"Error: Out of Memory" - what else could it be?

Hello, I have a full length feature HD film, 720p24, shot on an HVX, 90 minutes in length. Heavy effects imported from AE (200). 20 tracks of audio, 3 tracks of video. It is on an external drive and I have 110 GB out of 1 TB free.

It was working fine, now I?m getting the following dreaded error:

?Error: Out of memory.?

Now, I can?t seem to get the project off of my computer, every time I export I get this error message regardless of what I do.

I have tried the following:

1. I have only 2 stills that are black and white, but I made sure all stills are RGB.
2. I am not using non alpha numeric characters in file names
3. All drives have at least 10% headroom.
4. I have tried shutting down the machine
5. I have tried restarting the machine.
6. I have tried to export parts of your timeline as self contained movies, even in 8 minute clips it still gives me this error
7. No other applications are left open
8. I have played with my sequence settings.
9. I try to avoid rendering a lot when I don?t have to
10. I checked to make sure clip settings match sequence settings
11. I tried dumping the render files and re-rendering the piece
12. I tried dumping my preferences
13. I tried making a new sequence, cutting the media from my old sequence and pasting it into the new sequence.
14. I tried making a new project, cutting the media from my old sequence and pasting it into the new project.
15. I tried repairing permissions using my Disk Utility
16. I have not tried removing sticks of memory one at a time to see if the problem persists, but other smaller projects seemingly work fine.
17. I have no other external drives attached but my main project. It is a Western Digital 1 TB drive.

One thing I noticed is I am seeing a few clips that appear to be offline without reason, i.e. on one clip I applied one effect, a smoothcam effect, to make it less shaky, and it now says ?media offline.? Same with ?motion light rays.?) I had this issue awhile back but upgraded my graphics card and it fixed the problem. Now I seem to have this problem back again. Is this part of the problem or a separate issue entirely?

I was able to export a small 45 second clip. I was able to export a 4 minute clip. 8 minutes doesn?t work. Same ?out of memory? error.

When I did render, I still got the same ?media offline: motion test smoothcam 1 ? final cut? red and black image instead of the actual footage. Rendering doesn?t change this image in the canvas back to the regular footage. I also deleted all of the 20 tracks of audio and tried to only export the video but still had the ?error: out of memory? message.

Current timeline settings are: 1280x720 HDTV 720p (16:9)
Pixel aspect square, Compressor: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) as specified by the distribution company. I am rendering in 8 bit.

I confess I did upgrade to CS5, FCP 7.0.2, and Leopard, but again, it was working fine for weeks before this happened. I have been working on this project for 5 years and I?m so ?over it? I can?t tell you.

Would upgrading my RAM to 12 Gigs help the situation?
I checked and I don?t think I can upgrade my graphics card any further.
Perhaps there is a work around in compressor? Wouldn?t even know what settings?

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

My specs:

FCP: 7.0.2
Processor: 2x2.66 GHz Dual ?Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 8 GB 667 MHz
OS X: 10.6.4
Mac Pro: 1,1
Graphics Crd: ATI Radeon HD 3870
Two monitors: EN 7750 1280 x 1024 and Cinema HD 13x840

Since a new project file doesn't make a difference, I would suspect either a software problem or drive problem. With media constantly going missing, a drive problem is even more likely.

One thing you haven't said you've done is repair your disk directory with DiskWarrior. That's the first stop.

Second, did you properly format the drive before using it? It needs to be Mac OS Extended.

What interface are you using? Whenever I've edited ProRes HQ, it's always been with eSATA and never FireWire, let alone USB. And it's always been with RAIDed drive sets.

With a 1TB drive, 10 per cent free space is actually not that great. Western Digital drives and enclosures have also been on my crap list for years on end. I have literally never met one that I liked. Time to switch to a bigger, faster drive.


www.derekmok.com

1. I will try DiskWarrior.

2. I did format it. Not sure if it's extended or not.

3. Using 800 FireWire external. 0 RAID drive.

4. What drive do you recommend?

Thank you.

Is your sequence rendered? I'm guessing it is due to large stills.



www.strypesinpost.com