Thomas Berglund
Forum Replies Created
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Anyone still having issues with this? Has anyone tried the latest Blackmagic Desktop Video 9.7.8 that was released on September 27th? Does it fix the issue? I’m a bit worried about upgrading from 10.7 to 10.8 because of this problem.
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Anyone still having issues with this? Has anyone tried the latest Blackmagic Desktop Video 9.7.8 that was released on September 27th? Does it fix the issue? I’m a bit worried about upgrading from 10.7 to 10.8 because of this problem.
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I’ve been troubleshooting XDCAM HD422/EX Long-GOP MPEG-2 issues in FCP for over two years now, and other than the tips I have already posted, there isn’t much you can do unfortunately.
FCP 7 is getting old, and the 32-bit architecture simply isn’t handling complex, large projects with large amounts of Long-GOP video. Once you start seeing those malloc_error messages in the system logs, you know FCP is having a hard time with memory allocation.
Long-GOP MPEG-2 mostly works fine for news and other short and simple edits, but once you start adding effects and mixing codecs, things can go wrong even with short sequences. I’ve seen a bunch of exports to XDCAM HD422 go wrong too. I’ve seen things like the bitrate dropping down to 13 Mbit/s in the exported file. I’ve seen frames being skipped (easy to see in panning/zooming shots). I’ve also seen several examples where FCP generates corrupt B-frames that freaks out playout systems like Omneon Spectrum servers. I know this because I have analyzed files in Interra Baton which reports corrupt B-frames on specific timecodes. On playout you see a 1-2 sec black image while audio is still playing. This is because of corrupt B-frames from FCP on export. If you do a “recompress all frames” from the same project with the same sequence the problem seems to go away.
Issues like corrupt B-frames are extremely difficult to troubleshoot because they don’t occur every time, hence it’s difficult for Apple to reproduce and fix, and… FCP 7 development is dead.
If you are struggling badly, I would advice you to transcode to ProRes. It will require a lot more disk space, but I would say it’s worth it. You could try switching to an other NLE, but let me tell you. Based on feedback and reports I have seen, Long-GOP MPEG-2 seems to be problematic in other NLEs too.
Long-GOP was never meant for editing. In my opinion, if you want a 100% stable editing experience, stick with i-frame only codecs.
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For some great HPX370 camera setting recommendations, have a look at Alan Robert’s white paper.
ADDENDUM 53 : Tests and Settings on a Panasonic AG-HPX371, by Alan Roberts
https://thebrownings.name/WHP034/pdf/WHP034-ADD53_Panasonic_HPX371.pdf -
To me this looks like the camera had the gain switch flipped on or the black level set wrong, because of all the noise. How was the lighting on this shoot?
You might find this thread interesting: https://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?265405-Noise-problem-with-AG-HPX370
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nitin:
It’s hard to work without broadcast monitoring, I totally agree.
I ask once more. When FCP starts acting up, do see a lot of “malloc error” messages from FCP in the Console log (Applications/Utilities/Console) when viewing All Messages?
How easy is it for you to reproduce the instability issues? Does the exact same project/sequence work fine on your iMac or MacBook Pro with the exact same version of OS X, QuickTime and FCP? If this really is the case, it would be very interesting if you were able to prove it with a screen recording.
AppleHDVCodec.component in /Library/QuickTime handles all Long-GOP MPEG-2 decoding/encoding in FCP. When FCP crashes, you often see a reference to that component in crash log for the thread that crashed. That QuickTime component is still part of the Pro Applications QuickTime Codecs package which FCP X still use for (I guess until they are written as 64-bit AV Foundation components one bright and shiny day…).
Do you have any motion templates/projects in your sequence?
Rafael:
What kind of video card do you use for broadcast monitoring with your MBP? Matrox?
You say you shoot a lot of 100 Mbit Long-GOP MPEG-2 and 220 Mbit Intra-frame MPEG-2 using Nano-flash. Have you tried editing large projects with either XDCAM EX 35 Mbit or XDCAM HD422 50 Mbit?
Thomas
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nitin,
Sorry to hear this. I have been troubleshooting issues like this in FCP 7 for about two years now, and I am sad to say there is no proper solution other than transcoding to ProRes.
Do see a lot of “malloc error” messages from FCP in the Console log (Applications/Utilities/Console) when viewing All Messages?
Long-GOP MPEG-2 in FCP 7 is not a good idea for long form. Short sequences work pretty well, but there are some issues there too unfortunately. It really depends on how complex your edit is (mixed formats, keyframed basic motion effects, filters, motion templates etc.).
One thing that helps quite a bit though is to turn OFF thumbnail previews in the sequence. An other thing you should do when you start seeing green flashing is to quit FCP and trash the Constant Frames folder where you FCP capture scratch is set. Then reopen FCP.
Quit FCP every time you take a break, and reopen when you get back. This clears out any memory leaks going on and will give you more stability overall per day.
I have seen a lot of stability issues related to NVIDIA graphics cards and Motion templates in FCP 7, but that is a problem of its own. Combined with unstable Long-GOP MPEG-2 decoding makes for a very unstable situation.
FCP 7 only has about 2.5GB of ram available. The rest is used for loading the application and frameworks. Close all other sequences than the current one you are working in. This will free up memory. Consider also turning off the video output (broadcast monitoring), as this frees up even more memory.
Part of why editing Long-GOP MPEG-2 (XDCAM EX, HD422 etc.) in FCP 7 on a MacBook Pro is more stable than on a Mac Pro is because of broadcast monitoring/video out. Most Mac Pro based edit bays have a broadcast monitoring enabled when working, and this uses quite a lot of memory. This means there is less memory available to handle the Long-GOP MPEG-2.
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Wow. I had no idea! Now I finally know why I sometimes struggle with audio sync or need to render certain imported audio files in some projects. This has at times been driving me mad. Thanks Matt!
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You’re welcome!
I had almost forgot about this very strange bug.
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I think you are right Jon.
From what you wrote Hal Beery, it sounds like the file just have the wrong icon. Have you checked what application is set to open .m2v files on your system?
Get Info on that file Compressor made, and see what application is set to open .m2v files. I would recommend setting it to MPEG Streamclip if you have that installed.