View Full Version : Export AVI from Quicktime player...


Jay Voog
May 6th, 2008, 08:16 PM
please help!
I have a 20 minute sequence in FCP.
i export it as quicktime movie (self contained). the file ends up being 4 gig.
i open the file in quicktime player and export as "movie to AVI".

the file is 4 gig like the original quicktime movie but only the first 45 SECONDS of the video is there. what happened to the rest of the video?
i check the original exported quicktime movie from FCP and it is full 20 minutes with no problems.

i have tried doing this many times and exporting to different drives. it all turns out the same with the exported Quicktime AVI movie being ONLY the first 45 seconds.
i also did the obvious of restarting computer :)

i have done this procedure many times in the past and have not had this problem before.
has anyone encountered this before? any thoughts??
any help at this point would be much appreciated...thanks in advance!

Dylan Pank
May 8th, 2008, 04:51 AM
I don't know what's happened. I would suggest deleting the final cut pro prefs file. and trying again. What codec are you exporting too. Avi can't handle all the codecs quicktime Quicktime (for example QT only ones like Apple HDV, AIC, or ProRes.

You could open your QT movie in MPEG Streamclip (http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html) and try a "save as" to the AVI format.

Jay Voog
May 8th, 2008, 07:08 AM
I would suggest deleting the final cut pro prefs file. and trying again.


Thanks Dylan,
could you let me know where/how to delete them?
thanks again!

Dylan Pank
May 8th, 2008, 07:21 AM
Close FCP

Do a spotlight or finder search for final cut pro and you'll come across a file called (from memory) apple.com.finalcutpro.plist - delete it, or make a backup first (depends how precious your settings are) and relaunch FCP.

Again what codec are you exporting to?

Jay Voog
May 8th, 2008, 07:40 AM
using quicktime player, exporting to "AVI" DV/DVCPro-NTSC.

Dylan Pank
May 8th, 2008, 07:43 AM
I'm stumped, I've done this many times myself (though PAL, not NTSC) without a problem.

The MPEG streamclip approach should work, maybe the problem is Quicktime.

Jay Voog
May 8th, 2008, 07:58 AM
yeah...whats funny is it does a sequence just fine that i tried at 15 minutes, but it seems anything larger than that (like this 20 minute one), it only encodes 45-50 seconds of the sequence. i was trying to look for a time limit setting or something that could cause that, but couldn't come up with anything.

couple questions for you if i could...
what exactly will happen with deleting the prefs file?
sorry, i am not the best on understanding how FCP works entirely, i just know how to edit with it.

and another question...what version of quicktime are you using? i am using 7.2. i have heard of many problems with upgrading from that so i never really did. i am on a mac G5 running tiger with FCP 5.0.4


thanks again for your help and time...i appreciate it!

Jo Potts
May 8th, 2008, 09:06 AM
Why don't you export from FCP straight to AVI?

File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion, then select AVI from the drop-down box. You can change the settings there...i've used that before and has worked fine (albeit for about 5 mins of video).

Jay Voog
May 8th, 2008, 09:23 AM
Why don't you export from FCP straight to AVI?


That is what i do usually, but sometimes i make a quicktime file for a backup first. then i just take that file and make the AVI. not really any different.
but both ways create the same situation. that is why i don't know what is up. i make a regular quicktime file from FCP its fine. make an AVI from FCP its not :(