My FCP7 exports on it’s own… ghost exporting

[Ted Machilles]

Well there you go.
I do my best to always make sure my sequence settings match my footage, but I am working on H.264 DSLR footage almost 90% of the time.

Are you saying that the trick of matching settings doesn’t work with the H.264 DSLR footage? Or the trick of getting FCP not to ghost render on me doesn’t always work on H.264 DSLR?

Thanks,

[Shane Ross]

FCP doesn’t like working with H.264 files natively. And the symptoms of misbehavior are random. Lose sync in the timeline, lose sync when exporting, rendering causes different parts of the clip, parts you didn’t cut into the timeline, to pop up, long render times, constant crashes…and now random renders/exports.

Just because it’s a Quictime format, doesn’t mean FCP will edit it natively. The workflow has been, and always will be (even in FCX) to transcode the footage to ProRes (FCX calls it “optimizing” the footage). If you want to work with H.264 native, you need to use a different application, like Adobe Premiere Pro.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Shane Ross]

It’s here and on YouTube:

https://library.creativecow.net/ross_shane/tapeless-workflow_fcp-7/1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhDnyWFAM10

You can either use Log and Transfer like I show, or use MPEG STREAMCLIP, Compressor, Red Giant Grinder, 5DtoRGB…many options.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Ted Machilles]

Well maybe it’s because it’s the middle of the week, and my brain is tired but just so I stop getting posts on it. I don’t work DSLR footage in H.264, they are all transcoded to Prores 422 using either Compressor or 5DtoRGB.

Sorry about that mixup, for it being only Wednesday it’s been a long week.

What I meant to ask was if DSLR footage that has been transcoded will cause this problem?

Thanks for the other info though.

[Nick Meyers]

Dave:
“it’s rendering the altered FCP sequence, which means your footage and your FCP sequence settings don’t match”

or you have motion effects or filters on your clips, or titles above them.
all very common.

Ted:
“I’ve let it finish a few times and the clips aren’t complete, some are 20 seconds from the timeline, some have no sound and other strange variations. I have dubbed them “Ghost Exports””

are you saying you are getting actual EXPORTED FILES?
or are you describing renders in the timeline?

“What I meant to ask was if DSLR footage that has been transcoded will cause this problem?”

any footage, even in codecs FCP likes, will need rendering if:
it is in a mis-matched sequence
and/or it has effects on it

if it needs rendering, and you have auto render turned on (in user prefs)
then it will be rendered automatically after a certain interval (defined in user prefs)

what gets rendered and what doesn’t is, i think, affected by what you have checked as renderable in sequence menu > render selection
my memory is a bit hazy on this, i could be wrong.

if it is just auto-render based on you having effects on your clips,
then is it a problem?
it can be a good thing.

sometimes i have hours of rushes in two camera format that i am displaying in two boxes in a rushes timeline
i would NOT want these to be rendered!

Dave:
“Check your sequence’s RT settings in the upper left.”

RT settings are not really relevant to the auto render issue,
but it is preferable, i think, to have them set to “unlimited”
then you don’t have to render just to preview your work

either way, effects will need rendering eventually,
RT menu simply affects playback

nick

[Ted Machilles]

Nick,

Yes if I don’t stop it, an actual export will appear on my desktop.

For the sake of all commenters on here (thanks for the advice so far!) I do know the difference between rendering and exporting. Even though I made sleepy comments early about my Pro Res 422 being H.264. But my problem is it Ghost Exports

So yes, I do have auto-render on and it does auto-render which gives a similar effect, but that is not what I am talking about. I am getting an actual export if I let it finish. Sorry about not clarifying that this was not a render issue.

Happens regardless of if I have effects or if I have placed two clips in the timeline.

Thanks for the help so far.

[Ted Machilles]

Thanks Dave, my first thought was the very technical OS Weirdness, but I figured I would throw it out there see if this was something anyone else has experienced, or if someone had a setting somewhere I didn’t know about.

I will look into Digital Rebellion, it’s not my system, it’s at my production house’s office but I’m sure they could use it with all the abuse it gets.

[Nick Meyers]

that’s really weird!
never heard of anything like that before.

definitely trash your preferences.

but FCP acting on it’s own?
so strange… there might be other things going on.

maybe ask around at the production office

nick

[Spencer Averick]

So weird man. Once I had keyboard with a sort of jammed “3” key and every now and then it would just start hammering out a bunch of 3’s without me touching it. You might try swapping out the keyboard, but I don’t see how FCP can just start exporting without even showing a dialog box, assuming you had export mapped. You should try to get that ghost to start actually editing for you instead of just wasting time on useless exports.

[Adam Taylor]

If i have misunderstood the problem my apologies, but are you sure its not just caused by the Auto Render option in the User Preferences?

Bottom right hand corner – tells your mac it can render if you leave the machine idele for specified periods…

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk
My YouTube Animations Page