Visual QuickStart Guide [Electronic resources] : Final Cut Express HD for Mac OS X نسخه متنی

Using Render Commands

Final Cut Express's rendering commands are all about choices. At the top level of the Sequence menu, you'll find three Render commands:

• Render Selection processes only the material you select in the Timeline.

• Render All creates render files for the entire sequence.

• Use Render Only to process a single type of unrendered material. Render Only can process either the portion of the sequence you select or the entire sequence if you don't mark a selection.

Each Render command has a submenu that offers a second tier of choices.

• In all three submenus, you can choose to render just video, just audio, or both.

• Both the Render Selection and Render All submenus allow you to pick and choose which types of render-eligible sections you want to process in this rendering operation. Check any or all of the render types before you kick off a render (Figure 18.9 ). The render options stay checked until you change them, so once you've set up a render specification, you can render with a simple keyboard command.

  
  

  Figure 18.9. Choose Sequence > Render Selection (or Sequence > Render All) and then specify which render types you want to include in this rendering operation by selecting those items from the submenu. Making a selection toggles the checked status on or off; you'll have to select multiple times if you want to include or exclude multiple render types.

  
  

  
  

Tip

HDV users take note: Powering off any FireWire devices that are connected to your computer while an HDV render is underway could trash your render in progress and cause FCE HD to freeze up or quit unexpectedly. Don't touch that off switch until your render is safely completed.

To render a section of a sequence:

To render an entire sequence or multiple sequences:

To render a single type of render-eligible material:

To disable rendering:

FCE Protocol: Estimating Render Processing Time Render processing times can range from a couple of seconds to many hours. How do you know whether you have just enough time for a quick break or enough for a two-hour lunch? Read on. Final Cut Express expresses the progress of your rendering operation as an estimate of the time remaining. Even so, the time displayed on the progress bar is based on how long the current frame takes multiplied by the number of remaining frames; so if your effects differ drastically in complexity, predicting the time required to render is difficulteven for Final Cut Express. Watch the progress bar for a few minutes and make a guess, based on the speed of the progress bar and your knowledge of the sequence. After rendering, or whenever you move a large number of clips, Final Cut Express rebuilds the QuickTime movie used for computer playback of your sequence so that it will be ready to playwherever you put your playhead. While it's rebuilding, you may see a dialog box that says "Preparing video for display."




Rendering audio




Table 18.1 .)

Tip

The Mixdown Audio command produces a render file with a computed mix. Even though the command is called Mixdown , you still have individual control over all your audio tracks. Think of Mixdown Audio as a "temp mix" you can use while you're working.

FCE Protocol: Track Costs Final Cut Express uses the concept of track equivalent costs, or track costs , to calculate the total processing power needed to play back multiple audio channels. Under certain conditions, you may be able to play back audio tracks with filters or transitions applied. Choose Low Audio Quality playback from the General tab of the User Preferences window, and you'll pick up an extra track or two. You can estimate the real-time audio capabilities available in your sequence by adding up the audio track costs. Track costs can accumulate quickly when even a couple of unmixed tracks are combined, if you have used filters and transitions. If you exceed your real-time playback capability, you'll hear beeps instead of your audio when you attempt playback. Before you can play back, you'll need to render by selecting Mixdown Audio from the Sequence menu.