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HD and ” Media Pending ” Bug? PP CS4
After letting PPro CS4 collect dust for about 2-ish yrs…(I only have it because it is a part of the Production Studio CS4)… I decided to see if I could get CS4 to work with HD source media (and… pretty much guess it would take all week end to figure out…and…it pretty much did). At any rate, here is a solution to a problem that some have encountered (see, Adobe’s forum with a “media pending” as a keyword search)
Problem: It appears some HD files can not be viewed after rendered by Adobe CS4 (not true for CS3 or 7.0 when using the exact same media after conversions of files for 7.0). More specifically, the video source I use to create this problem was captured from a Canon HV30 camera mini-tape.
Source media and system details:
Source Media – Canon HV30 which shoots at 1920x1080i 4:2:2 but converts to 4:2:0 at 1440x1080i to mini-tape. Format Profile is Main at High 1440 CBR 24.8 mbps 1080i top field first (…which is tricky since Canon’s manual state that I was shooting at what it calls HDV 30p) frame rate – 29.97, Pixal ratio 1.33, MPEG-TS Video ver. 2, file extension m2v but extension shows m2t. Audio: Mpeg1
System – WinXP sp3, ASUS W6T6 WS Rev., Intel i7 3.2Ghz 8X32bit CPU, 6G Corsair DDR3 (low lat.) RAM, GeForce GTX 280, LG DVD, Realtek AC97 Aud., Adaptec 5405 RAID SAS controller for 2 Stripes of 2xHD’s 15k rpm Fujitsu 300G ea., 2×20″Samsung 204t All drivers current.
Software – CS4 4.2 (020(MC:166418), Windows Media Player 11.05721.5145 QT player 7.6(472) QT ver 7.6(1292)
Problem specifics:
The gold screen “media pending” shows after rendering CS4. This occurs no matter the “equivalent quality” file format the m2t/m2v file is converted to… I tried about 100-something file codecs with various differences – none worked… well, except one the mpeg2… but, the quality lost was so significant it isn’t worth noting. As a side note: …thanks to a Dave LaRonde post on the AE forum… I did find out in my codec search to solve this problem that the QT PNG conversion is by far the best comparitable lossless format I found for the disk space used.
The cause… Wrong Sequence settings.
You would think looking at the source medias file information you would use a HDV 1080p30 or the HDV 1080i30 … but, being rational would be wrong. The HDV 1080p30 shows a red bar and renders to a gold “media pending” dead end.
Now… the next option is the HDV 1080i30. HDV 1080i30 show it to load as native (no yellow or red bar… just a gray bar). Eureka! …that is it… HDV 1080i30 is the solution… WRONG… Well sorta. This sequence setup renders to gold “media pending” as well once you add any effect. BUT… don’t ditch the HDV 1080i30 sequence just yet… this sequence setting is a part of the solution and problem.
Work Around:
OK… now we know the HDV 1080i30 is what appears to be the best choice. So… here is what you need to do:
1) Create a HDV1080i30 sequence.
2) No color (gray) bars appear when you load the HD media from the Canon m2t/m2v file. Red bars appear once you add effect.
3) Edit in the HDV1080i30 sequence. Rendering in this sequence setting will result in a gold screen with “media pending”.When your tired of looking at red bars and the editing process is dragging to snails pace… or, when your done.
5) Create a new sequence as a DVCPROHD 1080i 60i.
6) Copy the original HDV1080i30 tracks into the newly created HVCPROHD 1080i 60i.
7) Yellow Colored bar(s)appear in this second DVCPROHD sequence.
8) Render in the DVCPROHD sequence and the bar turns to green… Plus, you can see the rendered media.That’s the only work around I found that works everytime… and, it is a real pain in the arse. Side note: Special thanks to an older post by Joe_Aalbregtse at Adobe Forum that set me in the right direction (after I spent MANY hours trying to solve this problem by converting the file codec).
See: https://forums.adobe.com/message/1744538#1744538Second Work Around (THE BEST WORK AROUND if you get it to work):
Start project sequence setting as DVCPROHD 1080i.
Do all your editing in DVCPROHD sequence settings with yellow bars then render to green (i.e., intructions 5-8 above).note: a few minor issues using HVCPROHD sequence to render/edit HDV media… the Enter key to render frequently does not work to start the render… use the Sequence dropdown menu to start render. And,…Audio track will not move to another track even after it has been unlinked.
Base on what I’ve seen…how the P2 DVCPROHD sequence works with HDV media, is bit of a mystery… but, it does (at least so far… I have not been able to truely test the long term stability of this editing work flow). How this works? don’t know, but I am sure there is something I am missing here… maybe someone can explain.
That being said, the preview render problem seems to be related to HVCPROHD’s P2 vs. HDV ‘s I-Frame Mpeg preveiw… I beleive the render works fine in HDV but you can’t see it… this could be a video card and Adobe CS4 conflict…or, it could be crappy code. Based on the fact, this occured on two seperate machines (and, works on older version of PPro)… I am betting on crappy and buggy code.
BTW, if you try to import straight into the HVCPROHD 1080i 60i you might get a display size to big error message. You can try an exit PPro CS4 and try to load the project with the DVCPROHD sequence and see if it works. I have done this and it seems to work most of the time. I have not fully tested the stability of the DVCPROHD sequence in combination with the m2t/m2v file captured from the Canon HV30… but, it does seem to work well enough.
Cause:
Why? I believe has to do with the Playback Settings in the Sequence settings in Adobe. When dealing with the file formats from the HV30 the only useable preview format is the P-2 1080i-1080p 60Hz DVCPROHD.
And, NOT the “I-Frame Only MPEG” Preview format that is available/used in the HDV format. Adobe should offer more than one playback preview option for HDV.Best Solution: If you run into this problem… Use either AVID Liquid or Vegas and you don’t have do anything except import (drag and drop) and edit.
FWIW Joe Moya
BTW, why did I go through all this trouble if I have rock solid work flow using other editing programs? Well…for one thing, I got tired of thinking about the money I waste every year upgrading Adobe’s Production Studio and getting a pretty much useless editing program.
I could see me using this editing program if they could produce a stable editing software instead of upgrading for the sake of having more bells and whistles. For example, take a look at 3 yr. old AVID Liquid…it’s an End Of Line professional level editing software and it beats Adobe hands down in simplicity, stability and ability to handle various editing formats… and, they don’t/didn’t put out a upgrade every year… oh yea, and it costs waaay less than Adobe PPro. I really wish Adobe could build a stable editing software because it has one of the best combination of compositing and final output software available.
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5 Replies
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Update:
The AVC Intra 50 1080i 60Hz is a sequence preset that will not render to a gold screen “media pending” problem.
Plus, this seems to have a choice that has a 1440×1080 frame size with a 1.333 pixel size…which more closely matches the original captured media… this may or may not make a difference since I can see no difference between the two – DVCHDPRO and AVC Intra 50. Also, the preview choices given in this sequence preset option are both I-Frame or P2.
AVC-I 50 1080i60 is an optional sequence for use of HDV video from the Canon HV30 if you are having problems rendering (i.e., “media pending” that never goes away).
IMPORTANT ADDENDUM:
FINALLY… New Sequence>General tab… choose the DESKTOP preset under the General tab and change Preview to MICROSOFT AVI,
The Desktop Editing mode with the MICROSOFT AVI Preview File Format will work… Something I wasn’t aware of when I started this seach because… it appears ADOBE seems to have a drop down menu clitch and this option does not show up every time I drop down the menu. The Desktop option on the editing mode does not always show as an option in the drop down menu (at least for me).
DESKTOP with MICROSOFT AVI in the Video Previews Format drop down menu. – Choose the appropriate codec… The best one I have found to use is the Unompressed YYVY 422 8bit.
Joe
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UPDATE – TO HELP OTHERS
I was having the dreaded ‘Media Pending’ problem in Adobe Premiere CS4 and I could not find the solution anywhere on the internet.
This thread is the top google search thread on this problem, so I thought it best to post the solution to my version of this problem here.
I run Windows XP Professional 32-Bit SP4 with all updates. On Adobe Premiere CS4, any render of a JPEG file, or MPV, anything rendered was coming up with ‘Media Pending’… I was tearing my hair out over this because it was working perfectly fine up to recently.
Then I remembered I recently installed 4GB of extra RAM to add to my previous 2GB of RAM, making now 6GB. I thought to change the boot.ini file with extra switches. /3GB and /PAE switch to try and make my system use over the 4GB of RAM. I had forgotten I did this.
After much searching on the internet and finding nothing, I suddenly remembered a post somewhere saying that if you use either of these switches, it may cause some drivers not to work.
I went back to boot.ini and removed the /3GB and /PAE switches and rebooted. Voila! The Media Pending screen is magically gone and I can work again once more. Adobe take note!
If this works for anyone else, let me or this thread know!
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I’m having a similar problem with my HDV project in Premier Pro CS4, but my media pending issues aren’t related to rending clips in the sequence. Instead, my clips are stuck with “Media Pending” and a gold screen in my project library in Premiere. I’ve attempted the above suggestions in regards to changing the sequence settings, but since I’m can’t even view the clip in OR out of a sequence, I don’t think the sequence settings are my problem here.
I can, however, play the file back in Windows Media Player when opening it from my scratch disk, so PPro is capturing the clips and placing them correctly. I typically do NOT see the expected green progress bar on the lower right side of the screen, and there is no indication anywhere else that the computer is working towards making the Media Pending clip available.
I am using a Canon XH A1 and recorded in HDV 1080i30. I’m new to Premiere (I prefer Final Cut Pro, but I am using CS4 for work purposes), so it’s entirely possible I’m missing an obvious step. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Your note about MICROSOFT & AVI cranked-up the wattage to my dim-bulb brain.
So I went to Sequence>Sequence Settings>Playback Settings and UN-CHECKED “Disable video output when in the background.”, and the rendered preview magically appeared in the monitor with all effects in tact. No other changes at all.
From this I infer that the problem has something to do with the various layers in use (for the entire screen) to display the multitude of screen elements – icons, buttons, windows, and such; and that the playback monitor is, in screen-driver terms, rendered to a background layer.
In any event, I’ve done no further testing so YMMV. But we do have another entry in the hair-loss prevention file.
~Find Your Center~
Metaphysics applied while you wait.
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