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Can’t Export to Tape
I am experiencing an unusual problem exporting a timeline to tape.
I have a 40 minute timeline that I am trying to export as HDV from Ppro CS3 to my Sony V1. I achieved it successfully with a separate 30 minute project but cannot get the 40 min project to work.
I have tried on two separate occasions. On both occasions I have been left with a file called HDVExport.hdv2. Elsewhere in this forum I learned to change the extension to .mpg and then the file was watchable.
On the first occasion the transcoding terminated at about 12 minutes of the timeline. I tried again on the same day and it again failed at exactly the same spot.
But, with today’s attempt it failed after about 6½ minutes. Nothing gets exported to tape. The transcoding just stops. I don’t see any error message.
It doesn’t seem to be failing on a corrupted frame. I have imported the .hdv2 file back into Ppro and synced it up on the timeline. For some reason it has 5 seconds, 12 frames of nothing added on at the beginning but after trimming that you can’t spot the transition between the .hdv2 file end and the original timeline.
As far as I can ascertain the project settings are correct. The original footage was HDV (25fps) PAL and the project is HDV 1080i 25fps.
Any suggestions as to possible causes and solutions would be very much appreciated.
Many thanks
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2 Replies
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Guy, I too am experiencing a similar issue in trying to export a 30 minute HDV sequence. I am not getting the file you are but the transcoding process crashes about 10min in every time. Ive done a reinstall, all updates, disabled my one 3rd party plugin but nothing.
I am starting to think it may be in the size of my original captured
files from my Z1u. Maybe they are too big for my configuration to handle. Curious to hear if you find a solution.Cheers
Scott -
Hi Scott,
Good news, I have found a workaround.
My project is moderately complex, but by no means phenomenally so or beyond what we should expect of Premiere Pro. Despite best endeavours to keep project files in one location inevitably bits and pieces from elsewhere creep in, hard drives get defragmented and the project seems to grow in size and complexity all by itself.
Moreover, I am far from convinced that there is any real performance improvement using RAID 0 (striped) disks and suspect this causes more problems than are solved. Though in principle slower, I have found it faster overall (because there are fewer project crashes and Premiere Pro failures) to use single high capacity hard drives.
I have found Premiere Pro incapable of completing a glitch free export of such moderately complex projects in any way other than Export to Tape. My workflow was to Export to Tape and then recapture to get a master export file. Now, I simply make a copy of the Export to Tape HDVExport.hdv2 file after transcoding before it starts writing to tape (see below).
I made a copy of the original project file and worked on that lest I make a cock-up. I first went through the project bins deleting any unused sequences. Quite a few had been imported as they contained snippets to be re-used (but watch out that any sequence deleted doesn’t result in something dropping out from your principal timeline).
I then used Project Manager (Project > Project Manager) to copy the project to a newly formatted external hard drive (in my case via an eSATA connection). First I set the scratch disks (Edit> Preferences > Scratch Disks) to the freshly formatted hard drive. Then I went into Project Manager and used the following options:
Collect Files and Copy to New Location – Selected
Exclude Unused Clips – Selected
Include Preview Files – Deselected
Include Audio Conform Files – Deselected
Rename Media Files to Match Clip Names – DeselectedThe project was copied to the external drive and both the resulting .prproj file and the overall project size were significantly smaller (loosing perhaps about two-thirds of their original size).
I then closed down Premiere Pro and opened up the copied version of the project that was now on the external hard drive. For some reasons any After Effects projects (.aep) don’t seem to get copied over but everything else does. I had to copy these over manually when compiling the newly copied project on the external hard drive.
On opening the project Premiere Pro spent some time indexing the files and then conforming the audio. However, I did not render anything.
Then with my V1 attached via Firewire I inserted a copy protected tape and set Premiere Pro to Export to Tape.
After 2 or 3 hours transcoding I then got an error message saying the export had failed because the tape was write protected. Before clicking Done or Render and Record I located the transcoded file. It was called HDVExport.hdv2 (they all are) and was located with the scratch disks. (Are you sure your system isn’t creating this Scott? Because if not then you are probably experiencing a different problem to me).
Finally I copied the HDVExport.hdv2 file to a safe location, renamed it and changed the extension to .mpg.
In my case I did not complete the export to tape because the .hdv2 was what I was after.
Finally, In Project Manager there is also an option Create New Trimmed Project. I have not experimented with this and so cannot speak with firsthand experience. However it is supposed to chop up large original capture files into just the bits used in the project. If it does, this might work for you if the problem is related to the size of your original capture file as you will end up with lots of smaller files.
Good luck with this, please let me know how you get on.
Guy
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