HDV Export – Half the File Is Badly Pixelated

[Jerry Hofmann]

Sounds like a bad media file in that “spot”…

FWIW, if you capture as ProRes files instead of HDV native, you’ll be MILES ahead.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO, CD’s

[Stephen Reese]

Kevin,

I suffer from this same problem and it drives me crazy. My work around has been to split the sequence into smaller exports. I usually export two hours movies, so I will split the video into two one hour sections, then export and compress each shorter sequence, and then combine the video afterwards in my DVD/Blu-Ray programs(StudioPro or Encore CS4).

If anyone has a better solution to this problem I am all ears, this work around is still a giant time consumer. Also, I unfortunately don’t have the storage capacity to work in Apple ProRes, so that is out of the question. I also run through the same workflow as Kevin has stated above.

Any ideas on getting a clean export without pixelation?

Thanks
Stephen

[Dave Boccuzzi]

Oh my god, I think I got it. I just exported 4 separate, 4 hour long HDV-1080i60 movies in a row with no problem.

I have been suffering with this problem for weeks like a curse, as I have read others have also, ever since I upgraded to FCP 7 and snow lep at the same time. I did that on three machines and they all did it… Short exports were fine but anything too long and it looks like junk. There are other problems too but none as bad as this one.

I have previously solved the problem by getting around it… cutting the show into smaller parts.

I’m happy to report that following the steps below just worked 4 times in a row; Here is the recipe:

1-Make sure to set your scratch disk to your external firewire drive where you are working, not your Mac HD with all the apps on it. To do this use the upper menu bar at the top of the screen in FCP and choose: >Final Cut Pro>System Settings. When there use the upper “Set” button to nav to the right spot, when you find it select it and click “Choose”, Then click “ok” on the remaining small screen.

2-Go to easy set up… upper menu bar again…go: >Final Cut Pro>Easy Set up. When there load “HDV – 1080i60”. I have Kona cards and various decks and I constantly have to change settings to match this or that. But none of that ever interfered with a quicktime export before. What ever I was doing with all that it would always just spit out a plain old quicktime file right? I tried everything minus this step and the file export was bad. Including this step every time is when the problem stopped and I got 4 in a row. Changing settings changes you to a “custom” set up… put it back to the factory HDV set up.

3-Now render everything in your 1080i60 timeline; Select All with “Apple a” on your timeline and then render with “apple r”. When that is done and while everything is still selected use the upper menu bar, go: >Sequence>Render Only>Preview… render that way, it may have nothing but often can. It is the green line. If you see any other colors that need to be rendered on your timeline render them all individually by going: >Sequence>Render Only>and then what ever color you see that needs it. Now unselect everything and render one last time with “option r”. It may have nothing but I check all three.

4- Quit and restart, when the computer comes back up, open the project and start the export, Don’t do anything else. To export use: >File>Export>QuickTime Movie… Keep it on “Current Settings”, and “Make Self Contained” should be checked.

A 4 hour HDV quicktime export at this point for me on a 2 x 2.8 quad core G5 says it will only take something crazy like 30 minutes for the whole thing. after about 5 or 10 minutes it settles down to about 2 or 3 hours. Shows with tons of FX should take a bit longer. About one third of the way in, while the file is writing I nav with finder by clicking it in the dock and then selecting “apple n” for a new window. Look at the file being made and see if it is 10+ gigs or only around 1 or 2. File size shows if it is writing a bad file or not. The bad files are always too small as others have mentioned.

Well thats about it. Hope it wasn’t too long winded but I wanted to be thorough. Also, I included stuff that is most likely redundant to many users, but I wanted to make sure this helped newer users as well. This problem has been driving me nuts and I hope this is of some help to others.

[Dave Boccuzzi]

Missed one simple thing, #4 should be Save, Quit and restart… not just quit and restart.
oops…

I just exported movies 5 and 6 with no problem though