Dennis Couzin
54
COW Coins
2
Solve Coins
Forum Replies Created
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FCP7 sequence settings state the video codec, but not the audio codec, for FCP7 offers no choice. FCP7 is liberal about accepting audio codecs, but it always converts them to uncompressed. If you bring, for example, mp3 compressed audio into the timeline, there will be a red render bar and no playback. Conceivably you had such audio in your Compressor-made clips. Audio rendering is quick. Just do it.
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Oh, your red render bar is for the audio, not the picture.
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30.02 fps is weird. 29.76 fps is weird. No camera shoots at those rates. They are the result of some downstream time transformation. You should have conformed the weird clips all to 29.97 before commencing the edit. Apple’s Cinema Tools can do this, but I prefer QT Edit from Jon
Chappell (Digital Rebellion).If you happen to drop a weird fps thing into the timeline first, FCP7 does not offer to adjust the sequence settings to match it (since it can’t match it). If you drop any non-29.97 clip into the timeline later, FPC7 can no longer change the framerate. Anyhow, now you’re stuck with weird fps things in a 29.97 timeline. FCP7 can handle them. For the 30.02 thing, it will drop 1 frame every 20 seconds. For the 29.76 thing (if that wasn’t a typo), it will double 1 frame every 4.76 seconds. Perhaps with your render settings this warrants a red bar.
The number 29.76 looks suspiciously like the number 23.976. Shoving very disparate framerate material into a timeline invites an ugly video. Video is evolving toward a frameless, and framerateless, medium, but it is not there yet.
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FCP7 sequences must have one of 8 frame rates: 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94, 60.
When a clip with any other frame rate is brought into a new sequence FCP7 does not give the standard warning: “Attention — This clip does not match the sequence’s settings or any of your sequence presets … “, or any other warning. The sequence simply absorbs the clip, keeping the settings as they were before the import. The clip’s frame cadence is transformed to the frame rate of the sequence setting, so it plays at its correct speed, albeit not perfectly smoothly. This may not be enough processing to get a red render bar.
raju bhai should confirm that his clip’s properties are not screwy. Quick Time Player 7 shows some properties. A program like QT Edit shows many more.
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It could as well be a corruption in your FCP7. Reinstalling FCP7 can be time consuming if you have plugins, etc. (I recommend the Digital Rebellion’s program Preference Manager for maintaining FCP7.)
Do try letting LiveType do the render, and then importing the .mov file to FCP7. In that way LiveType is compatible with many editing applications, perhaps even a corrupted FCP7.
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BH: I can’t reproduce your difficulty (running both LiveType v.2.1.4 and FCP7 in Sierra 10.12.6).
If the rendering is done in LiveType it produces a .mov file in Apple Animation codec which has to import smoothly into the FCP7 sequence, whatever its codec.
But also an unrendered .ipr file coming out of LiveType is importable into the FCP7 sequence where it renders out fine.
I’d never seen or used LiveType before, and its effects are hilarious. Thanks.
DC
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Gary,
You don’t reduce the number of compressions by sending directly from FCP to Compressor. There are two ways you could imagine that to happen. Either (1) FCP could send all clips in the timeline to Compressor in their original codecs, or (2) FCP could send all clips to Compressor uncompressed. Neither of these things happen. Simple experiments prove this.
How could (1) work when clips in different codecs overlap, e.g., in a dissolve? FCP must make the overlap; Compressor can’t. Likewise for (2), the editor needs to see how each FCP effect looks, and many effects, although performed decompressed, depend on the codec of the sequence setting for their final appearance. Thus we render out many FCP effects not just for smoothness of playback, but for accuracy. It is only where some non-effected clips are in codecs different from the sequence settings that there would be advantage to FCP sending them uncompressed to Compressor. But we can prove that FCP doesn’t work that way.
What must be appreciated is that in absence of effects, when the sequence settings match a clip’s codec, the .mov export is a passthrough with no recompression. This can be confirmed by the speed of the export process, as well as by examining details. FCP export offers a “Recompress All Frames” option which should almost never be selected. See Creative Cow discussion from 12 years ago with that title.
What FCP sends to Compressor depends on the FCP sequence settings. A simple experiment. Make sequence settings for 960×540. Drop in a 1920×1080 clip having alternating 1 pixel green and magenta lines. Of course it looks grey in the canvas. Send to Compressor. Ask for 1920×1080. Yup, it’s now 1080 grey lines. You can try other experiments involving codec differences instead of size differences. I think you will confirm that Compressor gets video as-if compressed according to the FCP sequence settings. Whether Compressor receives the video in codec or decompressed from that codec is immaterial.
Dennis
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Sorry I can’t interpret the Crash Report but the early references to ‘FCPAudioUnits’ smell like bug.
In general, export from FCP to Compressor is more buggy than taking 2 steps: export from FCP to .mov file; stick .mov file into Compressor. For the first step full render is advised because it will signal if there’s a particular trouble spot.
For RAM testing, there was a small program ‘memtest’ written by Charles Cazabon that worked smoothly in OS 10.6.8. I’ve attached it with some simplified instructions.
Good luck!
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To your first question: open “Tools”; check “Background Processes”.
But this should have happened automatically when you applied the SmoothCam filter to an unanalyzed clip. In what operating system are you running FCP7? Best provide that information in hope of seeing your second question answered.
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@Michael. VLC player could play the .mov file with a guessed frame rate, guessed gamma, guessed pixel aspect ratio, etc. It’s kicky that there’s free software that ekes SOMETHING from a corrupted file — many players just get SOMETHING from an uncorrupted file! Unfortunately the free VLC File>Convert solution, and likewise Handbrake, involves lossy recompression. If you can upload one of the bad .mov files I’ll check whether just filling in missing metadata in QT Edit can make it FCP7 compatible.
I’m him.
Dennis Couzin