Floh Peters
Forum Replies Created
-
[olof ekbergh] “Seems like a bug. “
It is one…
-
[olof ekbergh] “OK I found a few with yellow tops, how do I turn off alpha?”
Move them to V1 (or whatever track is free at this position). Double-click the clip to load it into the edit suite. Extend the edit suite window with the triangle in the lower left corner. Turn off the “Composite using Alpha” chekcbox. Move the clip down to VaVb again.
-
[Floh Peters] “It will be on VaVb and have a yellow bar at the top indicating the realtime alpha channel.”
You should move it to e.g. V1, turn off the alpha and move it down again.
-
[olof ekbergh] “That sounds like what may have happened. What is the color I should look for? “
It will be on VaVb and have a yellow bar at the top indicating the realtime alpha channel.
-
[olof ekbergh] “So far the last third has rendered OK. Doing middle now after first third failed. Process of elimination I guess. “
Remember to save the timeline between the parts.
Ah, there is one more thing that came to my mind; I think one reason for your problem could be a clip with the Alpha channel turned on on the VaVb track. This happened to us some times: If you place a clip with alpha channel (e.g. an animation) on V1, and you then later move it down to VaVb without switching off the alpha first, I think it will create a crash on rendering it like the one you are seeing. You should easily spot this clip by its color coding on the timeline.
-
You could try to render parts of the timeline (set mark in and out and do a “Render range”) to see where the problem occurs. Maybe you have a corrupted media file somewhere within the timeline? Or it could be that there is something wrong with your media drive.
-
[jeremy Rowell] “Upgraded Media 100 to 12.7.1 and problem still exists…”
Um, from what are you rendering? Could it be possible that the app you are rendering from does not support QuickTime 7.6?
-
[Matt Jones] “So 0dB on the supplied digital file should equal 0dB on my final digital file, right? -12dBFS sounds like a lot of headroom for ‘accidents’ If I’m providing a digital file in the server’s native playback format, where could the “accidents” happen? “
If -12dBFS is what they accept as their broadcast level limit, that´s what you have to deliver. We have -9dBFS here in Germany, but I know that it is different in the US. Not sure if it is -12, though, but it sounds like it may be the fact. The reason for this is that some years ago most companies have agreed on a digital level (be that from tape, like from DigiBeta or from a digital file), and that it is extremely difficult to change an already existing convention on something like this. Many workflows would break if somebody would decide to now use 0dBFS as his max work level, since most broadcast equipment expects to get a much lower level.
-
[Matt Jones] “One station told me that all audio levels must be below -12db. What?!? How can that be? Why would it be so low? Should I just mix as normal, and then compress the crap out of the final audio? “
Oh man, that´s a topic. And as far as I can tell it even varies between the countries.
Here in Germany we have a conclusion that digital audio for broadcast (e.g. on DigiBeta) is not allowed to exceed -9dBFS (-9dB digital level) at all. This corresponds to 0dB on our analog RTW peakmeters (although there are sometimes too slow to catch digital peaks, so we add a hardware broadcast audio limiter at -9dBFS). But e.g. CDs are mastered to 0dBFS, so if we import a track from CD into Media 100 we have to level it down at least 9dB (if we want to have it at full volume).
This all works as long as you stay digital (e.g. you use SDI embedded audio or AES/EBU). If you use DA-converters somewhere (e.g. the ones on the Kona board, or as a standalone hardware device), you have to make sure that they match your levels. Unfortunately level for the conversion from digital to analog is not specified for all situations identically (e.g. as I said in Germany it is said to be 0dB analog to -9dBFS digital for TV broadcast), so e.g. the Media 100 LHe systems do have a pref setting for the digital to analog audio level conversion.
Anyway, if your broadcaster says that you are not allowed to exceed -12dBFS you need to adjust accordingly. And best would be to have a hardware peakmeter attached to your Kona outputs to monitor these levels, since the VU Meters in Media 100 are not really exact, as far as I can tell. Then you need to find out how your digital and analog levels do correspond, and then do your mix accordingly.
Or do lower your levels in Soundtrack (not by applying a compressor as you suggested, but by adding some compression and by reducing the master output level).
Your digital audio files will be below 0dBFS anyway, since digital audio cannot exceed 0dBFS. Everything that would be above 0dB will be clipped digitally; that´s why the levels have to be set below this to avoid digital distortion and harsh clipping, and to have some headroom for “accidents”. -
Hmmm, trying to narrow it down: which version of QuickTime do you use, and which format (1080/720/NTSC)? Which framerate? Which version of AE CS3 (8.0 or 8.0.1 or?)?
Never seen this problem personally, so I am trying to find what is different in your setup from ours.