I am about to take a hammer to my computer - cannot export from timeline - error 48

I am making an end of season DVD for a semi professional football club and am basically weaving together a series of montages which I created for YouTube earlier in the season and have added extras.
I can?t say that I?ve not experienced my computer crashing more times than I can ever remember before.. I have also used two different computers, with different FCP and Quicktime versions and certainly different operating versions and have sought to harmonise them on the one computer via external hard drive transfer. I have also used some stock graphics footage from a DVD I got shipped in from the USA.
The timeline is fine but when I come to export either via quicktime movie or compressor I have no success. With the former, after 23% writing to video it stops and sends up a General Error 48 message; the latter states unsuccessful after a while.
How on earth do I get my timeline out onto DVD? Is there a quick fix? What are my options?
Needless to say this is the first composite DVD I?ve tried. Usually I do single wedding projects.
Any help gratefully received.

Mark

> Is there a quick fix?

Unfortunately, no. Your problem can be caused by about 50,000 things. And your project sounds like exactly the kind of project that would have multiple things that are off. So we'll have to go through them all.

First, check all the drives connected to your computer. How much space is left on each drive? (And don't say "I have plenty of space". Give us the numbers.) It doesn't matter if a drive isn't being used by your particular project. Every drive connected to a Mac must have a barest minimum 10 per cent of its total capacity free, or you'll start having problems galore.

When you're exporting the movie file, are you exporting a reference movie file or a self-contained one? If one doesn't work, try the other. What is the location you're exporting to? Check its capacity. If you're trying to export a 1920x1080 ProRes HQ file to a drive that only has 1GB space left, obviously you'll have problems.

Are you the administrator user on the computer you're using? Have you tried dumping FCP preferences and repairing permissions?

You said you used an external drive to transfer elements between computers. What kind of drives? USB drives would have problems doing real-time editing operations. Are the drives properly formatted -- Mac OS Extended, instead of a PC format?

Is your copy of Final Cut Pro legit? Pirated copies can have incurable problems. We've also had ridiculous problems such as people copying the FCP application directly from a PowerPC Mac to an Intel Mac. What FCP version is yours? What QuickTime version? If you used two computers with two different sets of software, what versions are they?

What is your media codec, frame size? If you use H.264 files directly in a timeline, you'll have problems. If you use extremely large still-graphic files in your timeline, or misconfigured stills (eg. CMYK instead of RGB), you'll also have problems.

What is your timeline codec, frame size?


www.derekmok.com

Ah -- the infamous error 48, huh?

Well, for what it's worth, and because I have such a small and delicate flower for a social conscience, I actually looked it up. Here's what it says:

-48 dupFNErr Duplicate filename (rename); File found instead of folder.

So that could be a clue.

Derek is correct that your problem could be caused by 50,000 things. All his questions and suggestions are appropriate.

Woodsman, spare that Mac - stay that hammer ...

My 2 cents:

1. You made the original films for YouTube, right? Did you master them in H.264 and then upload them? If they are HD, I bet you did. If that is so, you should go back to those videos and transcode them to, say, ProRes 422. This is easy to do in COMPRESSOR. If you need to know how or why, just ask here and some moron like me will come to your aid.

1(a). I'm suspicious of this stuff you got from the USA on a DVD. You really should transcode that to ProRes 422 also. You can't just toss this stuff into the timeline, render it and then assume that all will be well.

2. You have evidently been crashing a lot which means that stuff is generally screwed up in your computer. Here's what you do: hit this: [www.digitalrebellion.com] - and download it. Then trash your prefs.

3. Before you restart FCP use DISK WARRIOR or the Apple DISK UTILITY to fix up your drives. I bet they're in a mess. DISK WARRIOR is expensive and good. I run the Apple Disk Utility like every other idiot, but frankly I don't think it does anything except scroll down a whole bunch of rubbish. It's like the buttons they put at pedestrian crossings. It's there to keep you amused - a placebo. But humor me by running it on all your drives.

If that doesn't work, go back to the hammer.

Best wishes - and let us know how it turns out.

Harry.

PS. Generally, I find that simply throwing the mouse across the room produces the desired effect of deep satisfaction followed immediately by anguished remorse. Too much clean-up with the hammer trick.

PPS. My favorite error message is this one which appears only when rendering lengthy and turgid videos of baptisms:

-64 fontDecError error during font declaration.

My only advice is on the subject of the hammer. Try using a "proxy machine". While reducing your working computer to silicon dust is indeed satisfying, it has definite productivity consequences.

I keep all my old machines around for just such circumstances. While not quite as satisfying as inflicting fatal violence on the offending machine, hammering TWO older units produces almost the same sense of calm.

One more thing you could try when you get an error when exporting (not sure if I ever got an error code 48 before), and that is you can export and check the recompress all frames option. Now, make sure it's a sledgehammer. The new Macs look good.



www.strypesinpost.com

External drive, hmmm... is it formatted FAT 32 DOS or MacOS Extended?

FAT 32 limits you to 2TB per file, which may or may not affect you-- I don't know, you haven't specified the timeline codec, although obviously DVD is SD. And you haven't told us how long the timeline is?

The error 48 might also be reaction to a misnamed media clip, meaning illegal punctuation. Any punctuation in naming a media file other than - or _ is illegal. Common suspects: /, period, comma, colon : ...those are all no-no's.

Hope it's something simple like that.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Temporarily mix down audio tracks with Command-Option - R !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

>FAT 32 limits you to 2TB per file

Not to burst your bubble, but the supported file size is MUCH smaller than that- at 4GBs a file. I got an error code zero in the finder, but you never know. Good point to check though.



www.strypesinpost.com