Hello everyone,

I have never experienced this before and have been spending hours trying to solve this. Many thanks in advance to anyone with a solution.

I am editing an HD film on FCP 7.0.3 on a MacBook Pro with OS 10.8.4. I am outputting using the
File -> Export -> Using quicktime conversion

I am using the setting h.264, 1920x1080.

So the problem is in the quicktime movie, one of my audio fades is completely changed (it jumps up and down) whereas when I listen to it in FCP it is a perfectly smooth fade down.

I have tried copying everything to a new sequence. This worked once but does not work anymore. I also tried copying the sequence into a new project and no luck. Also I have moved the audio tracks in question onto different tracks on the timeline and no luck.

Any ideas?!

Thank you all for reading this!
Kind regards,
Robert

FCP versions 4 to 7 have long been plagued by problems with audio rendering where the timeline gets confused and links to the wrong file entirely, or gets stuck on an old/incomplete render despite recent changes. That'd be the first thing I suspect. First ditch your render files (Tools - Render Manager) and re-render. If that doesn't fix it, take all the audio files in that section, take them offline (SHIFT-D, Leave Files on Disk) and then Reconnect Media (File menu).


www.derekmok.com

Hi Derek,

I will try all of this. Thank you so much for your help!

Best,
Robert

Hi Derek,

I tried all of this but sadly it did not work. I first rerendered as you said and it did not work. Then I made that clip offline, reconnected and again deleted render files and rerendered.

I had also tried cutting the sound in once again into the edit. When I played it in fcp i heard the same spike. Then when I played it again it was gone. And still when I play it in FCP it sounds fine, but the quicktime has the spike.

Very weird.

Any ideas?

Thank you so much for your help.

Best,
Robert

What are your export settings?

I'd try exporting the movie file with current settings (Export - QuickTime Movie, not Export - Using QuickTime Conversion) and then doing the conversion in Compressor or MPEG Streamclip. Those applications get better results anyway and don't tie up your FCP.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks Derek. I will try these ideas.

Or how about just directly outputting the sequence via Compressor?

It will be for a website so I am compressing to h.264, 1920x1080 HD, 48K sound. I know this is another subject, but is h.264 a good format? Could this be causing the problems? The video is about 3 minutes long. It has 20 audio tracks.

Thanks again!!
Robert

You did do an Audio Mixdown while rendering, correct? (OPTION-COMMAND-R) Even Render All doesn't do a complete render of audio until you do Audio Mixdown.

H.264 is about as standard as it gets these days. As for whether it's good enough, H.264 is just a codec. Without knowing what your bit rate and other export settings are, I can't tell you what your result will be.

> Or how about just directly outputting the sequence via Compressor?

It's not wrong or anything, but I never use those settings because having a full-quality movie file is never a bad thing, and allows you to save time and generate workarounds such as switching editing stations quickly for different tasks (eg. DVDs), and to save time rendering if you need multiple tries at compression. It also allows you to quit FCP to do the compression, saving system resources and preventing corruption to your project file and media.


www.derekmok.com

Hi Derek,

Thanks again. You are teaching me a lot here. I did not know about Audio mix down and I just did that. Now I am sending it directly to compressor.

Excuse my ignorance but I do not even know how to set the bitrate for h.264, and what the ideal bitrates are. I am sure this is another huge topic. When I used the quicktime conversion I used the default key frame rate of 24. My film is shot in 1920x1080, 30p and I had to convert all my raw footage to apple pro res422, which is what I am editing with.

I like your reasoning behind making a high res full quality movie file.

Will let you know what happens.

(I am in Europe and may not get back till tomorrow as it is late).

Thanks,
Robert

Hi Derek,

It worked! I did the mixdown and then sent it directly to compressor. BUT now the file is too big. It is 2.16GB for 2min38sec. I need to transfer this by internet, eg wetransfer. In compressor I just picked the default h.264 option.

Learn to control your bit rates, multi-pass options, etc. 2GB for three minutes is way overkill. Are you sure you don't have miscellaneous items in your editing timeline after the end of picture proper, say a single frame of junk footage 90 minutes after the end of the last intended frame?


www.derekmok.com

I usually use MPEG Streamclip, whose interface is much simpler, but Compressor offers you

I'm not a compression expert, but I know enough to do what I need to for editing and client-interface purposes.

In Compressor, access the Settings window for the easiest way to see your presets. I rarely use Apple's own presets unless I'm making a DVD. In Custom, start a new preset (the + button on upper right) and choose QuickTime Movie. Double-click on the new preset to access the options. There are many tabs available within the preset, but the main ones you need to use are the second one, Encoder, which determines Video/Audio bit rates, frame rate, codec, etc., and the fifth one, Geometry, which controls the frame size of the created file. The bit rate is controllable within the "Settings" for Video under Encoder.


www.derekmok.com

Hi Derek,

No, there were no unwanted items in the timeline. Also I had marked the complete 2min38sec edit with in and out points. With the quicktime compressor out of fcp it was always about 360MB. It must be my compressor settings.

By the way I tried exporting to QTconversion again, after have done the audio mix down and it worked! Since doing the audio mix down the end marking points of the fades are black instead of pink.
With QTconversion when I set it to Quality="Best" I get 2.43GB which is too big, but seems to indeed look better. With QTconversion and the quality="High" I get 360MB.

>>>If it is put on the internet would one see a difference?

This is probably a question about which a book could be written but - Is there some intermediate kind of setting?

Thank you again Derek.
Best,
Robert

"Better" isn't always better. I suspect if you tried to upload a 2.5GB file for a three-minute piece, you'd get all kinds of hiccups in playback, inhuman download times, and so on.

Stop using the presets ("Best", "High" etc.) and start controlling the numbers yourself. You need that precision, and you need to do that for a while so that you know exactly what settings you're using.


www.derekmok.com