As many of you may know it is not currently possible to setup clustered rendering (render farm) for Final Cut Pro. A render farm is a cluster of computers setup so that their combined processing power can be used to render one project/sequence.

However, clustered rendering IS possible using Apple’s Compressor software for encoding (bundled with Final Cut Studio).

If you’ve got a few mac computers laying around (works especially well with Mac Minis) hook those bad boys together and kick your compressor encoding into overdrive.  Compressor uses a program called QMaster to setup the clustering rendering…it comes packaged with Final Cut Studio.

We won’t go into a ton of detail about this, as there are already some great resources out there to get your going!  Here’s some great primers for getting you started building your own “render farm”…

Apple’s basic info on QMaster and Distributed Encoding

A few years back I saw this great article from MacWorld.com on how to put a Compressor render farm together. I recently stumbled across it again and it’s still very applicable.

A great video tutorial on how to use QMaster with Compressor

If anyone has had success (or frusturations) with setting up a “render farm” for Compressor please share in the comments.  Perhaps it will be useful for other readers!

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On a side note, we’d like to congratulate the winner of the 8mm Distress Kit giveaway.  Random.org has chosen Chris Theibert from Captured Life Productions as our contest winner! We’ll be in contact Chris so you can receive the distress kit.  Thanks to everyone who commented…there were a ton of uniquely edited films mentioned!  And thanks to MediaPreview.net for providing the kit!

Look for another great contest in the next week or so!