Compressor- Gremlins Making My Life A Nightmare

[Gordon Henry]

oh i forgot to mention…

i export the footage from FCP as 422Lt self contained movie.. i do this to keep best quality and resultion for the end process of burning a dvd . so the file size into Compressor is very large in size 40 to 50 gig if it was to be compressed as a single clip…

is this okay?

[Mark Suszko]

I don’t bother making the video mpeg2 when importing it into DVD Studio Pro: it will handle the conversion itself, and the results have always looked good for me. I render a master from FCP7 using ProRes422.

I think since your workflow USED to work and now doesn’t, its not the app’s fault, but something changed/wrong with your hardware. Insufficient virtual memory space is one of my first guesses in these situations. have you truly deleted and emptied the trash of all old renders, for example? Are you rendering to a scratch drive, or on the boot drive where the app lives (which is bad practice)? Any OS updates or software changes?

[Roger Poole]

Personally I always use Compressor first because there is so much control over the encode and when the assets are brought into DVDSP the job finishes far quicker than otherwise. However, things do get screwed up sometimes but a quick scan by Digital Rebellion’s Compressor Repair does the trick.

https://www.digitalrebellion.com/compressorrepair/

[Christopher Mcdonell]

If you don’t need to use FCP during compression, why wouldn’t you just Send to Compressor. You can do that with 3 but not 4. I miss being able to do that.

Alternatively, why not just Export a QT reference file (self-contained unchecked). You’re then pointing Compressor to your original media files without having to recompress them first.

As to your problem, I think Roger raised a good point about insufficient disk space and we’ll wait to see how you respond.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Gordon Henry]

Hi mark,

thanks for the reply .. i have never sent to compression via FCP as plowing through these forums the genral consensus as been to make a self contained QT movie then send that to Compressor.. so to avoid any glitches … so i have always done that… slow process but seesm to work when compressor works that is…

In respect of my disk issue… defo use a seperate disk as a scratch disk and i always use a 1T for each project then when it is all done… i dump the rushes etc.. can you please provide more info about trashing renders… are you talking FCp renders or compressor renders.. ermmexcuse my ignorance but i am presuming compressor has no renders? if so where?? i have recently updated to El capatain.

i try to keep the quality work flow as high as possible all the way through as the final disk is used as master to duplicate to around 2oo disks so that is why i use pro res 422Lt the poin that to compressor

amy thoughts welcom and thankyou

[Christopher Mcdonell]

[Gordon Henry] ” i have recently updated to El capatain.
“

This might be your problem. I didn’t think Compressor 3 worked with El Cap? Motion 3 doesn’t, that I know. I’m on El Cap as well and have been using Compressor 4.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[Gordon Henry]

hi Roger,

Thanks for your reply..

i do agree.. the whole process of exporting QT file whic is about 50 gigs and then having to send it to compressor is very time consuming.. but always seems to be a traied and safe bet FOR ME .. however very time cosuming… though as you quiet rightly mentioned the payback of it being very quick to wrap up at the final build and burn stage of DVDSP is worth that grief…

Is it me that only thinks that DVDSP is very rock solid once you get your head around and very reliable ..where as Compressor is the weak link in the FCP,Compressor, DVDSP chain?.. i have read a few people mention digital rebellion on these forums so i will check it out.. i am just finally finishing this project after a lot of stress and going about it in a very long winded route due to the glitches with compressor.. once its all done i will dowload/purcahse it.. though a litle concerned that it may have any side affects with FCP?

thanks

g

[Gordon Henry]

Hi Christopher,

thanks for the email and info.. it is a mind field and does my head in.. but it had occured that it maybe sofware upgrade related.. though in fairness it was doing it randomly befor ethe upgrade but not as bad.. and as i use it now and then when i have this type of project i lived with it.. but this time round, i have been at my wits end…

do you think i would be just better of upgrading to the new version of compressor… any thoughts fellas..?

Thanks again…

g

[Mark Suszko]

I think El Cap borked your Compressor. You should now probably upgrade to Compressor 4, but you could try to use Mpeg Streamclip this one time instead.

[Christopher Mcdonell]

[Gordon Henry] “i have never sent to compression via FCP as plowing through these forums the genral consensus as been to make a self contained QT movie then send that to Compressor..”

Hi Gordon,

First of all, here’s something from Apple re: QT Reference files vs Self-Contained:

When you export a QuickTime movie from Final Cut Pro using File > Export > QuickTime Movie (not QuickTime Conversion), you have a choice of making a reference or self-contained movie. Self-contained means the video and audio data is placed inside the file and it does not require any external files in order to play back. You can hand this file to anyone else and they will be able to play it, providing they have the codec installed.

A reference movie is a much smaller file that simply points to your existing media or Final Cut Pro render files. If your timeline is fully or partially rendered, it can be quicker to export than a self-contained movie because some of the work will have already been done. The downside is that the movie becomes unusable if the render files are moved or deleted, so reference movies are best used for temporary purposes and not for permanent archiving.

Reference files are temporary but vastly smaller in size. I just checked a 100 min. project I did a while back. The self-contained QT is 170 GB. The reference QT – 2 GB. So there ya go. I personally use reference files for Compressor, then create a self-contained for my archives when everything’s done and dusted.

My specs: FCP 6.0.6, El Capitan, rMBP 15″ i7 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM