Pro Res 4444 QuickTime files over 1.4 GB won’t open on a PC

[Gary Adcock]

[Glenn Camhi] “This place hasn’t dealt with Alexa/PR4444 footage yet. They’ve never had a problem with anything else, though. They are considerably more affordable than the big post houses around, which makes this a particular bummer.”

If you are passing this off to someone else, what are they finishing on?

I have never run accross this issue with Alexa materials, not on an uptodate finishing system.

Make sure your finisher under stands the file size issue. I checked a 10G Pr444 file direct from an Alexa sxs card in the MC 5.5.1 on windows without issue.

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640

[Glenn Camhi]

They’re finishing on the DS. Hm, not positive what you mean by “Make sure your finisher under stands the file size issue”… do you mean the issue I’ve been describing? If so, yeah, that’s where the issue is happening, at their facility. They’re at least as baffled as I am.

Thank you Gary for checking your file. It’s got to be something odd going on with their system. I’ll post here if it gets solved.

[Daniel Tegnelia]

I don’t think it is strictly a PC problem, we are getting the same issues on Macs. At first we believed it to just be a Lion issue but now its happening on Leopard also. Another consistency we’ve been able to find other than the fact that all the files are greater than 1.4 gb is that this is only happening to footage shot on the ALEXA sup version 3.0. Any footage after the firmware was updated is still working fine. Is that the same for everyone else?

[Daniel Tegnelia]

I don’t think it is strictly a PC problem, we are getting the same issues on Macs. At first we believed it to just be a Lion issue but now its happening on Leopard also. Another consistency we’ve been able to find other than the fact that all the files are greater than 1.4 gb is that this is only happening to footage shot on the ALEXA sup version 3.0. Any footage after the firmware was updated is still working fine. Is that the same for everyone else?

[Gary Adcock]

I have checked file recorded on 3 different cameras running v3 and not seen this issue. Most cameras are on v4 by now.

I am only working from camera masters, how are you handling data?

Are you working from copies, clones or Dmg files?

What tools were used to move the data if not on the original SxS media?

I have not seen machine specs or versions.

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

https://blogs.creativecow.net/24640

[Glenn Camhi]

Interesting. We only had the problem on a single PC. They never figured it out, but we’ve since tested it on another PC running Windows 7, and all the files played just fine. So there must be some odd conflict on some computers. We’re going to a different finishing house, we’ll see what happens there.

[Daniel Tegnelia]

Yeah our camera is now on v4, and we haven’t seen the issue with any of those files yet. We’re seeing the issue from the camera masters all the way through 2nd generation clones. The files were transferred from the SxS via laptop on set, moved to 4TB G-Raids and 500GB Lacie Ruggeds, typically through firewire 800 on the ruggeds and esata on the G-Raids. Specs are below, thanks Gary. Glenn if it is possible could you list the specs of your systems with the issue and maybe there will be some sort of correlation between ours and yours. Thanks.

Tower:
Mac Pro 5.1
6-Core intel xenon
2.93 GHz
2 processor 12 core
32 GB ram

Graphics:
ATI Radeon HD 5770
1024 MB VRAM

Software:
Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Leopard)
Final Cut Pro 7.0.3
Quicktime Pro 7.6.6

Media Storage:
SanMP
Client 3.1.6.376
connected to fibre wires to 4 systems (3 which utilize it regularly)
3 Servers servers with 14TB of space
1 Server with 2TB

[Scott Robert]

I’m having the same issue on a mac here. It opens fine on my old Titanium G4 Laptop, but not my Mac Pro 3.0 v_10.6.8. It’s very odd. I wonder if there some metadata information you can change on the quicktime file’s container to make it work.

[Glenn Camhi]

Interesting.

FWIW, we went to another post house with Macs and PCs, and they had no problem opening the file.

I wonder what the conflict could be that’s just on some systems.

[Jesse lee Cairnie]

I am having this problem as well.. “An invalid public movie atom was found in the movie.” on any ProRes4444 Alexa footage on Mac.. I am trying to rebuild the atom structure.. but am having no luck.. I seem to have read that a security update has cause this error in QT.. but can not seem to find a fix.. some have said they erased and copied the directory of HD/system/library/quicktime and HD/system/library/components but have yet to confirm that as a fix.. and dont have access to an un-updated system..