.264. Do I do this in the capture settings of fcp or do I have to use compressor to convert to it?.
Thanks for any help.

I was wondering if theres a way of capturing HDV as H.264?
I have never tried it. On the few occasions that I worked with HDV, it was for editing and was converted to ProRes. Final Cut Pro does not really like H.264 anyway, you will probably have to render it as well.
You might consider trying QuickTime Player's "New Movie Recording" function under the File menu bar item which gives you the option of capturing the native format of your footage or directly as H.264. If it works (I never tried that with HDV either) you won't have to do any conversion at all in Compressor.

Compressing HDV for web distribution

My source material is 1080i HDV captured on Sony HD1000 (PAL) camera.
This I've imported into FCP to make a 3 min movie with additional music.
My aim - good quality movie with a small file size
My best result after countless attempts is 22MB, up to 800kbps, with 640 x 360 dimensions following suggestions (below) to get me into the general ballpark.
http://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/bkcompresshdv.html
This I did from Final Cut: File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion - the only thing I changed from suggestions in link was to increase data rate, 300 kbps produced poor results for me.
I've tried the different presets (and with numerous adjustments) in Compressor 3.5 but so far I've not managed satisfactory results. (From Download, QT7 Folder)
So wondered if anybody had any suggestions to produce good quality movies with a small file size from HDV 1080i source?

Thanks for reply
I edited in HDV 1080/50
I've tried sending directly to Compressor but when I submit any H.264 preset I get a 'failed' message.
I've tried sample editing with a Quicktime Movie of around 600MB in Compressor - it works with this - but with unsatisfactory results (so far)
As I said my best result was to bypass compressor and go with QuickTime Conversion.
I suppose by 'small' I'm wondering if 22MB/800kbps/640x360 (3 mins) is still quite large if, for eg, the movie is delivered to a client web site - I haven't got that far yet.
I didn't actually use the term 'good looking' but not surprisingly I'm concerned with retaining as much quality as possible with such file size reduction - not sure how else to define this. I'm relatively happy with the quality at 22MB - I've just done a series of test shots so far but in future will use a tripod, manual focus and limited or no transitions to hopefully aid the compression process.

54 Hours to Compress 1 Hour Quicktime?

I'm using Compressor to compress FCP quicktime (1 hour long video, w/music, etc)... and using the DVD Best Quality 90 minute setting, compressing to ac3/m2v-- and it's telling me it will take 54 hours. Could this be possible? I'm at 2% complete, so it seems like it's doing something, but it is taking an ETERNITY.
Thanks.

The file is located in a folder on my external hard drive, and the destination is in another folder on the same hard drive.
I exported a reference quicktime movie out of FCP, with DVD Studio Pro Markers at current settings, which was HDV 1080i60.
I was also trying to import this into imovie, so that I can just use iDVD as an alternative, but I was getting errors importing the file as well.
Thanks for getting back to me!

14 hours to compress a one hour quicktime?

Can this be right?
This is how log it took me to compress a one hour quicktime (4:3 Pal) into an MPEG-2 for DVDSP.
Admittedly my iBook is not the fastest Mac around but this seems wait time seems... extreme.
Anyone have suggestions as to how I can speed the process up?
I was using the latest version of Compressor, and at the best quality 60 minutes setting.
The original file was 11 gig.
Thanks,
Jake.

My little Mac Mini can take quite a while (30 minutes, even an hour) just to compress a few minutes of video while using Compressor. I have started exporting the file (as mentioned here) and then sending it to Compressor (rather than sending it to Compressor straight from FCP) and that does speed up things.
Your settings are completely different from the ones I typically use (I make a lot of H.264 for web), but frankly, I'm not surprised at the length of time it's taking. Compressor can be really slow.

Why is HDV to H.264 so slow?

I have a Sony HC1 and I'm trying to generate H.264 video of some wedding footage I shot for the groom, but its is taking absolutely forever to process. I have a 42 second clip that I'm just testing with and to do a 60min/H.264 and it is taking some four hours to process. That means my 15 min clip would take DAYS.
I don't have that slow of a machine (DP 2Ghz G5), so what in the world can I do to speed this up, is it just a bug in Compressor or is it just that slow?
thanks,
mike

QT Pro 7.0.3 is much quicker, about 20mins for a 3min sequence encode from DV PAL --> 320x240 H.264. I had some simple titles which looked fine.
I have Compressor v1.2.1, so maybe I don't even have a choice since I haven't checked to see of H.264 is in that version of Compressor (or does Compressor use the QT components?)
Files reduced by at least 1mb in size (9-12mb files orig) and much better quality. However still considering it it's the way to go because most people won't have the latest QT to view compared to existing MPEG1 or Sorenson formats.

I get 120 hours render time on quicktime h.264 usualy setting

My Computer :
Processor : Radeon HD graphics APU A10-5745M 2.10GHz
Ram installed : 16 Go ( 15.52 usable , 12go on AAE CC )
Graphic cards : R7 m260 and HD 8610G
My project : 10 min long , 3 audio spectrum with glow and a '' bass shake fx on all of them ''
Usual render time for 1 audio spectrum 5 min long song and bass shake FX = 30 min , Same setting
My setting Quicktime H.264 , Lossless sound , Best quality .
I try to render and i alway get between 80 and 120 hours ... make no sense , it should be max an hour . theres 20k frames to be rendered .
Now when i installed media encoder it does not help it and still is Sooooooo long to render .... im not sure how to fix this without losing quality

It seems to be helping quite a bit , but the render is still up at like 41 hours so .... i don't understand ? does having multiple audio spectrum and a bass shake effect on all of them for 11 minute increase the render time by so much ? my first video was quite fast even on h.264 ? it doesnt look that fancy to me lol

Converting HDV to H.264 for storage. Any simple way dates and clip splits can be preserved?

THE PROBLEM
Tapes are one of the riskiest ways to archive footage as not only is there the possibility of tape damage but the very real chance that the camera will fail after a few years leaving you with unplayable footage .. .. .. .. unless you are lucky enough to find a replacement one or are prepared to spend money on obsolete equipment.
A further disadvantage is the linear nature of tape which takes ages to import or spool through.
THE SOLUTION
Digital storage on hard drives, memory sticks or SD cards has none of these problems and your video can be played anywhere on any computer etc.
Furthermore after converting to H.264, the video is virtually identical in quality and only takes up 35% of the space (using FCP X's convert to H.264 default setting).
THE SNAGS
I intend to import all my HDV tapes, stick each one on the FCP X timeline and export it as mentioned above.
This will reduce my HDV file size to around 4GB which would also fit conveniently on one DVD, as well as the above mentioned storage devices.
The only problem I can see is that I wll lose the date/time and also the clip-breaks.
The precise date/time is not a serious problem but I would like to preserve clip breaks if possible, even though the inability to do so would not be too serious.
THE HELP?
So have there been any recent developments that would help me with either of these problems cheaply and quickly.
P.S. I know that I could burn the date/time on the first frame of every clip but that would take an eternity. I could also export every clip singly to H.264 but that too would take an age.

Thanks for the reply, however, unless I am missing something there would be no advantage over simply retaining the original imported HDV files and avoiding the additional time taken to create the archive?
The H.264 route preserves the quality whilst dramatically reducing the file size and will probably be a more universally accepted format than HDV.
Luckily I can live without the metadata and timecode but it would be nice to be able to preserve it.
Naturally I have written details but as they are not integral with the video, there is always the strong possibility of them being lost after my demise.
I intend to keep the HDV tapes and camera of course, but I don't know how long the camera (even when unused) will survive.
My original Canon Video 8 camcorder, bought in 1992 packed in after 8 years leaving me with 25 unplayable tapes until last year, when by a minor miracle I was able to borrow a Video 8 tape deck.
Similarly, my first mini-DV camera purchased in 2000, packed in recently but luckily I have another DV camera together with my HDV one which can still play them.
From the research I have done it seem quite general that many cameras, even when little used, bite the dust after a decade, probably due to electronic deterioration/malfunction. They work perfectly but the next time you use them the transport mechanism refuses to function even though there is obviously no mechanical wear.

Problems compressing HDV into SD

Friends,
I'm converting HDV into DV wide, and I'm getting unwanted horizontal lines (like "scan" lines) in my final SD Wide movie...
I'm use a Z1 camcorder to shoot, capture it as HDV, Edit as HDV, and export as quicktime HDV 1080i60. The image is great when I watch my edited movie with the quicktime...
Then, I need to convert this movie to a SD Wide format ( 720x480, 1.2 )... When I do it in Compressor, my final m2v file has the horizontal line as mentioned before... It is more noticeable with texts, subtitles...
In Compressor I'm using the following settings:
Video Format: NTSC
Frame Rate: 29.97
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Field Dominance: Top first
Mode: Two Pass VBR Best
Average Bit Rate: 5.5 MBPS
Maximum Bit Rate: 7.2 MBPS
Motion Estimation: Best
So, could someone please help me? Is it possible to solve this issue? Make my final SD movie with a better look?
Thanks a lot.
Marcelo

Luca, thanks for your help.
I tried thje steps that you told me... but the stimation time to render 30 seconds wwas 12 hours... I'm sure that the quality will be great, but I can not spend so much time with rendering (my main movie has 1 hour and 3 minutes)...
Also, first I tried to turn off Filters, then in frame controls I left Anti-Alias and Details Level to zero... but it was the same, about 10 hours to render 30 seconds...
I do not have a powerful computer, but it is not a turtle... It is a MacBook Pro, Intel Core 2 Dual, 2.33 GHZ, 2GB RAM...
My last test was to render the movie only with the progressive option (in the encoder tab), leaving frame control and filters tab untouched... The results for still images, as text in the menus, subtitles, were great, but when I have a scene with some moves, the quality is terrible, the motion "bumps"...
So I think that the best (or the less worse) is to render using TOP FIRST as the field dominance...
Thanks a lot for your attention and time, and if you have any new sugestion, please let me know.
Regards,
Marcelo Navarro.

Compression settings for H.264

Can anyone recommend some settings for making making H.264 video intended for delivery on the web at 640x380?
Thanks.

Heya Rick,
So I was looking at the H.264 settings in Compressor and it would seem as though the highest bitrate is 1500 kps so guess you can't do bit rate between 2000 and 2500 k/bits like another poster recommended by using Compressor for Apple Devices settings. Also there isn't much control over the audio of the h.264 file in Compressor whereas QT conversion from FCP allows you to select a mono audio file with a lower khz rate and render quality.
The difference between selecting stereo vs. mono will be the difference between 1/2 or twice the filesize for your audio file which will absolutely affect your total filesize but make little to no difference in your viewed file intended for web viewing. Take a look at a standalone Stereo track AAC 44.100 kHz 192 kbps that is 5 mins long and you're looking at about 5 MB file just for the audio!!! Cut that to mono and drop the frequency and bitrate and that 5 mb audio file will be about 1MB.
I have always used QT conversion from FCP and have only just now had the opportunity to look at the h.264 settings in Compressor and judging from initial impressions I would go with QT conversion from FCP.
For the video you mention I would just go with export using QT conversion from FCP. For video settings use automatic keyframes with an automatic datarate with quality set to Medium. Best quality multi-pass encode. For sound settings use Linear PCM Mono channel 32 khz rate and Faster Quality render setting. That should give you a nice, small file size that will look and sound good enough for sit down interview video between 3-5 mins. in length.
Also remember that the h.264 can be used with a Flash player instead of QT player so those without Quicktime can view the file without having to install the QT player. You can use something like the JW Player from http://LongTailvideo.com or simply change the extension of the compressed h.264 to .flv and use it with any Flash Player above 9.0
hth

Seven hours to compress HDV to H.264 - to be expected?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for