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-   -   Need help with Compressor... (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/final-cut-suite/487933-need-help-compressor.html)

John Meeks November 23rd, 2010 12:16 PM

Need help with Compressor...
 
Ok, so I'm using Compressor to output to DVD.

I'm using it as a render cluster, so it splits the video into segments to compress.

The problem I'm having is that it's using different settings for the different segments. Specifically, it's using 30 non-interlaced frames for some sections and 60 interlaced frames for others.

I can't set the framerate manually because it's grayed out and clicking on the gear won't unlock it.

Why is it doing this, and how do I get it to stop?

William Hohauser November 23rd, 2010 05:26 PM

Are you exporting a self-contained movie first or making a reference movie? This is an interesting problem, how do you see that it's doing what you describe? Is this problem between cluster segments or edits? A self-contained movie should render one way only. Try compressing without the render cluster as a test. You might need to reset Compressor, search this forum for hints on ways to do it.

John Meeks November 23rd, 2010 05:47 PM

No, I'm not using a self-contained movie, I'll give that a try.

I can see what it's doing because when I'm watching the DVD it looks good and then it looks like crap (interlaced) and then it looks good again. It's difficult to see where it starts and stops (edit vs. render chunk) 'cause it's only visible during fast motion, and there's not much in my video.

If I either do a self-contained movie or a render without the cluster I'm looking at about 400 hours either way... I also only have about 2 more TB free and I'll run out of disk space, so I won't be able to keep the intermediate files. This will be a problem if I need to re-edit something because I'll have to re-render stuff and I've already put a few weeks of computer time into that. I guess I'll just have to live with that (if I try it and it works) but Apple stuff is supposed to "just work" so I'm really upset by this. If I wanted to put up with this kind of thing, I would have used Adobe products on Windows with a much cheaper computer... xD If this is true, I'll be disappointed that I paid for a multi-processor system and need to use it like a single-processor system.

Thanks for the advice, and I'll let you know how it works out.

John Meeks November 23rd, 2010 06:09 PM

I turned off "recompress all frames" and it seems to be going faster, but it still says it'll take about 10 hours (and this is only 1 movie file out of about 48).

Now I see why my friend who's into this video stuff spent $15,000 on his Mac after finding finding his $10,000 PC inadequate, and still complains about how slow it is.

John Meeks November 24th, 2010 12:39 PM

I finally finished producing a DVD from a self-contained movie, but it's still interlacing parts of it.

William Hohauser November 24th, 2010 04:01 PM

What format are you editing in? It sounds like you are using HDV or XDCam. Any mpeg based format will take a long time to export or render. The best workflow is to convert all your footage to ProRes or DVCProHD before editing and edit in the same codec sequence. This reduces renders and exports by quite a lot. I just converted a client's 90 minute XDCam file into a DVD and it took four hours between making a self-contained movie (it was in segments that had to be connected) and the DVD files with the cluster going.

Back to your interlace problem. Is it isolated to specific scenes or it just randomly starts? Is all of the footage from the same camera shooting in the same frame rate?

John Meeks November 24th, 2010 04:42 PM

I did another test, still with the self-contained movie, and disallowed segmenting, and it STILL has some interlaced parts. I'm getting sick of this...

Sherif Choudhry November 24th, 2010 07:55 PM

can you put 1 minute of the segment (original source file) that is causing most artefacting on an FTP site or drop box? and i will stick it into my dvd workflow.

John Meeks November 24th, 2010 09:14 PM

It usually takes about 10 minutes of continuous playback before the problem appears, so I don't think 1 minute will show anything. If I jump to where i saw the problem before, it still does not occur until it has been playing back for about 10 minutes continuously.

This is part of what makes it so frustrating, it's hard to replicate. Can I mail you a DVD? I think that's the most reliable way to replicate it.

William Hohauser November 24th, 2010 09:32 PM

That's not a problem with the file. That's a problem with playback and a curious one at that. If it takes 10 minutes before the problem appears but that can be from any point in the file it has to be a hardware issue or your computer is switching resources to a background process like a search directory update or Time Machine.

John Meeks November 24th, 2010 09:41 PM

I think it's more likely to be a bug in the Apple DVD Player than a problem with my specific system. As I said, the same problem occurred on my friend's Mac.


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