Why conversions slow down when they’re nearly finished?

[Claire]

If you are converting to DVD, Blu-ray, or AVCHD format you might have noticed that the conversion goes along fine but once it gets past 90% it seems to slow down tremendously? So why does this last small part take so long?
This last 10% of the conversion is when the menu is created. If the menu is just text to display on an background image then that is pretty simply for your computer to process and therefore accomplish quickly. However the default menu template and many others display the actual videos in your project as thumbnails or playing as the background in your menu pages. The more videos that display in a menu’s page the more complex it is for your computer to process. So, to speed up the menu creation (rendering process) choose a menu that is easy for your computer to generate and those are:
Text based menus
- Cx2 style theme - creates only a title menu
- Minimal
- Minimal - no root menus
*For either of these you can still add a background image to and keep conversions fast
Image based menu
- Still images - based on default menu Metallic but uses a still image from the video converted rather than a video thumbnail
All other menus
- You can select and use any menu you want but you will want to edit the thumbnail or the background so that it uses a still image instead of a video

[Claire]

Examples of complex menu pages to generate:

Open Style - Metallic - Title menu when 6 videos are converted

Open Style - Metallic - Chapter Menu (notice 6 video thumbnails and background is also a video playing.... Extra complex)

Examples of easy menu pages to generate:
Minimal Title menu (text only - easy thus fast to generate)

Minimal Chapter menu (also text only - easy thus fast to generate)

Minimal with background image (also easy and fast to generate)