AVID - PLS HELP: Can´t export my sequence, cannot render, nothing....
 

I do have a very strange issue at the moment concerning XDCAM HD export to WMV/Quicktime or whatever on my Avid machine. Can´t export anything and I can´t even do a mixdown of the sequence:-(
This happens on my laptop as well as on my workstation. Is it a bug in the software?

The problem seems to be the effects. As soon as I delete the effects from the Video track, playout/export is not a problem at all. But as soon as I have effects running, there´s no way to get it out of the machine (neither wmv, nor quicktime, no mixdown-> nothing). I have started a new project, brought in my material and sequence and had the same troubles again. Exactly the same error code:

"FatalAbort Assertion failed: _imageDim.height > sampleDim.height, file \coresw\MacPlayers\Devices\ConvToUncomp.c, line 450".

Really strange. It´s not possible to export back to xdcam, to mixdown - nothing.

To me it seems like a bug somewhere in the software. What do you think?
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ps. my workflow was. proxy import, edit and batch import the hi-res data. everything fine up to the point of colour correction/effects or whatever

I'm not familiar with the XDCAM workflow, but plenty of people on the Avid forum are.

www.avid.com

cheers,

I posted the message on the avid forum as well.

Thanks,
Emanuel

Emanuel,

I am seeing this too but when using 30p material which is not officially supported. What frame rate material are you editing with? Also, are you using WM templates for SD or HD and what is your project set for HD or SD output?

Thierry.

Hi Thierry,

thanks for your reply.
The material was shot in 25p, Avid project is set to 1080/25. But the problem is not only the export. I can´t even render the sequence. As soon as I drag an effect onto my video track, rendering, export, writeback isn´t possible any more. It shows this error message. Still I have tried out a 24p sequence which worked nicely, but .... there weren´t any effects on the track. just transitions. So transitions seem to work somehow ....
As soon as I remove effects, writeback is possible. So I guess the problem has to be somewhere in the rendering process?!? As long as I just edit there´s no problem. But as soon as I put effects on, it doesn´t work.

My new workstation will be hopefully arriving soon, .... but still - as I´ve tried this out on my old workstation and on my laptop this problem might still be there on the new workstation.

Thanks so much for your help,
Emanuel

I'd try a videomixdown, replace all your videotracks with the mixdown.
If you can't create the mixdown: big problem!

oops, sorry just reread your message, so no mixdowning.

Sometimes breaking the sequence into shorter pieces helps, or throwing away all rendered video effects, or doing a videomixdown prior to the effects, ...

Emanuel - being mPEG2 I'm not sure if it's like HDV or not. In Avid with HDV you have to export to program stream before you can export the sequence to tape or disc. Worth a try.

http://www.avid.com/onlineSupport/su...ontentID=10596

John and Frank,

thanks very much for your help. I´ll try that all out and will let you know how it worked out. Thanks so much meanwhile

just a quick update
 

No success so far. No idea what to do. Problem is still there on the new machine. There seems to be a bug in the software somewhere. Unfortunately. I´m absolutely stuck!

You should really pursue this in the Avid Xpress Pro forum (MAC or PC?) to find a solution. Give them all your system specs, computer, etc. and the error message. Provide a detailed explanation of the workflow.

Also look through the knowledge base for the error. It may take a while to do a complete search. http://www.avid.com/onlinesupport/

It seems to me that there is some kind of mismatch in the format size. NTSC vs PAL or 4:3 vs 16:9. Hard to say. Maybe you picked the wrong type project when started the batch import.

i've seen the same thing.
this is a major avid bug.
cannot render if using any XDCAM HD material.

current workaround is to transcode all material into DNxHD, then u can render/export etc.

another bug is:
avid wont recognise 25P XDCAM. Avid will recognise it as 50i (interlaced)!
this will present problems in some effects such as timewarp, pan and scan, resize, etc.
So basically, right now 25P project setting cannot be used as it will mismatch with the 50i recognised material.

:(

Also the transcode didn´t work for me. It worked for a very short sequence, but more than 3 minutes and I´ll have the same thing again:-(
Avid said that there might be a CPR soon, or maybe there might not be one soon. They just don´t know. Not very useful news unfortunately.

As I tend to shoot everything progressive, this is a terrible situation for me now.

There is a CPR in the works, probably available end of July. Hopefully, it will address these issues and others....

Thierry.

Thierry,

thanks a lot for that info. We will just have to wait and see:-(
As I said in my previous post, transcoding to dnx is also not possible. It gives me the same error message.
Also interestingly, when I try to export "untouched" (no colour correction etc.) xdcam hd material from a sequence into wmv it sometimes works. When I try to do the same with Quicktime or H.264 it doesn´t work and it shows me the same error code again.