Render problem in PProCS3
 

For reasons unknown to me, whenever I render video I'm editing in PProCS3, I get the green bar, but the image doesn't come through. I get the dreaded "media pending" screen instead. If I export a sequence without pre rendering, the images all seem to come through just fine to regular avi or quicktime files. But when I export to Encore, the m2v gets 99% through and hangs. Nor is encore able to import the timeline, which hung at 49%.

I suspect these things are all related somehow, but have no idea where to start to troubleshoot this. Corrupt project file?

System specs are more than adequate for the job.

--Stephen

Earlier when I used Premiere Pro 2, I once in a while experienced the "99% and then hang" problem you describe. The solution I came up with, was to restart the computer and Premiere. Then the encoding went fine. (sometimes it was enough just to restart Premiere.)
Only once I had a corrupted project file. But I was saved by the backup project files that Premiere autosaves.
Now when using Premiere CS3 (production premium suite), I have never experienced the same problem.

Regarding Encore:
Have you tried to export as .avi out of Premiere, and then import the .avi file to Encore, and let Encore do the transcoding instead?
I believe both Premiere Pro and Encore use the same mpeg encoder.

It could be a corrupted media file or a bad piece of ram. Try looking on google for a ram check program.

Thanks for the tips. I have not been entirely successful in finding a good RAM tester. I downloaded the Windows Memory Disgnostic (WMD) and created a startup floppy, but the AHCI BIOS (Phoenix) doesn't support floppy drives. So then I took the "burn CD" option and booted from that, but had to change the boot sequence to do that, and change it back when the disk was out. [Aside: I thought the ROM drive was routinely #2 in the sequence and skipped when empty, but my BIOS stops the boot cycle if that drive is number 2 and empty. Not sure why. Anyone run into that with the Phoenix BIOS (came with a Tyan 2696 Mobo)?] That was a surprise, but minor I think.

The big problem is that the WMD program reported that it could not test all of my memory due to a 4Gb limit. I have 4 Gb installed, but only 3Gb active under Win XP Pro SP2. Could that be a problem? Since I do not have more than the 4Gb limit I am not sure why the WMD thought I do.

At any rate, the standard diagnostic did not detect any errors, but I don't know how much confidence I can have in that due to the limit message. My next move is to run the extended diagnostic, but I would also like to find something that can test all the memory in the system.

Can anyone recommend a memory tester that can handler larger amounts of memory?

Your render problem sounds like one I banged my head against for a couple of months. Like you, I'd render out a (HDV or DV, didn't matter) project using the encoder and at least half the time it would crap out at 99%.

In trying to visualize what the render was doing at that point and my best guess was that it was multiplexing the video and audio tracks. I suspected issues with the audio so I rendered them out separately. Worked like a trooper. The problem has not recurred except about 10% of the time when rendering the audio. Adobe support concurred that it's probably an audio codec issue.

When working with projects now, I simply render out the audio only then drop that new audio clip over top of the original audio.

The real fix will be to uninstall PP and the two other audio applications I have installed on that machine and then re-install PP. This was the recommendation of Adobe support.

Thanks for the hints, Tripp. However, my problem is not with regular export, which seems to work fine. The trouble is that (some of the time) when I render a file within Ppro CS3 that I am working on, the image on the timeline disappears behind the media error screen. These files will export okay, but they will not transcode into Encore.

Okay, the fact is I have never been able to export a file from PPro CS3 to Encore, but that if for another thread.

I will keep the audio thing in mind, but the disappearing video while still in PPro is what has me scratching my head the most. Not sure what the trouble is.

Stephen... My regular exports generally work OK, but not always. Regular export issues crop up generally on really long content (about 2 hours).

The problem usually rears its ugly head when using the Media Encoder, so our problems sound similar.

As an aside, I find I get better results when I export a movie (SD) from PP and drop it directly into Encore. I've never had a transcode within Encore fail. I have no idea why the problem goes away and the video quality is a bit better but you might want to try that and see if it helps.