[Atticus Brady]

Hi Chris – I opened the DVD in the finder and moved the VOB video files onto the open app. This time it asked me “Do you want to open this stream as a DVD?” I experimented with both yes and no, forcing it to fix the timecode breaks in the stream…but got the same result: it exports extremely slowly, gets about 12% then conks out, giving me that “sample rate” error message as it did earlier.

I’m not one to give up, but I am tempted to have the DVDs converted to XD, then bring the XD files into my system with a BARE drive. If you have no other suggestions, do you think this is a respectable alternative?

[Atticus Brady]

Thanks everyone for the prompt responses. Chris, here’s what happens when I try using MPEG streamclip: I open the DVD and I get a “File open error: the first part of the file is not valid” error message. I choose to “open anyway”. I apply the settings you recommended (export to QT – Apple Pro Res – 720×480 – lower field first, frame blending, interlace scaling – uncompressed stereo audio, etc. Upon saving to an external FW drive, it got about 8% and then stopped, giving me a “could not convert sample rate” error message. When I opened the small file that was produced, it was just a thick green bar passing through the frame.

Any sense of what is going on here or if there’s anything I’m doing incorrectly?

Thanks,
AB

[Atticus Brady]

Ah! Right-clicking did the trick. Thank you gentlemen.

[Atticus Brady]

I have been exporting with field rendering off, frame blending on. I experimented with the Flicker Filter but to no avail. I wonder if any of you gentlemen could take me through step by step EXACTLY what you do to get the great results you do. Are you animating the still itself? Or animating a camera around it? Would that make a difference? I have seen all the tutorials on how to create fabulous still animations but I’m still getting the same result. There must be some subtlety that I’m missing. Anyhoo, if you have the time, great. If not, I’ll just continue suffering 🙂

[Atticus Brady]

Thanks Shane. Would you mind providing a lay person’s explanation for GOP and non-GOP codecs? And which formats fall into which category? Frankly, I’d never heard the distinction.

[Atticus Brady]

It is a mixed format sequence that configured itself based on the codec of other XD HD clips that I am using. There’s a wide range of clips with different codecs (including some SD footage) that are native to FCP and playing back fine.

[Atticus Brady]

Also, I don’t know if this will help you diagnose the problem, but the sequence compressor setting is XD CAM HD 422 1080p24.

[Atticus Brady]

Thanks for getting back Zane. The clip is a DVC PRO HD codec 720p60. I’m using a 4 TB G-Raid external drive for the project and the media, connected by firewire 800. I should also mention that I have tried transcoding the clip to Apple Pro Res 422, but frames continue to drop in certain sections.

[Atticus Brady]

Thanks Michael. The SD footage is 30i while the HD footage is 24p.

[Atticus Brady]

Thank you for your help gentlemen. I wound up trashing the Thumbnails Cache Folder and that did the trick! Thanks again.

Atticus