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Text & render clips show “hot pink” instead of transparency (black)
To avoid confusion in what I describe below, when I write RENDER CLIP, I mean the various “render” clips available in FCP7 via the drop down menu in the viewer, e.g., clouds, gradients, etc.
In one of my sequences, for an end credit, I stacked in the timeline a text clip on top of a render clip. The render clip was cropped down to a horizontal line, say about 1/3rd of the frame; and the text lived in that 1/3rd. The rest of the frame I let go transparent (black). Imagine one stripe on a black flag, with text in the stripe, and you’ve got the idea.
I sent this to Compressor to make an MPEG-2. In the finished transcoded file, in this end credit where there ought to have been black (transparency), instead, from time to time, the color “pink” would appear. (or some sort of vibrant magenta).
I did a work around by exporting the troublesome end title (in the sequence codec) to QuickTime. I imported the QT movie back into the FCP project, and used it to replace the 2 clips I’d originally generated to construct the end title (the text clip and the render clip). So I got the job done, but I’m still wondering what the heck happened that caused me to lose black behind my text (transparency) and end up with it going “pink”?
Now I’ve I got a variation on the same problem. I sent 4 sequences to Compressor to make MPEG-2’s today. The sequences were from 4 different projects. In each sequence, I had dropped a simple text clip (each text clip generated new from within each different project) at the head of each timeline.
Three sequences transcoded without problem. But in one of my sequences, once again the notorious pink appears “behind” the text, instead of the black (transparency).
Anyone run into this “pink” problem before?
There is a second inter-related part to my question.
I read in the forum FAQ that you recommend exporting to QT, and then dropping that file into Compressor. I guess I don’t have to tell you that its a point of disagreement between experts, as to whether or not to (a) do a send to Compressor, or (b) export to QT and then take the exported file to Compressor. I note that Ripple Training and moderators on 2-POP have both extolled “send” for highest quality results. But I also remember reading (some years ago) experts bemoaning the unreliability of the “send” function in various versions of FCP past. With these opposing views, both from reliable experts, I wonder what the current state of opinion is among FCP7-using Cow forum members?
Is your experience that “send” gives you substantially higher quality encodes?
Is your experience that “send” is “unstable” and is a wild card in terms of results?
Thanks in advance
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7 Replies
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What format and frame rate is your timeline?
I don’t use the send to Compressor function as it doesn’t support virtual clusters, therefore takes forever.
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In addition to “send” not being compatible with clusters, you can’t continue editing during a send-to-Compressor. By the way, try Fraoch heather ale, brewed in Scotland.
My specs below:
OS 10.6.3; Dual-Core Intel Xeon; RAM 6GB; FCS V.3
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[Brett Botula] “In addition to “send” not being compatible with clusters, you can’t continue editing during a send-to-Compressor. “
Very true.
[Brett Botula] “try Fraoch heather ale, brewed in Scotland. “
Brilliant. Thanks!
Jeremy
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You mentioned frame rate and format: do you think the XDCAM-EX 1080 24p might have something to do with problem?
I’ve also read that using a still frame at the beginning of a sequence can create problems. In the two examples I described above, however, only one of the sequences had a title (format: still) at the head of the sequence; in the other sequence where titles went awry during m2v. transcoding, the title was an end credit.
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[Brett Botula] “You mentioned frame rate and format: do you think the XDCAM-EX 1080 24p might have something to do with problem? “
That’s my hunch, yes. What I would do is make a 1920×1080 24p ProRes Timeline, and copy and paste from your XDCam timeline. Render and see what happens.
Jeremy
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I am experiencing this problem too, while trying to export a ProRes sequence to h.264 (it also happened when compressing for mpeg-2 for DVD).
I thought it was the color space options (Default for Encoder, Preserve Source, etc), but the pink remained with each color space setting.
Did anyone find a solution for this?
Thank you.
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Anyone find a answer for this, I have same problem. Compressor is very buggy for me. 44 hours later and two render attempts later. Had to forget send to compressor, people telling me to never use this anyways.
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