Timeline freeze on NTSC monitor

I converted a Quicktime movie using H.264, imported it into a Final Cut Studio and received a notice that the clip I was placing on the timeline did not match settings of the project. I clicked on the tab to do the conversion, imported it into the timeline, rendered it and tried to play it. It played fine on the canvass but froze on the NTSC monitor. I then opened up the original movie and, using Quicktime, converted it to the exact specifications of a movie clip that does play OK. After this conversion, I imported it into FC Studio's timeline and had to render the entire clip ... fine. Yet, when I play the clip,same thing: it plays fine in my Canvas but freezes on my NTSC monitor. Any idea of why this occurs? I have tons of memory and a 1.8 processor in a G5 using OS X 10.4.11 and Quicktime 7 Pro.

View menu > External video > All Frames. Is that checked?

Michael Horton
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Thanks for the quick response. What "Menu" are you refering to? I am not familiar with anything named "Menu" in Final Cut Pro.

Well, you should be. Menus are those words at the top of the screen. FILE menu EDIT menu VIEW menu etc.

Michael Horton
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> converted a Quicktime movie using H.264, imported it into a Final Cut Studio and received a
> notice that the clip I was placing on the timeline did not match settings of the project. I clicked
> on the tab to do the conversion

Sounds to me like you made a clip in H.264 codec, then made your timeline H.264 as well. That wouldn't play back on an NTSC monitor. So when you re-converted the clip and then told FCP not to conform Sequence Settings to the new clip, you were still stuck with an H.264 timeline. Either re-import the re-converted clip and click "Yes" this time, or just start a new Sequence with proper settings.

I'd look into your conversion and import workflow -- it seems to me you're doing some things by trial and error.


www.derekmok.com

Of course I know what a Menu is, in the generic sense. I was not sure you meant External Video under the View menu because if that is not turned on then the NTSC monitor will show nothing but black, as opposed to showing whatever frame the FCP timeline cursor is on at the time. I did the conversion in H.264. Should I have used MPEG-4 instead, or another setting?

Neither H.264 nor MPEG-4 are good editing codecs. Why did you choose H.264 in the beginning? What's the source media?


www.derekmok.com

The source was ripped from a DVD (a FCP project of mine from many months ago) using DVxDVD. I've done this before with other DVD source material, imported the movie into FCP and had no problems. This time though I am. What Codec is best to use for conversion?

H.264 is heavily compressed. If your project is in Standard Def, I'd use at least DV NTSC or Uncompressed 10-bit SD. Wayne Granzin recommends Photo JPEG at 100 per cent quality.


www.derekmok.com

I converted the original clip using Photo JPEG at 100%. No difference. When I import it into the timeline, it plays fine on the Canvas but freezes on the NTSC monitor, which is run through a Sony DSR 20.

The most important setting you have to change is in Sequence Settings (APPLE-0). If it's still set to H.264, you still won't get external playback. Change it to DV NTSC 29.97fps, 720x480, and try again. If that's not the issue, rule it out and we'll go from there.


www.derekmok.com