Tips for Avoiding Unnecessary Rendering
and Reducing Render Time
Here are some suggestions to avoid rendering:
 Edit the majority of your project using cuts only; add only transitions, effects, or filters
that can play back in real time or that are absolutely necessary in making decisions
about your first cut. Avoiding unnecessary effects and time-consuming rendering can
help you focus on your program’s overall pacing and structure. Once your first cut is
done, you can focus on applying effects like color correction and titles.
 Use the Unlimited RT mode and dynamic real-time playback. For more information,
see Chapter 28, “
Using RT Extreme
,” on page 617.
 If you use effects that need to be rendered, you can get a good idea of how the clip
looks by simply scrubbing through the clip in the Timeline or Canvas to view the
effect one frame at a time.
You can also choose Mark > Play > Every Frame (or press Option-\) to play through a
clip one frame at a time, not in real time, and get a slow-motion preview of how the
effect will look.
 When you change the In and Out points of a clip with filters applied, you may need
to rerender the adjusted areas. To avoid constantly rerendering, you can place a clip
with its applied filters into a sequence and then edit that sequence into other
sequences. This is sometimes called nesting a sequence. Because you modify the
sequence In and Out points instead of the clip within the sequence, the render file
for the clip is maintained. For detailed information about nesting clips using the Nest
Items command, see Volume II, Chapter 23, “Sequence-to-Sequence Editing.”
 Disable filters that require rendering when you don’t need to view the effects in
order to make decisions.
 Disable the rendering and playback of filters, frame blending, and motion blur
individually, or disable these options collectively in the Render Control tab of the
Sequence Settings window. These options can be reenabled at any time.
 Temporarily disable rendering of clips that cannot play back in real time. This allows
you to make changes to effects-intensive sequences without having to wait for
frames at the position of the playhead to render for display in the Viewer or Canvas.
For more information, see “
Temporarily Disabling Rendering
” on page 658.
Chapter 29
Rendering and Video Processing Settings
677
IV
Here are some tips for reducing the amount of time it takes to render your sequence:
 Lower the frame rate and resolution of rendered effects in the Render Control tab of
the Sequence Settings window. This lowers the playback quality of those effects but
allows them to render substantially faster.
 Disable certain render-intensive effects in your sequence, including filters, frame
blending, and motion blur. Using the options in the Render Control tab of the
Sequence Settings window, you can turn all such effects on and off in your sequence
without having to enable and disable each effect individually.
 Test-render short sections to evaluate an effect, rather than the entire clip or
sequence. You can always begin rendering a clip and then stop the render midway.
Final Cut Pro preserves what was rendered, so you can see how it looks without
having to rerender the entire clip.
 Render sequences while you take a break or do other work by turning on automatic
rendering in the General tab of the User Preferences window.
In this case, rendering time isn’t actually reduced, but you can make efficient use of your
time by turning your attention to other things as the computer renders your media. For
more information about the Auto Render option in the General tab of the User
Preferences window, see Volume IV, Chapter 23, “Choosing Settings and Preferences.”
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