Compressor problems
 

Dear All,

Further to my earlier postings about DVD Studio Pro (thanks to all who responded) I now have a question about Compressor.

The problem is that as my MacBook Pro hard drive is virtually full with stuff that I need, when I export my film in HD via Compressor I keep getting a warning that my start up scratch disc is full and that I need to delete files to free up space. I have set up my external hard drive as my current scratch disc which has lots of free space, but I still get this warning. Can anyone suggest a way around this problem? I am very wary about copying over FCP files (rendered files, etc) to my external hard drive (and deleting their original space on my computer hard drive) because when I've done this in the past FCP can't locate this media even though in theory it is stored on the external hard drive - this is another story and one that has caused me many headaches.

By the way, my film is 25 minutes long shot in HDV and I am using "HD DVD H.264 for DVD Studio Pro 60 minutes" as the Compressor setting - which seems to take hours and hours to compress (is this normal?).

Many thanks
Simon

How much room is left? If it's less than 1gb then you can have some problems. There must be something you can move to make way for the scratch files that Compressor makes while in the process. Compressor will render files that are filtered but play in realtime before making the target file. This is why you need some free space.

You can try to make a self-contained QuickTime movie of your project on to your external drive and then run that thru Compressor. This way all the rendering as been completed. And yes, HDV to h.264 does take a long time without some sort of hardware assist.

Hello William thanks for your reply,

I've tried your suggestion of making a QT movie and directing it to (saving) onto my external hard drive and the same warning message comes up after about 1 hour's transfer, i.e. that the start up scratch disc is nearly full. I'm pulling my hair out here because nothing seems to work. Any other possibilities? One thing; I didn't set up the transfer as a self-contained movie and the setting I chose was HDV 1080 25p.

All the best
Simon

Hi Simon...

The general rule is you should never completely fill up your hard drive (a rule which I too have broken on more than one occasion) but that's not the issue here...

You're using FCP Export to compressor right? Did you try to Export as a Quicktime Movie (Self-Contained) with Current Settings to your external hard drive and then open that Quicktime movie in Compressor, then do the conversion?

Or alternatively you could try (I found this in the Compressor User Manual page 119) in FCP in the toolbar click Final Cut Pro > System Settings and under the Scratch Disks tab change your capture and render scratch disk to your external hard drive.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Hello Aaron, thanks for your info. Yes I've already tried your suggestions and the processes still keep using up the limited space on the computer hard drive, even though I reset the scratch disc to the external hard drive. I've now installed the FCP software onto our other laptop as a way of solving the memory problem and now FCP won't even let me open the film which is stored on the external hard drive; I just keep getting this: "Error message. 41". I am at my wits end with all of this, and all I want to do is burn a blasted DVD!

Cheers
Simon

If you just installed FCP on this other laptop, then did you do a check for any software updates?

Just a thought.

You DO realize that at the end of all this you will only be able to play your disc in HD-DVD players right? (The format that lost the "format wars") The disc will be formatted with an HD-DVD file system (unplayable on an SD player)

Make the file self-contained or you won't be able to open it on another computer. You will really have to make some room on your laptop. Setting the scratch disk doesn't always make room for hidden files that FCP or Compressor will make during temporary rendering. Explore getting a hard drive upgrade from your service center.

I thought that HD h.264 will work on a BluRay or does it have to be formatted differently?

I ASSUMED that since the OP had specifically mentioned DVDSP, he was using that tool to author the disc and we all know that DVDSP doesn't "do" BluRay. If I misread that, please disregard.