Quicktime Refenrence Export takes extremely long

[Erik Pontius]

If you have a lot of color correction, effects, transitions, etc… Avid will render these to then be referenced by the reference file…so it’s not just a wav file that is being created.

Erik

[Sebastian Riezler]

in fact i do have a lot of cc and fx on my clips (to be honest the complete show is modified with an aged film effect).
but it is only the audio export which takes very long.
i get two files, one mov-file which looks to me being an link cause it is never lager than 1MB.
it’s the audio file which gets up to 700MB. a little large for just being an link…

riot

[Michael Hancock]

When you export a quicktime reference it does make a link to your original OMF files. If you took the quicktime to another computer and left the OMF files behind it wouldn’t play. This is why you end up with a very, very small quicktime file.

You get a huge .wav file because it actually exports the audio in full. As far as why it’s taking as long as it is–I’m not sure, I’ve never done a quicktime reference for anything that long. What are your settings for export, exactly?

Mike.

[Sebastian Riezler]

im using these settings:

Quicktime Reference

Use Marks
Use Enabled Tracks

Digital Mastering
Flatten Video Tracks
Fill Spaces with Black
Render All Video Effects
WidthxHeigth: 720×576 (601-non square)

Mixdown Tracks
AIFF-C
44.1kHz
16 Bit

But now i have a new problem…argh. is there a way to change field order while exporting as quicktime reference?
i burnt a dvd and i have obvious field order problems. whenever there are pans or zooms my images jitter like hell.

now i know why there are experts out there for dvd authoring….

riot

[David Braswell]

Regarding your jittery DVD from reference movie.

You need to do a mixdown of both audio and video before you make your reference movie. You should ultimately have 1 video track and 2 audio tracks to create a ref from. Since the reference movie simply points to the OMF (or MXF) files in your project, your original project and capture settings will determine the field order of the mov. That is, if you’re capturing NTSC flavor video (SD or DV), the field order will be lower field first. The process of prepping your sequence for export to a ref mov and subsequent DVD encoding has been covered pretty thoroughly in previous posts. Do a search 🙂

HTH,
mav

[Erik Pontius]

You might also check your audio settings you are using for your export against your actual project settings. Most DV projects and others usually are 48khz, and not 44.1. In other words, you’re telling Avid to do extra work to convert and combine your audio from 48khz clips to 44.1khz.

As for your field ordering, in my experience, using Avid 1:1 uncompressed meridian codec during capture, then exporting a reference file (or same as source), then importing that into an app like Procoder or others to transcode, that app will believe that the video is progressive (no fields) and square pixels. I usually have to manually change the source setting in Procoder to lower field first and the proper pixel aspect.
Another gotcha when making DVD’s from 601 frame size material is that some transcoders will incorrectly crop the extra pixels off, usually an odd number like 3 pixels from the top and 3 from the bottom to conform to the frame size used for DVD (in NTSC, itu 601 720×486 gets cropped to 720×480 for DVD compliant MPEG-2)…this then effectively causes the field order to be reversed. A proper encoder will crop an even number (2 from the top, 4 from the bottom in most cases).

Erik

[Dave Schweitzer]

Can you give any more information – maybe fill out your system specs and lcoation in the profile? The frame size of 720×576 suggests you’re working in PAL, and all PAL video is upper field first – except PAL DV (via Firewire).
The audio at 44.1 suggests maybe you have a mojo, or that the audio is only from CD or imported.
DV audio can be recorded to tape at 48k or 32k, (and audio for PAL-DVD either 48k or 96k) but what really would help is knowing if this video is from PAL DV to determine the native field order.
Usually I export a QT ref, open Quicktime Pro and export the MPEG2 video from there, keeping the AIF exported by AXP. In QT Pro one can properly set the source video field order and set CBR/VBR, motion quality, bitrate options and the like before encoding.
As far as the frame size for PAL DVD, there should be no cropping, as from what I’ve read the PAL D1, DV, and DVD frame sizes are all the same.
Lastly, I don’t believe there’s any way to change the field order upon export from Avid – it is what it is. If you tell the encoder what the field order IS, it should be able to deal with it properly. If not, I’ve read of a free PC (you on a PC or a Mac?…profile!) program called ReStream which will allow you to change the field order after encoding – but you don’t have to Re-Encode the MPEG.

[Bouke Vahl]

If it’s 720×576 it’s pal.
All flavours of Avid i’ve encountered are upper field dominant, INCLUDING the DV only avids.
(and yes, it ‘should’ be lower on DV)
As others have pointed out, DVD requires 48 Khz.

Now the mixdown is not needed. If you do an export as described it should be fine, as long as you encode on the same machine as you made the ref movie (avid black does not come across over a network)

But there is definitly something wrong.
48 Khz stereo audio runs at 180 Kb a second, so your .wav should be about 410 MB.
If you do not do sample rate conversion (so if your sequence is 48 and your export is 48) the process should take a few minutes max, even on a slow computer.
Are your markers (in-out) in logical places?

Bouke

[Sebastian Riezler]

first i want to thank you for all the answers, there where some really good tips with them!

@maverick: sorry for not first searching the post within the forum, but i was really pissed by that problem, because i tried to get the show on a dvd for a week now (i dont have a dead line :-)).

@epontius: i never heard of this cropping-phenomenon. so from now on i will have an eye on this!

@dave schweitzer: my specs: im from germany, so working in PAL. software: win xp pro, avid xpress pro 4.5, dvdit 6 (tryout) i will buy it when i’m a master in encoding and authoring (so this will give me some time to earn money for the program). my computer is a pentium4 1,8Ghz with 1GB Ram and a (local) 250GB HDD where the OMF files are located.

@bouke and the others: i found the problem which took it so long to export the QT Ref file. Please dont hurt me, ok? ALL the music tracks i used where at 44.1 kHz. My project is at 48kHz. I just imported them with the wrong sample rate. Never happend to me before, that`s why i dind’t check it.

again thank you very much.
riot

[David Braswell]

Glad you found the problem 🙂 My search suggestion wasn’t meant to be chastisement; I just remembered all the good info when I was having the same problem. This is why the COW rules. Thousands of heads are definitely better than one!