Render Time Calculator
Estimate video render time from footage length and encoding speed.
About Render Time Calculator
Effect-heavy sections dominate render time out of proportion to their length, so a quarter of the footage can account for most of the wait. Hardware encoding is far faster but usually slightly lower quality at equal bitrate. Knowing which sections are slow is what makes proxy editing and pre-rendering worthwhile, since the heavy sections are the only ones worth caching.
Formula
Render Time
Render time = simple footage ÷ speed + heavy footage × slowdown ÷ speed
- realtime factor
- Above one means rendering faster than playback
- hardware acceleration
- GPU encoding, typically two to three times faster
Worked example
With the default values below, Render Time Calculator returns Estimated Render Time of 17.50. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Footage lengthminimum 0 min
- 20 min
- Render speed relative to real timeminimum 0.01 x
- 0.8 x
- Share with heavy effectsaccepts 0–100 %
- 25 %
- Slowdown on effect-heavy sectionsminimum 1 x
- 4 x
- Hardware accelerationone of Yes, No
- Yes
Results
- Estimated Render Time
- 17.50 min
- Render Time for Simple Sections
- 7.50 min
- Render Time for Effect-Heavy Sections
- 10.00 min
- Effective Render Speed
- 1.143 x
- Estimated Render Time
- 0.292 h
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Render Time
- 3Estimated Render Time= 17.50 min
- 4Render Time for Simple Sections= 7.50 min
- 5Render Time for Effect-Heavy Sections= 10.00 min
- 6Effective Render Speed= 1.143 x
- 7Estimated Render Time= 0.292 h
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 5 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 3 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Render Time calculated?
Render time = simple footage ÷ speed + heavy footage × slowdown ÷ speed Effect-heavy sections dominate render time out of proportion to their length, so a quarter of the footage can account for most of the wait. Hardware encoding is far faster but usually slightly lower quality at equal bitrate.
Why does Render Time matter?
Knowing which sections are slow is what makes proxy editing and pre-rendering worthwhile, since the heavy sections are the only ones worth caching.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 5 inputs: Footage length, Render speed relative to real time, Share with heavy effects, Slowdown on effect-heavy sections, Hardware acceleration. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.