Black Holes in Project
 

I have a rather large project for a client that includes A LOT of scanned photos and home movie clips. My client did not want to address changes for MONTHS and finally I at the point of sending this to Compressor for DVD creation. Problem is that for some reason, RANDOM photos are not showing up in the final output from compressor. They are playing in the timeline and I have no error messages for missing footage or elements. Time line plays through fine but in the review in DVD Studio, there are black holes where some of these elements should be. I go back into FCP and reconnect the missing pieces and all seems fine.

Any ideas as to why this could be happening and is there a way to wholesale reconnect the media? My wife believes the project is evil and corrupt because it includes some photos of a not-so-popular well known figure. I used to laugh that comment off but given the random nature of missing elements, I am now not so sure!

Thanks

Hm, odd.

There's the usual stand-by "trash the preferences" suggestion, which sometimes cures those oddities.

Are you sending directly to Compressor from the FCP timeline? Try exporting the sequence to a self contained QT file (Export > QuickTime Movie... not Export > Using QuickTime Conversion) and then running through Compressor.

If that fails, try using Media Manager to make a new project copying the used media and go from there.

Best of luck!

It could be there's something iffy about the original scanned images, especially if they've come from outside sources (read: the client). If you have Photoshop, open up the offending images and double-check their file type, file size, image mode, bits etc. and correct and re-save as necessary. Sometimes, supplied jpegs and the like have come from goodness-knows-where and just have hidden gremlins.

Or, you could just cut out the pics of Dubya.

Thanks Mike and Paul
 

Just after I posted my note, I did export a QT file and ran that through compressor. I also exported through compressor as well. The QT file went through Compressor just fine and quickly (58 minute video - 10 mins to compress) and came through clean. The file that came from the timeline right into compressor had issues - again. I suspect something is corrupt with compressor.

I did trash my preferences and that did not seem to make any difference. At least I am able to deliver now!

As far as Dubya, I don't think the pics of client with HIM are causing havoc....

If all else fails, there's always my parish priest!

Thanks.

Reed

Reed,
Glad you got it sorted!

Force render everything that presently has the dark green real-time playback. That should make Compressing from the timeline work. Some JPEGs work but have hidden corruption, I've experienced this. Making the QT movie forced FCP to render everything that wasn't in the native codec of your sequence.

Either do what William suggests, or use the Render Tool to delete all your Renders and then re-render the sequence.

My "theory" is that after you render something in FCP, then go back a make an adjustment to a small clip within that render area, then render, then make another adjustment, then render again,etc..... After a while FCP get's confused as to when to "point" to the render file and when to point to the file in the timeline. You end up with old renders and other weird stuff. That's why when I'm finished with a project I normally delete all the renders (using the Tools>Render Manager) and then re-render.

Works for me. :)

Thank you all for your suggestions
 

In the end, I exported a QT movie and brought that into Compressor. After I got a clean copy, I played with the Render manager and did some housekeeping on the render drive. Discs have been sent to my client and when I hear all is OK, I will remove the drive from my system and shelve it.

Reed