Optimize Your Workstation for Rendering, Exporting & Encoding

Our old friend Kevin Monahan just put together this most excellent FAQ on the Adobe Communitiy discussion board to optimize your workstation. While this article is Adobe specific, these tips are excellent for any NLE including Avid Media Composer, Grass Valley Edius or Sony Vegas. Great job Kev! Adobe by Kevin Monahan

FAQ: How do I optimize my workstation to speed up rendering, exporting, or encoding?

"How do I improve rendering, or export times?" is a common question and theme we see on the forums. Fortunately, there are things you can do to export more quickly. The trouble is that most of the time you could save in the exporting process begins before the editing even takes place. Though that's a bit disappointing, we'll give you both tips for getting the job done today and some tips for future projects. Note: the terms rendering, exporting, and encoding are often used interchangeably (though technically, they have slightly different meanings). For the purposes of this article, we'll use the terms "export" and "encode" when we're speaking about outputting a file to your computer. With that said, keep in mind that the term "rendering" is also used when describing the creation of preview files, which comes into play in this FAQ, as well. To speed up encoding, consider:

• Faster hardware: if you're not satisfied with encoding speed, consider the hardware you use in encoding (and what is not used) and the optimization of that hardware
• Optimized Media: the state of the existing media you are working with a smart rendering workflow

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