Mac OS Catalina.
What a mess.
Apple’s latest release of their new operating system,
Catalina, has not been good.
While adding a few extra features,
and some performance improvements,
initially, Catalina did more harm than good,
especially for Final Cut Pro users.
It rendered a bunch of plugins,
as well as standalone apps,
such as Audacity, virtually useless.
A large number of Final Cut Pro users,
myself included,
held off upgrading to Catalina,
just so we could continue using our plugins and apps.
But now, after it’s been out for a while,
and a large number of developers
have had some time to update their apps and plugins,
some of you may finally be thinking of updating.
Also, with the imminent release of Final Cut Pro 10.5,
which will more than likely require Catalina,
should you update now and be prepared,
or wait until the last minute?
Today, we’ll take a look at Final Cut Pro performance
in Mojave and Catalina,
to see if there’s any benefits of updating.
Hey guys, whats up.
This is Serge and welcome back to my channel.
In this video,
we’re going to run a few performance tests
on Mojave and Catalina
to see if there’s any difference.
We’ll be running these tests on a 2015,
15 inch MacBook Pro, base model.
We’ll also be using the latest version
of Final Cut Pro at this time,
version 10.4.8.
Down in my timeline,
I have a 5 minute test project.
I intentionally made this project very processor intense,
just to exaggerate any differences.
It’s an HD project using 4K source clips,
so Final Cut Pro has to convert the media to HD.
I also added a bunch of animated titles,
applied stabilization to some clips,
a couple adjustment layers
with LUTs and color grading and more.
This is much more intense than most average projects,
but I did this intentionally to give Final Cut Pro
a run for it’s money.
First, let’s take a look at export times
of an un rendered project.
I’ll delete all generated event files,
and first see how long it takes
to export a master file of this project
in Apple Pro Rez 422.
So, let’s hit the Share button,
select Master File,
and set the Video Codec to Pro Res 422.
About 6 minutes and 37 seconds
to export my 5 minute project.
I’ll run this test a couple more times,
just to make sure we get a consistent time.
So, as you can see,
exporting this 5 minute project
in the Pro Res 422 codec,
the times were fairly consistent
for an average of about six minutes and thirty nine seconds.
I also ran this same test,
exporting my video as a more YouTube friendly MP4 file.
Here are the times it took.
Next, let’s take a look at how long it takes
to render this entire project in Mojave.
Before we start, just to show you,
in Final Cut Pro preferences,
I have background rendering turned off,
and just to be sure,
I’ll delete any generated event files.
Let’s see how long it takes to render this project.
From the Menu Bar, I’ll select Modify,
and Render All.
7 minutes and 40 seconds to render this 5 minute project.
Let’s try this again,
just to make sure our numbers are consistent.
I’ll delete all the Generated event files,
and render this project a couple more times.
Here’s my results.
So, now that we have our timeline rendered,
do you think this project will export faster?
Let’s find out.
I’ll click the share button,
and once again select Master File
to export it in the Pro Res 422 codec.
42 seconds.
That is so much faster
then exporting an un rendered project.
Rendering does make a difference.
A huge difference.
I’ll try this again a couple more times,
just to confirm the results.
As you can see,
the export times were just as fast.
Exporting this same project as an MP4 file
took a little bit longer, but still,
a lot faster than an un rendered file.
So now that we have these base numbers,
I’m going to upgrade my operating system to Catalina,
and run these same tests again,
to see is there’s any difference.
Wish me luck.
The upgrade was a success.
I got my operating system updated,
all set up,
with the same project loaded into Final Cut Pro.
I’m still using the same computer,
running the same version of Final Cut Pro.
The only difference is now I’m running Catalina.
First, I’ll make sure all my Generated Event files are deleted,
and repeat the same tests.
First up is the un rendered export.
I’ll hit the share button,
select Master File,
and make sure the codec is set to Pro Res 422.
Let’s hit save and see how long it takes to export.
7 minutes and five seconds.
That’s actually about 7 percent slower than Mojave.
Not what I expected.
I ran this test two more times,
just to make sure,
with very similar results.
Next up is rendering time.
Once again, I’ll Delete my Generated files,
and from the menu bar select Modify and Render all.
Catalina rendered this project a little bit faster,
rendering it in 6 minutes and 58 seconds.
Thats about 9 percent faster than Mojave.
I’ll repeat this test a couple more times,
just to prove the results.
And last up, is exporting a rendered timeline.
I’ll hit the share button,
select Master File,
and set the codec to Pro
Res 422.
43 seconds.
Thats pretty much the same as Mojave.
My second and third export attempts were very similar.
So there you have it.
Using Final Cut Pro in MacOS Catalina,
is faster for some tasks, and slower for others.
Exporting an un rendered timeline
take less time in Mojave,
averaging 6 minutes and 39 seconds.
That’s 7 percent faster
than exporting the same timeline in Catalina.
When Rendering your project,
Catalina wins,
rendering a 5 minute timeline in 6 minutes and 58 seconds.
9 percent faster than Mojave.
And exporting a fully rendered project
takes about the same amount of time
in both Mojave and Catalina,
around 43 seconds for a 5 minute project.
The biggest takeaway here
is how much faster a rendered project exports.
The time difference is huge in both Mojave and Catalina.
If you’re wondering whether you should render
your project before exporting,
here’s your answer.
Should you upgrade to Catalina?
In my opinion,
unless you really want the new features,
such as dark mode, I would hold off for now.
If you use your computer mainly for editing in Final Cut Pro,
you won’t see much benefit in upgrading to Catalina.
If anything, your edits might even take a little bit longer.
And you still can’t run all the apps
you were able to run on Mojave.
If you already upgraded to Catalina,
and want to go back to Mojave,
as of the time of this video, you still can.
You can either restore from a backup,
or you can do a clean install of Mojave.
There’s a great tutorial for this
from Jim at All Things Mac,
which I’ll link up here,
and in the description below.
If you found this video helpful,
make sure to give it a thumbs up
and subscribe to my channel
for more Final Cut Pro tutorials.
New videos uploaded every week.
Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you next week.