-
ProRes HQ Graphics – Stutter When Rendered
Hello,
I’ve tried many, many things to solve this issue. I was hoping that other people might have run across the same thing and have either found the root of the issue or a faster workaround.
Basically, in short, any ProRes HQ file that FCP 6.0.2 creates (through capturing or QT conversion) is perfect, it plays perfectly before AND after rendering in a ProRes HQ timeline.
However… any graphic, film scan, etc that is imported into FCP, independent of codec (none, animation, ProRes HQ, etc.) will play back perfectly in the Canvas and in a 1080psf23.98 ProRes HQ timeline, AS LONG AS I don’t have to render. However, as soon as I render these files in my timeline (again, independent of the original codec – all are 1080psf23.98 though) they become stuttery on playback in my sequence. Almost as if it is only playing back only one of every few frames.
Now, I have found a workaround, which is to take the original file (independent of codec) and doing a QT conversion, before placing in my sequence, out of FCP. I render out to either ProRes HQ or the original codec, i.e. none, animation, etc., and import the “re-rendered” file back in to FCP.
Once I bring these files back into FCP, it now plays back perfectly both un-rendered AND rendered!?!?!
I have never noticed this stuttery render playback issue on any other codec other than ProRes. We have been using this codec to amazing quality for months now, and have only noticed this issue starting in late November, early December.
Has anyone else come across this issue? Our best guess is that it is a ProRes HQ rendering issue in FCP. Does anyone have any other workflow ideas so we don’t need to do this “re-rendering” workaround which takes a long time, even with batch export.
Format: 1080psf23.98 ProRes HQ
System #1: FCP 6.0.2, QT 7.3, AJA Kona 3 (v.5.0 drivers), Intel Quad 2.66 Xeon, 4 GB RAM, OSX 10.4.11, Fiber Channel RAID drives
System #2: FCP 6.0.2, QT 7.3, AJA Kona 2 (v.5.0 drivers), PowerPC Dual 2.5 G5, 4.5 GB RAM, OSX 10.4.11, Fiber Channel RAID drives
And yes, on both the Intel and PowerPC system, we have rebooted, trashed the preferences, upped the Kona drivers, used multiple systems, multiple source files, multiple source codecs, rendering to an internal drive as opposed to fiber drive, and yes we are viewing on external HD monitors.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
-Ken Peltan
-
6 Replies
-
If your movies are 23.98, try conforming them in Cinema Tools first to 23.98. 23.98 to 23.98. That has fixed some issues in the past with renders from programs like Combustion. Weird.
Jeremy
-
Usually problems like this are caused by your RAID drives throughput.
Yes, I know… ProRes422 HQ is supposed to be much better than Uncompressed 10-bit, but it still has a high throughput requirement. At least, 220 kbps.
Check out your drives to make sure they aren’t failing or your throughput isn’t fast enough. AJA has a utility that can do this for you at their website.
_______________________________
Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
Jeremy… you’re awesome… here’s why.
I figured out this problem and hopefully other people can use this knowledge for their own projects and maybe someone coding FCP at Apple can take care of this.
I conformed my 23.98 After Effects outputs to 23.98 using Cinema Tools. I brought the newly conformed QT’s (both none compression and ProRes HQ) and rendered them in my 1080psf23.98 ProRes HQ sequence. They played back perfectly!
However, workarounds and extra steps are not my cup of tea, so I kept investigating what Cinema Tools was doing and figured out what the issue is.
FCP and AE handle “23.98” differently. If you render something out of AE at 23.98 you get a clip that is 23.98. However, if you render a 23.98 clip out of FCP, it is actually 23.976 (the official “23.98” time standard).
Therefore, THE WAY TO FIX THIS PROBLEM is to change your comp/render settings in AE or whatever non-Apple program you might be using to 23.976 instead of 23.98. Then, when you bring in the 23.976 clip into FCP, FCP is happy and when it renders, it renders it perfectly.
It would be very nice if this were not an issue and FCP knew how to correctly deal with 23.98 clips of the non-23.976 variety, but at least in the meantime, this is a viable one-step workflow. Plus, thanks to Jeremy, if the clips provided ARE of the non-23.976 variety, then one can use the extremely quick batch conform tool in Cinema Tools, which must change the header information to please the FCP gods.
-Ken Peltan
-
That makes perfect sense!
You get 5 cows. Thanks for posting that.
Jeremy
-
[Dave LaRonde] “Actually, FCP’s 23.98 and AE’s 23.976 are the exact same frame rate.”
Uhh, dude? that’s what he just said. It’s AE’s 23.98 that’s different than FCPs 23.98. AE’s 23.98 does not equal 23.976.
When you conform in Cinema Tools, the header gets rewritten to playback @ 23.976. It makes perfect sense to me.
-
HI, Ken – I am having this problem with 1080i 29.97 material. I was wondering if for some reason I needed to make my graphics little Prores HQ movies. Seems strange though.
BEst, COnnie SImmons
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up