FCP cannot export movie, timeline needs rendered??

[DrRock]

I've had this problem before, and I can't remember the solution.

I am trying to export my edited timeline as an MPEG-2 so I can put it into DVD Studio Pro to burn a disc. When I go to do so, it tells me the timeline needs rendered, even though I have selected render many tmes, in all configurations (render all, render both, render needs rendered, etc...). When I click to render, the render window flashes on the screen for like a half second, but it never renders.

Does anyone know what's wrong? Is it a scratch disk or RAM issue? I have had success exporting as quicktime, but don't I sacrifice quality when I do that? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Lebowski]

i dont think its a ram or disc issue. just click on an empty spot in the timeline to deselect any clips you might have highlighted. Then hit apple-A (select all) and then go to your render menu and select render all.

im suspecting you may have some tiny clip selected only and keep rendering it over again.

 

[THX1139]

try closing the project.. and then reopen it. When it opens, render if needed. What this does is force FCP to look for the render files if they exist.

If that doesn't work, try deleting your render files and rendering your timeline again. Or manually reconnect to the render files if you know for sure they are ok.

 

[DrRock]

^

I tried closing & reopening, clicking on my timeline, and even setting my preferences to auto render. Still nothing. The actual message is "Your movie cannot be encoded until it is rendered."

I haven't deleted my render files. I can try that, but how long will it take to re-render? Just depending on the timeline?

I was able to save it as a non-self-contained quicktime, making it an FCP quicktime, and that seems to work, but I still wonder about the quality difference. Any ideas?

 

[smeegs]

I tried closing & reopening, clicking on my timeline, and even setting my preferences to auto render. Still nothing. The actual message is "Your movie cannot be encoded until it is rendered."

I haven't deleted my render files. I can try that, but how long will it take to re-render? Just depending on the timeline?

I was able to save it as a non-self-contained quicktime, making it an FCP quicktime, and that seems to work, but I still wonder about the quality difference. Any ideas?

Is it maybe something to do with Unlimited RT, I know that that has caused me similar problems in the past, try changing to Safe RT in the Timeline pop up to see if that makes any difference.

With regard to quality when outputing to Quicktime first, I wouldn't worry about it. If your outputing to with either PAL or NTSC DV then the CODEC is a spatial rather than temporal CODEC so their shouldn't be much generational degradation caused by re-encoding, and any extra artifacting on reprocessed frames should also be minimal (kind of like saving a high quality JPEG, editing it and then saving it as a high quality JPEG again).

When viewing DV CODEC files in quicktime you only get a low quality preview by default. If you go in to Movie Properties, click on Video Track, then the visual settings tab, in the bottom right corner there is a 'High Quality' Check box, if you click it you will be presented with a much better looking version. This is all in QT7, it's similar in older versions.

An alternative (if you have the disk space) would be to output as Quicktime with the Animation CODEC, as it is lossless, so you can be assured of the quality.

 

[Rod Rod]

I was able to save it as a non-self-contained quicktime, making it an FCP quicktime, and that seems to work, but I still wonder about the quality difference. Any ideas?

For the highest quality renders you have to change your Timeline settings.

http://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_video_proc.html

 

[LethalWolfe]

I was able to save it as a non-self-contained quicktime, making it an FCP quicktime, and that seems to work, but I still wonder about the quality difference. Any ideas?

There will be no quality difference using non-self contained QT file 'cause all that file is is a reference file. It contains no audio or video but merely points back to the same files that your timeline in FC points back too.

Have you tried the usual trash preferences, fixing permissions, etc.,?


Lethal

 

[DrRock]

^

"Have you tried the usual trash preferences, fixing permissions, etc.,?" I'm not sure how to do that.

Here's something I didn't think of:
If I bring in Photoshop Images as titles, you know how they open in their own sequence tabs? Do I need to render those individually? The only way I can figure get them into my timeline is to copy & paste. Once they're in the timeline I render there, but do I have to render the originals? Or, once they're in the tiimeline, can I just delete the original?

Edit:
I don't know what I did, but now it works. One thing I did notice was that before i tried to export, all of the render status indicators at the top of the timeline were blue, indicating that everything was rendered. However, after trying to export, and as the error message window popped up, a few small sections turned red. When I closed the error message window, they turned back to blue again, keeping me from finding them. But it turned out they were green anyway. I tried a couple different methods of rendering, eventually clicking on the green choices. After a couple tries, it finally worked.

So my question is, shouldn't those small sections have been covered by "render all"? And also, if they weren't rendered, why did it allow me to export as the other formats, but not Mpeg2? Do the other formats render on their own as they export? And is there a setting by which I can automatically render that which needs rendering whenever I select an export method? Also, the Mpeg2 file is much smaller than the FCP quicktime file. Does that mean the FCP QT file is higher quality, and will it even work as an acceptable file for an asset in DVD SP?

Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions and tips, they were helpful.