FCP Crashes during Export using Quicktime Conversion

[David Roth weiss]

In order to help you we have to know what you intend to do with finished project. Making a file of a specific size is only part of the equasion, as undoubtedly you will hopefully want to show the finished project to someone in some way. The ultimate destination provides the proper solution, otherwise any answer is just a guess.

BTW, why not make a DVD? DVDs are pretty good quality and they are transportable and playable by nearly everyone?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[John Fishback]

Here’s a bitrate calculator that may help. There are more if you Google. But, David’s question is a good one. If folks know what you’re trying to accomplish, you’ll get more and better help.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Jeremy Collins]

Hi David and John,
Thank you for the replies, I greatly appreciate it and that bitrate calculator is helpful, thanks!

The film is a feature-length, independent film. The plan is to send to distributors as well as submit to film festivals, so essentially, I need to get the film in two formats. 1. DVD, for screenings, physical copies sent to distributors, etc. This has been a problem for me as well because if I compress onto a DVD-5 and burn it, I lose so much quality, and to try to get the film out there, I really need top quality. I’ve looked at getting the film replicated on DVD-10’s, but I really don’t need the 1000’s or so that places have as a minimum. Also, I still have to figure out how to compress it down to a size to fit on a DVD-10 and that will present a problem in itself for me, who isn’t that knowledgeable with compression (I am the film’s director that happened to become the editor as well).

The second format that I need to accomplish is the under 2 GB file that I previously mentioned. This is for Withoutabox.com, which is the standard that most film festivals use now, so that you may submit your film directly. I’m not sure if either of you are familiar with it, but you just enter all the film details once, upload your film (with those specs) and can send to festivals from there. I guess most festivals are trying to get away from paper press-kits and physical DVDs for submission.

I am pretty much in compression hell, and as much as I’d love to pay someone who is experienced, there is no money, so it has become my job. I am desperately trying to get these two formats completed because then I can focus on marketing and promotion! Ahh!!!

Thank you for any insight, I’m hoping you guys can be my saviors! Thanks again and have a great day!

-Jeremy

[Jeremy Collins]

I tried rendering out a small amount of video using all the same settings and it exported fine. I also tried trashing preferences and resetting permissions, then re-render the film out. It crashed once again. It always seems to occur around 60% through the render, but has never had this problem with the other bitrates. Could this have something to do with the 2000kbps I have set, since that is the only thing that has changed. I’m running out of ideas, any help appreciated!

-Jeremy

[John Fishback]

If the crash happens at the same spot every time you try that might indicate a corrupt file of some sort – possibly a render file. You can try deleting your render files with the Render Manager and re-render. That will probably take a lot of time with a movie of your length. Another possibility is to try the FCS Maintenance Pack. One of the programs is a Corri[t File Finder. They have a trail and I’d try that before trashing all the renders.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Jeremy Collins]

Hi John,
thanks for the suggestion. However, for the FCP maintenance pack you need OSX 10.5 and I’m on 10.4.11. Do you happen to know if there is a place to download a previous version? Thanks!

[Jon Chappell]

FCS Maintenance Pack has always required at least Leopard so there is unfortunately no older Tiger-compatible version available.

But Final Cut Pro 7 is not compatible with Tiger anyway, so that could well be the cause of the issues you are experiencing.

My software:
FCS Maintenance Pack – Tools to keep Final Cut Studio running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
FCP Versioner – Backs up Final Cut Pro projects to XML and creates changelists for each revision
More tools…

[Jeremy Collins]

Oh oops,
I have FCP 6, I didn’t realize my typo up top, sorry for the confusion!

So since there is no legacy versions of FCS Maintenance Pack available for 10.4, I guess I’ll have to start delete render files. Any other suggestions are welcome!

[Jeremy Collins]

So, I’ve now spent weeks on this and still can’t figure it out and it’s driving me insane, everything is waiting for these renders! Here is my new information:

After breaking apart, rendering, seeing if it crashes, cutting that in half, rendering that, seeing if it crashes, etc., I’ve determined that the problem is happening in the last 15 minutes of the film.

I’ve been rendering with these attributes:
Compressor: H.264
480 x 270
2000kbps bitrate
AAC audio

I took that section of the film that was crashing on rendering and rendered just the audio and it worked fine. Then I rendered just the video and it crashes, so I’ve determined it is the video.

I tried rendering at a different bitrate with the H.264 codec and it crashed during render again.

I also just rendered with two different other video compressors: ProRes 422 HQ and HDV 1080p24 and both rendered that section of the film fine.

This would leave me to believe that it is the H.264 codec at that one section of film crashing. Any idea why this might be, or how I can fix it?

Please help, I am on my knees begging and praying at this point! Thanks in advance!

-Jeremy

[Jeremy Collins]

Oh and I’ve deleted all render files and re-rendered and still had problems.

So again, here are my conclusions:

-It occurs in the last 15min of the film
-Only occurs to video, not audio
-Only to H.264 codec
-Doesn’t matter what the bitrate is at
-Deleting old render files doesn’t fix it
-Trashing Prefs and resetting permissions doesn’t fix it
-First noticed it after I tried rendering after my previous got killed due to a power loss in the house

Hopefully this will click for someone, or someone will have ideas to try to get this to resolution. Thanks again, I look forward to hear from you experts!