[Joseph Hung]

You are having bandwidth problems most likely. Don’t use your laptop HDD as your FCP media folder. Keep everything (capture scratch, renders, etc.) on the external drive, your project file on your laptop. Connect external drive via FW800 at the least, eSATA would be better, or Thunderbolt if you have it on your laptop. It also depends on the codec you are editing with. You can always edit with an offline codec, and then online when you lock the edit.

[Joseph Hung]

Thanks for the suggestions, and I’ll try them.

In the manual, it doesn’t mention setting in and out, just parking the playhead at the frame you want. So it shouldn’t be necessary, but if it works for you, it should work for me. It does mention though, and I’ve forgotten all about this, is setting the Use (under format). I haven’t done this ever, and will try this next time.

Best,
Joseph

[Joseph Hung]

Also, this should go into the forum specific to the BD burning application you plan to use.

[Joseph Hung]

We need alot more specific info in order to help with your problem.

http://www.tulpapictures.com
Twitter: @tulpapictures
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tulpapictures

Mac 2.66 GHz Quad Intel Xeon
OSX 10.6.8
FCS2
CS5.5
8GB RAM
ProAvio 8TB RAID 5 Dual Mini-SAS
Blackmagic Intensity Pro
ATI Radeon X1900
RocketRAID 4322 via dual MiniSAS
Panasonic Lumix GH2, Canon 5DMKII, 7D, Panasonic HVX200A, Panasonic DVX100A

[Joseph Hung]

The external is advantageous for portability for sure. But remember that FW800 won’t kick it for certain more complicated burns.
You will be able to make professional quality menus with Encore. Just trawl the forums if you have questions, it’s pretty easy to figure it out. Not sure about Toast’s menu abilities.
It’s not that .m2v is problematic. Encore is designed to transcode your audio and video files if they are not the correct format. So essentially you can drop in a ProRes file and Encore will transcode it for you. This lengthens your burn time by alot though, so I just do the transcode myself with Compressor. For long projects it’s better to just let Compressor run overnight or something, instead of Encore trying to burn something overnight, because again, Encore is kinda buggy. I also feel Compressor allows you to customize the file more than Encore, such as average bitrate, a better algorithms for transcoding, faster transcoding times, etc. I don’t trust Encore for that stuff. Works for me flawlessly.
Toast you will have to do the same Compressor workflow. Read those tutorials I linked. You can also burn BDs with H.264. I’m not sure if it’s better than .m2v. I’ve never done it because my workflow works great without issue, and when I test it on my HDTV and BluRay player, the image quality is fantastic.
Remember to do this though: when you export your “master file” out of FCP, make sure you choose “with compression markers.” This will add compression markers at your edit points, so that Compressor can transcode the cuts with a higher VBR for better compression and less artifacts. I sometimes also add compression markers in the timeline for fast action scenes, or scenes with high details that can tend to get the “pulsating pixels” artifacts.
In general, each project is different, so when I’m burning something new for the first time, I’ll find issues in my QC step, and have to go back and retranscode with new markers, different VBR settings, etc. You can save time by checking your H.264 before importing into Encore, or use MPEG Streamclip to check your .m2v file before importing into Encore. You end up using up more BD discs than you want to, but that’s just the nature of the process. Plan on having plenty of blank discs on hand, and schedule in plenty of padding before delivery to suss out QC issues you find.

[Joseph Hung]

Yep that’ll do it. I generally clean that vent out every 3-4 months. My tower is up off the floor so it’s not so bad, but if your tower is sitting on the floor or carpet, you may have to check it more often.

[Joseph Hung]

Weird, I just had the problem on a specific frame: all white matte frame. Moved the playhead around, pressed play a few times, came back to the exact frame and exported, et voila! totally fine. No idea why this happens. Just a bug?

[Joseph Hung]

Encore works fine for me… a little buggy but works. Output your edit as a self contained full res quicktime, use compressor to encode at the correct file formats, and bring into Encore (as long as your encode settings are correct Encore won’t auto transcode the .m2v file). People have suggested Toast but I haven’t used it since I have CS5.5 Encore. Toast might be a more economical approach as opposed to buying CS. Or I think you might be able to purchase Encore stand alone?

I have an external Lacie BD drive, which is great, it connects via FW800 (don’t do USB). However, I had to add some subtitle files to some projects and the Lacie FW800 bandwidth wasn’t fast enough. Since I have a Mac Pro tower, I bought a new BD drive, a Pioneer, and installed it into the second drive bay. This allows a much faster throughput and now I have no issues with more complicated burns with subtitles.

If you think you will be doing this alot, with the possibility of doing more complicated burns, and you have a tower, get the Pioneer. It’s much cheaper than the Lacie external and easy to install, and less clutter on the desktop. Otherwise an external BD burner via FW800 is totally fine.

Here are some tutorials about burning BD, two different workflows:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/20/861769
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/blu-ray_fcp_fields.html

I’m looking to sell my Lacie if you are interested. Was gonna post it on eBay soon. Not sure if Cow lets people peddle their used equipment this way, sorry in advance Creative Cow!

http://www.tulpapictures.com
Twitter: @tulpapictures
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tulpapictures

Mac 2.66 GHz Quad Intel Xeon
OSX 10.6.8
FCS2
CS5
8GB RAM
ProAvio 8TB RAID 5 Dual Mini-SAS
Blackmagic Intensity Pro
ATI Radeon X1900
RocketRAID 4322 via dual MiniSAS
Panasonic Lumix GH2, Canon 5DMKII, 7D, Panasonic HVX200A, Panasonic DVX100A

[Joseph Hung]

Hmm, you should be fine. Although I had the same issue a while back with 1080p24 HQ material and I upgraded my system to SAS RAID 5 and I haven’t had any problems since. I want to say you need more bandwidth, but FW800 should work fine with ProRes 422 (to a certain point of course, depending on how complicated your timeline is).
Have you tried playing down the timeline without the subtitles? What’s the frame dims on the subtitles, ie are they gigantic?
Also, who makes the RAID and does it have a controller in the chassis or is your computer controlling it?

[Joseph Hung]

If Encore is having the same issues then this is definitely your system. What are your systems specs? And the BD burner specs too? Have you checked the health of your boot drive and RAM? Sometimes when my HDD or RAM is slowly dying and I don’t know it, I get similar issues. Run a test with Disk Utility or Tech Tools.

http://www.tulpapictures.com
Twitter: @tulpapictures
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tulpapictures

Mac 2.66 GHz Quad Intel Xeon
OSX 10.6.8
FCS2
CS5
8GB RAM
ProAvio 8TB RAID 5 Dual Mini-SAS
Blackmagic Intensity Pro
ATI Radeon X1900
RocketRAID 4322 via dual MiniSAS
Panasonic Lumix GH2, Canon 5DMKII, 7D, Panasonic HVX200A, Panasonic DVX100A