'Current Settings' Quicktime needs to be rendered in timeline

After exporting a 'current settings' self-contained Quicktime, I am bringing it back into the timeline but am getting a red render bar (in Safe RT) or orange render bar (in Unlimited RT), showing that the video must be rendered.

The settings for the quicktime and the sequence are the same:

1024 x 576
Apple ProRes 422 (non-HQ)
23.98 fps
Square Pixel
24-bit audio

I have a new Dual-Core Intel Mac Pro with 3GB of RAM running an up-to-date Final Cut Pro 6. Has anybody run into this problem or know what might be causing it?

Thanks!!

Any mismatch between media and timeline format will give you a render-needed bar over your timeline. Depending on the nature of the mismatch, you might be able to play back in real time at full quality for edit-to-tape, but maybe not.

The only way to determine what's different is to compare, item by item, your timeline and media settings. It can be something as minor as field dominance ? though I doubt that's it since you're working in 24p.

My first guess would be that when you created the new Sequence, the presets have been altered and you weren't aware. There's a quick way to make sure your settings match -- use the original timeline from which you did the export, duplicate it and rename it to make the new Sequence.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks! I'll check the setting item by item.

I duplicated the sequence the quicktime was created from and placed the quicktime in that, but it still comes up with the render bar - very strange!

Since you're working with PAL widescreen, you should probably work with the native PAL resolution with anamorphic pixels, not square pixels.

Thanks for the suggestions so far!

I've checked all the settings and there appears to be no difference between the quicktime and the sequence.

FCP won't allow me to export 1024x576 with anamorphic pixels - only square pixels. Exporting a 720x576 anamorphic quicktime and embedding it in an anamorphic sequence worked fine, but this isn't really a viable option as we would have to change our dailies setting. We were originally using this resolution, but encountered a number of other issues (anamorphic flags popping off randomly, popping off in multiclips, etc.).

If I find a solution I'll be sure to post it.

An update!

I found that if I exported the sequence with current settings and selected "recompress all frames", or if I exported as a 'quicktime conversion', or if I exported it through compressor it wouldn't show the render bar when I bring it back into a sequence. This, of course, takes a lot longer than just exporting same settings.

I also found another interesting work-around, which may hint at the root of the problem. In my sequence settings, under 'video processing', the option "Render 10-bit material in high-precision YUV" was selected. I changed this to 8-bit, same story. But when I selected "Always Render in RGB", the render bar didn't show up.

My main question is - is there any problem/disadvantage with using the "Always Render in RGB" option?

Thanks!!!

>Exporting a 720x576 anamorphic quicktime and embedding it in an anamorphic sequence
>worked fine, but this isn't really a viable option as we would have to change our dailies setting.

I'm not sure what you mean, but you need to work in 720x576. That's what almost all of us do here. The anamorphic flag doesn't pop on and off randomly and you can select the whole batch and change them.

That, or you can stick to 1024x576 which isn't a proper video standard and is not supported in FCP or in any capture card, so you need to render all the time, and you'll end up with quality loss since your footage will have to be resized for the edit, and also likely resized on your final master, since it's not a proper video format.

>is there any problem/disadvantage with using the "Always Render in RGB" option?

Yes. Gamma shifts, perhaps, 8 bit precision, toggling between color spaces then back again, since your codec is likely a Y'CbCr codec. Never adviseable if you're working with video.



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks for the info on the RGB setting - that's great to know!!

Re your first question, we're doing an offline edit and were originally using 720x576 anamorphic ProRes as our dailies setting. We found that it would randomly pop off the anamorphic flag in cuts and in multiclips (eg. the A cam would be fine, but the B cam would suddenly drop the anamorphic flag) and could be triggered by something as simple as closing and opening a project again. We figured it may have been a problem with how the dailies were being encoded but there was no easy solution.

In search for a quick fix, we switched to full sized 1024x576 as the setting - later we found that this wasn't a highly supported resolution by cards, etc. - but we've figured out a way to make it work with out Kona cards. We're in the middle of shooting now, so we won't be switching our dailies setting again - but that definitely explains why final cut asks to render it. And as this is the offline, we won't need to worry about resizing for the final master.

Thanks for all your help!!