exporting Quicktime Codec error

I have a sequence that won't export, the system was first giving me a 'general error', I've rebooted and now it gives me a 'codec error'. The irony of course is that the sequences which will export without a hitch won't video playback, and the one that won't export will video playback!?!?

Jean

What's the sequence set for?

What are the clips?

What are you trying to export as?

A word about which Final Cut, QuickTime Version, and Operating System would be welcome.

Koz

FCP 5.1.4

Quicktime 7.1.5

OS 10.4.9

2 GHz Intel Core Duo

1GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Sequence Settings:

720X480 NTSC DV (3:2)
Pixel Aspect Ratio NTSC - CCIR 601/DV(720X480)
Field Dominace Lower (even)
Editing Timebase: 29.97
Compressor DV/DVCPRO - NTSC
Audio" 48kHz 16-bit stereo

Clips are digitized DV and AIFF audio files
I'm exporting using Quicktime Conversion, MPEG-4 Compression

Thanks,

Jean

<<<the sequences which will export without a hitch won't video playback>>>

So it's broken well before the export step. Have you rendered everything and performed an Audio Mixdown? If you can't play the sequences in real time, there's something pretty seriously wrong--even if the order of broken clips is backwards.

Can you export a Self-Contained QuickTime (not conversion)? Try that after you render and mixdown. Load the exported show in a fresh Final Cut and try to compess that.

Koz

Well, my problems vary from sequence to sequence.

Now I've got a sequence that when I try to export it, it just very quickly writes a QT file that's just a white screen for 3 seconds.

I've got other sequences that won't video playback, by that I mean they play on the computer screen just fine, but when I try to stream it out through the firewire port to my video camera, the video breaks up and the sound jumps in and out.

Jeam

Never mind, I found the exporting issue, I had in and out points lurking...

Still working on the video streaming issue

<<<Still working on the video streaming issue>>>

Lots of things will kill a live playback. I wouldn't necessarily call it "streaming." That's something special.

--Never overlap Final Cut video windows during playback.
--Keep all windows in "Fit To Window" mode.
--Render and Mixdown the show before playing.

--Never put MP3 audio anywhere in a show (convert first).
--All hard drives on a video machine should have 10% or more free space--including the System Drive.

--Export your timeline as a self-contained QuickTime (not conversion), load that into a fresh Final Cut and play that.
--Never put punctuation marks anywhere in filenames--especially the "/" character.

Got all those covered?

Koz

Koz:

I have checked and executed all of your commands, still no progress.

Jean

<<<--Export your timeline as a self-contained QuickTime (not conversion), load that into a fresh Final Cut and play that. >>>

You went through that step and the live video output still stutters and hangs?

<<<I try to stream it out through the firewire port to my video camera, the video breaks up and the sound jumps in and out. >>>

We're still solving this problem, right?

Your list didn't mention any hard drives. Starting with the System Drive, how big and how much room? You can get into serious trouble by daisy chaining FireWire drives. How many drives do you have in that stack by your right elbow?

Koz

Still stuttering and hanging, yes.

We're still solving this problem. right.

System Drive: 232GB capacity, 34GB left

3 firewires daisy chained on one port, camera on the other port.

Western Digital 320 GB partitioned twice:
Partition One 150GB Capacity, 60 GB available
Partition Two 149 GB capacity, 25 GB available

LaCie 232GB capacity, 118 Available

LaCie 232GB Capacity, 13 available. This one I added recently, I see it is formated Mac OS Extended (journaled), it has some project that I'm just touching up for someone.

I had my troubles before I added this one to the chain, but perhaps I should disconnect and see ?

Macs only have one FireWire service, not two. It has two faucets on it, but it only counts as one, so you effectively have all those devices hanging from one FireWire port, a known unstable condition.

Push your exported, self-contained movie over to the System Drive, disconnect everything but the camera and try that. If it won't fit, force it. Move stuff from the System Drive until the show fits with at least 10% free space.

When you get done rearranging, you should only have one FireWire cable in service anywhere. Physically disconnect everything else.

Koz

Thanks Koz, I'll let you know how it goes. It does come as a surprise to me that these systems won't work as touted...

Jean

<<<these systems won't work as touted...>>>

You have to watch the touting.

FireWire drives work just fine when they're used as designed--looped and daisy-chained until the cows come home, or until you get to 50 or so drives, whichever comes first. In those cases, the Mac has time to properly manage all the filesystems on all the drives and make sure they behave and are stable.

But that doesn't mean they'll do live video like that. All the management and all the bi-directional data transfer for all the drives has to go down that one cable. If you do the arithmetic, you start getting into speed problems with one FireWire drive and one tape machine.

Video doesn't wait. If there isn't a drive there with its mouth open when a video frame arrives, the frame is discarded. Playback is the same way. If the system calls for frame number 523 from the drives and the system also has to manage one of the the filesystems at the exact same time, you lose on Sports Call. A UNIX filesystem will always choose to keep itself alive and healthy over making a pretty show.

If you were doing Microsoft Office Spreadsheets on those drives, you wouldn't be here complaining. So forget all this ridiculous video stuff and write spreadsheets.

Koz

Havent read entire thread but you did render everything including an audio mixdown prior to export, correct?

Michael Horton
-------------------

Koz:

Thanks for that philosophical/engineering explanation. I guess the bottom line is: video is tyranny.

Jean

<<<Havent read entire thread but you did render everything including an audio mixdown prior to export, correct?>>>

We covered that earlier. That is the claim, yes.

Koz

video is tyranny.

I don't know. I never noticed it wearing the wrong clothes or anything.



Oh, tyranny!

Special high-speed drives and exotic interconnection configurations have followed video around forever. Many bytes, no waiting.

Everybody saw FireWire drives and said, "Hot Dog! We can daisy chain fifty-three drives and play a four-hour uncompressed movie in real time!"

No.

You can't.

Koz

Does SATA address this in any way?

<<<Does SATA address this in any way?>>>

Did it work?

You can actually use multiple FireWire drives and we do. All the time. But each drive has its own FireWire card inside the machine. On certain laptops, you can a FireWire drive on its own PCCard.

Again, the FireWire 400 (or 800, not both) in the machine counts as one. The additional FireWire 400 card for the camcorder counts as number two. The FireWire 800 card that runs the LaCie Terabyte Stack counts as a third.

No conflicts, stuttering, or dropped frames.

Koz

Koz:

I was racing to the finish on other deadlines and then went out of town on a leisure trip with my wife, and so I hadn't had a chance to test you method until...now! And yes! It works! I made a self contained quicktime and placed it on the system drive, and voila! Smooth as silk.

Koz, I feel elated really, because I really wanted to find the engineering/technical explanation for this SNAFU. I'm wondering why this issue never reared its ugly head last year when I was running FCP on a Powerbook G4 in the same fashion. Anyway, since this is an iMac, I don't believe it's expandable to multiple firewire cards or is it?

On another note, I'm curious to understand where the benevolent spirit arise from people like yourself lurking in cyberspace to help the hapless user. Is Apple computer monitoring these forums to figure out how to improve things? Are you with them?

I have used online forums to find answers to problems with my car that no mechanic could figure out, they are quite revolutionary in how people solve technical problems.

Thanks again, mate.

Jean

<<<It works! I made a self contained quicktime and placed it on the system drive, and voila! Smooth as silk. >>>

That's such a radical departure from the way people normally do it that it almost always works. There are variations on that, but several people on the forum do it that way on every major job.

<<<I'm wondering why this issue never reared its ugly head last year when I was running FCP on a Powerbook G4 in the same fashion.>>>

Because the process isn't broken, it's unstable. That's what's so darn much fun about figuring out how to cure it. Half the community--better than half really--got everything to work perfectly over multiple shows and multiple drives. One lucky bunch couldn't get their show out of the machine with a shovel. There is also one minority that claimed everything worked fine, but when you pressed them, admitted that they had to lay the show off two or three times to force it to work. A lot of machines with multiple FireWire drives are constantly running just on the edge of failure and the combination of type of drive, cable manufacture, AC line voltage, age of machine, and what they had for bereakfast determines success. Violate any one of those and your show goes in the toilet.

Somebody figured out early on that who made the electronics package inside a FireWire drive made a big difference to success. So then there was a witch hunt for chip manufacturer. These are the things that make a difference on unstable systems. Properly designed and unconditionally stable systems couldn't care less who made the electronics.

<<<I'm curious to understand where the benevolent spirit arise from people like yourself lurking in cyberspace to help the hapless user>>>

Some phychiatrist is going to have a good time with that one.

<<<Is Apple computer monitoring these forums to figure out how to improve things? >>>

Yes. He's hiding behind the name "Paul From Apple." I would have never guessed. Clever guy threw everybody off with that name.

<<<Are you with them? >>>>>>

No. I work for a visual effects house in LA and I have to get ready to go to work.

Koz

Koz:

Thanks again. I like your philosophical explanations. This technology is very powerful and very cheap, so I will accept that it's half-baked, what you prefer to call unstable. I'm more of an Avid guy myself.

Jean

<<<I will accept that it's half-baked, what you prefer to call unstable.>>>

It's not half-baked. If you pay a little attention to the installation and operation, you can do very well , indeed. There are a number of installations out there that just crank out show after show with little or no trouble.

Many people who show up here--if you're paying attention--tend toward the "I need to cut a HiDef show for an International Television Service. I budgeted $5." Those people tend to produce instability and multiple postings.

Everybody else are newbies who just haven't gotten the swing of how this works yet. Trust me, If you walk into an Avid cold, you can produce quite an impressive amount of damage.

One of our Final Cut stations just pushed through the Editorial Services for a Feature Film. It worked just fine, thanks. The station is down the hall from the Avids pushing through the others. One of our FCP stations does all the demo reels, promotional work and on-line videos. Another one does HiDef references, standards conversions, and spill-over from the others.

And they do it all day after day.

We just hosted the Avid servicing guy who figured out why we couldn't lay off to DigiBeta; it would fail about every third time. Turns out System Genlock isn't universal on Avids. It follows the show. Talk about half-baked.

Koz

I'm sensing you're one of those editors who prefers Final Cut.

You should be sensing I'm not an editor.

Koz

Oh! Are you the engineer? Sorry!

<<<Oh! Are you the engineer? Sorry!>>>

Yeah, I'm sorry I'm the engineer, too, but what are you going to do?

Wearing this hat lets me bore you to an early retirement with the stuff I do know and make lots of mistakes on the stuff I don't.

It's win-win.

Koz

>>We just hosted the Avid servicing guy who figured out why we couldn't lay off to DigiBeta; it would fail about every third time. Turns out System Genlock isn't universal on Avids. It follows the show. Talk about half-baked.
<<

Oh - so that's what was causing the no-go to tape problem when it came through the FCP unit? Weird. Can you extrapolate a bit, Koz? I don't really follow.

<<<I don't really follow.>>>

Thereby making this the coat of many threads.

That was from one of my earlier thread about the complete inability to lay off to DigiBeta from either of the wired FCP machines; one AJA Io and the other Kona II. To greatly abbreviate, they joined one of the two hot-zot Avids which couldn't lay off, either. The Avid's been broken for a while and we didn't know the FCP machines were broken because we never use them this way.

I believe we solved the Avid problem because the Avid guy (whom we gave up and called) told us about the genlock panel hidden in each and every show.

Who knew? Certainly not us.

We got dipped into the 48 KHz AES/EBU sound package and how different machines deal with it. It is expected that the 48 KHz sound in a broadcast system be "locked" to the video in a truly painful series of pulse divisions and assumptions. Nothing so simple as putting both signals on a scope and looking at them.

The Macs are still broken even though we carefully genlocked both of them to one of the two master house generators.

This is where we stand. The other engineer and I are designing a system to "see" the relationship between the video and audio and try to figure out what's wrong.

It is one of the strangest things I've seen. Every fifth or sixth DigiBeta edit, the tape machine produces a show with digital track errors to the moon, hits and sparklies in the video, award-winning sound distortion, and red lights on the front of the machine. Everything's going to Hell in next day UPS--even though the edits before and after are fine and we didn't change anything but the in and out points.

We think somehow the digital signals carrying the picture and sound are still out of sync and drifting like two fast trains on different tracks. When the two signals happen to line up--like being able to wave at the people in the other train, everything works a treat. Then one train has to go over points and slows down, breaking the relationship and everything stops working.

I can't wait to find out what's causing this.

Koz

Hey, Koz--

I didn't read the entire thread, so forgive if I ask something already answered...

What is the condition of the heads on that DigiBeta machine? How many hours do they have on them?

The sparkly hits, red channel condition, etc. sounds like the last dying gasp of the digital heads to me. I've seen it too many times to forget!

deb