Green Flash frames in ProRes HQ 2k sequence crash

[Gary Adcock]

[Alex Elkins] “The transcode was done using L&T.
[gary adcock] “is the flash frame every viewable in the QT file when not playing, ie: can you park the playhead on a green frame, if so then it was the encode to prores that is to blame”

I’m able to pause on a green frame”

The Transcode into L&T is at least part of the problem, being able to park on a frame means that during the encode the CPU/Drive/RAM combo was not correctly handling the incoming footage for conversion.

Have you tried Re-importing the materials- I have seen this on systems that did not have the current drivers for the SxS and Red versions they were shooting.

As fast as the machines are they cannot do 9000 things at once and these things do happen, I make a point of not doing anything on a machine that is processing files.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Check out
https://www.aja.com/kiprotour/

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Gary Adcock]

[gary adcock] “The Transcode into L&T is at least part of the problem,”

I heard there is a new Final Cut update that addresses something like this.

you may want to update your FCP.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Check out
https://www.aja.com/kiprotour/

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Perri Frank]

Hello-

My boss and I are both working on
6.4 ghz quad core intel
16gb of memory.

fcp 6.05
1080psf Apple pro res sequences.

He has been getting green flashes at random and sometimes it will happen a lot towards the end of our work day.
He said it usually happens when he is cutting and pasting from one project; into the sequence of another project. When he closes the tab and reopens the project it is fine.

We are not working with any mixed media, all of our projects are set up the same. Our footage was transferred from film to HDcam tapes which were loading into my machine and I copied the media to his drives. We are not sharing drive space. We each have 2tb local storage. We are working heavily with multiclips. May the multiclips have something to do with it?

Any ideas?

Best-
Perri

[Thomas Benton]

Yes I am haveing the exact same problem as you are with this ProRes 2k that has been converted form a R3d. have you ever found a solution to this problem. I am planning on editing on my 24 Imac

Here are the specs of my machine.

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0391
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3021
Displays:
iMac:
Resolution: 1920 x 1200
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Built-In: Yes
VX700-3:
Resolution: 1280 x 960 @ 75 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported

ANY and all information about this issue would be of use to me.
cheers
Thomas.

Cheers.
Thomas Benton

[Thomas Benton]

Yes I am haveing the exact same problem as you are with this ProRes 2k that has been converted form a R3d. have you ever found a solution to this problem. I am planning on editing on my 24 Imac

Here are the specs of my machine.

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0391
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3021
Displays:
iMac:
Resolution: 1920 x 1200
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Built-In: Yes
VX700-3:
Resolution: 1280 x 960 @ 75 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported

ANY and all information about this issue would be of use to me.
cheers
Thomas.

Cheers.
Thomas Benton

[Gary Adcock]

[thomas benton] “Yes I am haveing the exact same problem as you are with this ProRes 2k that has been converted form a R3d. have you ever found a solution to this problem. I am planning on editing on my 24 Imac”

What part of trying to do 2K on an iMac makes any sense to anyone else?

your configuration is NOT RECOMMENDED for working with R3D files,
CPU is underpowered and you do not have usable storage via FW for a 2K workflow.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Check out
https://www.aja.com/kiprotour/

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Laura Creecy]

I am working on a RED film and did all my ProRes transcodes through FCP L&T with no transcode or playback issues. I have been running everything so far on my system with no problem.

OSX 10.5.7
FCP 6.0.6
2x 3GHz Quad Core
8GB Ram

The media was split between a internal striped RAID and an external eSATA drive. It played off both drives fine.

The problem is:

The editor’s system has been getting this same green frame problem described randomly during playback in the viewer. We also get some funny playback issues on our external monitor (through kona card) at the same time. Then eventual FCP crash.

The media being used to edit was copied to a eSATA striped RAID tower, which we thought might be a problem for FCP not being able to access the playback fast enough. We also are using 2-stream multicam.

His system is

OSX 10.5.7
FCP 6.0.6
2x 3GHz Quad Core
4GB Ram
Kona 3 card 512mb

Any luck for fixes? I am going to see if we can get 4GB RAM more for his system to start.

[Ace Elliott]

“green flashes durning playback with ProRes materials are encode-decode errors from the CPU and have nothing to do with Cards. ”

gary,

Do you know what causes this?

[Tom Cole]

I am having a similar issue but with WHITE FLASHING frames, and then FCP crashes. I’m not using a video card like AJA. I’m cutting ProRez422HQ – transcoded from R3D files – on a RAID5 8TB Gtech ESpro over miniSAS connected to a 2×2.93Ghz Quad with 16gb RAM. So I’m thinking there should be enough power. The graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD4870 which might be the issue maybe? It appears to happen randomly.

Also another note which might relate, just as randomly, there will be sudden bursts of noise through the speakers – enough to blow them – but it will replay the same bursts of noise over a certain point. When you restart however the audio is fine.

Very strange things. Any help or suggestions would be great!

tcole@circlefilms.com

[Duane Martin]

I came to this thread when I was seeing the problem of green frames in the Canvas and/or Viewer windows that was frequently followed by a crash in FCP. Gary’s comment that the “green flashes durning(sic) playback with ProRes materials are encode-decode errors from the CPU ” struck me as odd as looking at activity monitor it was apparent my CPU was not being stretched. In fact, on a 2008 Quad 2.8GHz Mac Pro I am able to run 4 simultaneous streams (PIP) of the Apple ProRes Proxy clips and not push the processors past 50% and with no green frames. It seemed possible something else was happening on my systems.

The trick to defining a problem is to ensure it consistently repeatable, and on more than one system; our problem turned out to be a memory error, probably related to how FCP 7.0.2 handles RAM(?). Originally it was one editor’s projects that would always trigger the issue, and he has a workflow that generates very large project files (>250MB with 200+ Sequences inside; it’s the Sequences that bloat projects). Watching Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities) I can watch FCP Real RAM usage creep up as I open projects and Sequences. Around the 2.55GB range the green frames would start. Oddly they could be made to disappear by deleting a text item in a Sequence, and then undoing; but the green frames would start again soon enough. Quitting a project would not necessarily relieve the problem, but a combination of quitting a project and toggling clips would (reset memory usage?).

To further investigate we used FCP Internal Tools to do a Perf Dump and in the resulting file we could see a warning that (in one case) 112% of physical memory was being used and 96% of virtual memory. On any machine that was seeing these green frames you could cause a FCP crash by opening just one more moderate size project (always) or trying an Undo or edit (often). Even basic playback could result in a crash (sometimes) if the RAM was full.

Keep in mind that FCP 7 is still a 32-bit application with restricted memory usage. Regardless of how much RAM you have installed, regardless if you are running Leopard or Snow Leopard, FCP is physically limited to approximately 2.56GB of real memory. My experiments demonstrate it is unstable at this level of usage.

This was repeatable across three separate Mac Pros (2x 2006 and 1 x2008) all similarly configured except for a mix of Kona LHe (x2) and Kona 3 cards. All were running Mac OS X 10.5.8 and had a either 6GB RAM or 8GB RAM configured according to Apple. It did not require that a particular project file be open but rather any combination of project files that would overload the RAM.

If you are seeing green frames and experiencing crashes take a look at FCP’s RAM usage. Our solution is to manage project file sizes and be aware of how many projects are open at once. Past experience in FCP has shown me that large project files (>150MB, and definitely >250MB) are problematic; this is the first time I have quantified the problem with RAM usage.

My observation may not be related to all cases of green frames and crashes and I do not mean to imply that the issue is not related to the CPU in some cases. I would sincerely appreciate an experiment that would demonstrate the issue being caused by the CPU which I could repeat to ensure the problem on my systems do not have more than a single cause.

Duane Martin
Calgary FCPUG