• Sony Cameras

  I think I need help (render?)

  Posted by Stephen May on March 17, 2009 at 10:29 pm

  This is a FCP question, but I’m working in XDCAM sequence settings – (that, and I only really post here…)

  I shot a bundle of stuff for a project on a deadline in (1280 x 720 23.98 fps) XDCAM 720p24 35 Mb/s VBR. I have multiple sequences for this project, and I usually drop a clip into each new sequence in order to set the sequence properties to match the XDCAM clips. I’ve been moving along until this morning when I started experiencing issues where I sometimes do not hear some of my audio tracks – it will either be the soundtrack I hear, and my CH1 and CH2 XDCAM clip will be silent so that I only hear the music bed, or visa versa.

  I can load the sequence clip into the viewer and hear the audio, but not in the sequence. I’ve tossed my audio renders out and tried again, and sometimes the clips that playback audio will be reversed after the new render, but still whenever there are more than two channels of audio, I lose playback of the others two! I’ve re-booted, I’ve checked disk permissions, I’m stumped and losing valuable time. What’s going on?

  Stephen May
  Keystone Media Productions
  Freelance Videographer

  Craig Seeman replied 17 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Craig Seeman

  March 18, 2009 at 1:05 am

  

  Check your user preferences. If your system has to do any realtime sample rate conversions that can impact the number of tracks you can play. All audio should be at 48KHz. All MP3 should be converted to AIFF at 48KHz. Render all audio that has filters attached so the system isn’t attempting realtime playback of an unrendered effect.
• 

  Stephen May

  March 18, 2009 at 1:35 am

  I knew about preparing any audio, especially sound tracks/music beds to 48k 16 bit .aif files, so that they’re the same as the sequence audio settings, but this is what it turned out was the issue:

  In this particular sequence I had a short .ipr I made in Livetype. It was set to 29.98fps whereas my sequence is 23.98fps (720p24) – so I changed that, but still had issues, however where the sound cut out on the tracks moved slightly further down in the sequence after the new render.

  I went back to the .ipr in Livetype, and I exported (render movie) and imported it into my fcp project, and dropped it into the sequence, and my audio plays back again.

  Technically, I think I should still be able to simply save and use the .ipr, but at this point in my schedule, I’ll take what works. The parting advice from Apple was to use Motion instead. Good advice. In project properties in Livetype, XDCAM isn’t an option but I can type into the fields the resolution and frame rate I want. When ‘rendered’ to a .mov it comes into the fcp browser as a animation compression and somehow that worked out better for the XDCAM sequence settings.

  -s

  Stephen May
  Keystone Media Productions
  Freelance Videographer
• 

  Craig Seeman

  March 18, 2009 at 1:48 am

  I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple considers LiveType EOL (remaining so one can use old projects) with the release of FCS3 (which may be within the next few weeks).

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