disabling background rendering in FCPX?

[Andrae Palmer]

Is there a way to turn off background rendering in FCPX? I assume that when I drag a non prores clip onto the timeline that it's background transcoding it to ProRes. Problem is that it's doing a lot of unnecessary rendering especially if I decide to later add say a 50's TV effect to the clip... then the render stops and starts all over again. The initial render was a complete waste. Shouldn't the transcode be saved for last?

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Found the answer in preferences... is it possible to just disable background transcoding before export?

 

[Andrae Palmer]

How to render less in FCPX:
http://blogs.creativecow.net/blog/5206/how-to-render-less-is-fcpx

It seems the background rendering is an headache that needs turning off to prevent the system from eating up hard drive space and also eating up CPU resources. Perhaps someone can explain why when you drag a clip into the timeline that it starts to render. After you add an effect to that clip it starts to render all over gain... aborting the previous render. I don't see the benefit in this way of rendering... seems like a lot of needless rendering going on.

 

[Robert Frank]

I thought Open CL was supposed to eliminate the need for constant rendering of every change, making FCPX more usable with realtime GPU processing?

 

[Andrae Palmer]

I think it's background transcoding the footage to Apple ProRes. I guess that saves time for the final export. I have a hard time wondering why it's doing it because the playback previews are realtime in FCPX. Even more as you as you add an effect to the clip it stops rendering and starts all over again. Mind you this is a CPU process so it's using up CPU processes and hard drive space.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

How to render less in FCPX:
http://blogs.creativecow.net/blog/5206/how-to-render-less-is-fcpx

It seems the background rendering is an headache that needs turning off to prevent the system from eating up hard drive space and also eating up CPU resources. Perhaps someone can explain why when you drag a clip into the timeline that it starts to render. After you add an effect to that clip it starts to render all over gain... aborting the previous render. I don't see the benefit in this way of rendering... seems like a lot of needless rendering going on.

You can turn off rendering in Preferences. Or, set a delay time before it starts. It also usually pauses when other stuff starts being done in the foreground. Seems weird that it is choking your system though. Have you made sure the renders aren't on the boot drive? Are you short on RAM or HD space?

You can also choose what kind of alternate files (if any) you want to create. It uses flavors of ProRes because the FCPX can very efficiently work with that in the timeline. (Although it can work with many codecs in their "natural" state.)

 

[Jonathan LeDuc]

You can turn off rendering in Preferences. Or, set a delay time before it starts. It also usually pauses when other stuff starts being done in the foreground. Seems weird that it is choking your system though. Have you made sure the renders aren't on the boot drive? Are you short on RAM or HD space?

You can also choose what kind of alternate files (if any) you want to create. It uses flavors of ProRes because the FCPX can very efficiently work with that in the timeline. (Although it can work with many codecs in their "natural" state.)

I have completely disabled rendering within the preferences, yet it continues to render files even when I import prores files into the event. Perhaps it is a bug, but the preferences don't seem to disable rendering completely. When you ingest a large number of files it leads to some pretty serious hard drive thrashing, and I end up having to manage the renders manually with the pause buttons. Honestly, I may just be anal about having control over the renders, which is probably why I prefer the option to render on demand.