Compressor Lag when Batch Exporting

I'm trying to send five 1080p ProRes422 HQ sequences from FCP to Compressor (FCP Studio 3) for batch exporting, but it produces a HUGE lag every time I try to apply an export setting to a sequence in Compressor. We're talking 3-5 minutes of processing before I can move forward.
I simply selected the five sequences in the FCP bin and clicked "Send to Compressor."
Is managing five HD sequences truly too much for Compressor to handle or am I doing something wrong the the way that I am batch exporting?
By the way, I'm well aware of the batch export feature built into FCP, but I have to transcode videos several times a week into 5-10 different formats and I'm sick of having to manually tune the settings of each export in FCP. I want to be able to take advantage of Compressor's custom export setting profile management.

I didn't realize that I could add more than one export preset to an item in Compressor. So all I needed to do was send the native sequence to Compressor and apply all five of the export profiles to that one sequence.
Sending five individual sequences definitely killed it though.

Similar Messages

HELP! Why does FCP Crash when Batch Exporting Freeze Frames?

I have been Batch Exporting a lot of freeze frames recently but just last week FCP just started to crash when I tried exporting. It will let me export one single freeze frame but no batches. Also, when I open FCP now some of the freeze frames I have made looks what appear to be like green digital hits on them. I thought it was a space issue but I have plenty of room and I've taken out my FCP Preferences and nothing seems like it's working. I have final cut version 5.1.4 and the Error Message Reads: "The Batch Export failed for some items. Please review the status column to identify which items had errors." When I check the status it says "File Error: Unknown Folder" which I don't understand at all.
Any ideas?
Power Mac 10.4.10
Power Mac

Well it seems like it might be an OS or hardware problem rather than a FCP problem, however...
Have you installed Diskwarrior on your startup drive? If not, do it, and try launching it from your startup drive and then try running it on all other drives.
Describe your hardware configuration (you should really post all your system specs in your profile here). Can you change the batch export destination to another drive? Describe what your source material is, your sequence settings and the export settings. You might try changing your export settings.
This is not normal behavior and I'm sure we can solve this.
Message was edited by: Michael Grenadier

Action batch export issue with image trace

So, currently I'm working on batch processing jpeg sequences using illustrator's image trace and distortion effects. I have batch exported the image traces of the sequences via Adobe bridge. Now I'm trying to create an action which opens the .ai files containing those image traces, apply a graphic style to the trace, and export a png from that. I'm banging my head against the wall trying to get this to work right now. If I do the steps (step by step... not using a recorded action) I want on a single file, it works great, but the moment I batch export using the action I've created, it puts the original .png image that the image trace was linked to, on top of the image. The result is a bunch of .png exports that look exactly like my original image sequence. If I add a "save" function to the action and open the resulting .ai files, I can see that the image trace vectors are in the file. The "linked png" however visible on the layer above those vectors. Anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong? How do I get rid of that pesky linked image.
Also, for anyone who might be thinking that it has something to do with expanding the image trace before applying effects, this issue I'm running into, I've determined, is happening higher up in the hierarchy of the actions... If I simply make an action to open the image trace illustrator file and save it back out, the same issue occurs... placing the .png "linked file" on top of the vector image.
While I'm at it, I might as well ask if anyone knows how to change the illustrator default image trace preset.... Without being able to change it, or much less specify in the action sequence that I'd like to use a user created image trace preset rather than the default setting, it's greatly overcomplicating my workflow. Makes what could easily be one-step batch processing into two. Seems pretty silly if you ask me.
Please, if you guys have any insights on this, let me know. It's super frustrating... By the way, if you're wondering what type of effect I'm going for, the idea (as well as some explanation into their own process) starts at 12:44 of this video (http://vimeo.com/77427470).
THANKS!

Just wanted to let you guys know, for anyone who might be having my same issue... My home computer, even after a fresh install of Illustrator, was still placing the linked jpeg over the traced vector shapes when batch exporting... I did however find a workaround. Rather than using Bridge CS6 for the batch image tracing, I used Bridge CS5 to trace in Illustrator CS5. Then, I used Illustrator CS6 to batch export an action that imported and applied an effect to those image traced sequences. When you do this, it forces you to expand the tracing on import (because of the difference in Illustrator versions I'm assuming). This way, when you batch run the action, it's already working with expanded vector shapes. Not sure why this works, but it does.
Also, I was having some issues getting Illustrator to apply the graphic style when batch exporting. I got it to work by copying an object with that particular graphic style to the clipboard, then adding in the action I was running a "paste" command, followed by a "clear" command. I can only assume that Illustrator was having issues loading custom graphics styles while batch exporting. The paste/delete technique is annoying, but gets it done.
Anyways. Just wanted to check in on this one. I'm happy I was able to muscle my way through it all.

16x9 sequence is getting squeezed to 4x3 when I export from Compressor

My usual Final Cut to Compressor workflow is producing an unusual result. I am starting with an anamorphic DV NTSC sequence in Final Cut, but when I export this from Compressor using the Uncompressed 10-bit codec in a Quicktime wrapper, the video is squeezed to 4x3.
Here is my process in depth.
These are the sequence settings shown in Final Cut.
720 pixels x 420 pixels. The pixels have an aspect ratio of 16:9 and so the sequence is displayed widescreen. (My one question about this section is what do the QuickTime Video Settings mean? This is not something that I have ever adjusted... can it affect how Compressor interprets the sequence?)
Then I export a reference Quicktime.
Then I bring this Quicktime reference movie into Compressor and apply the QuickTime Uncompressed 10-bit settings provided with Compressor. Now, I don't normally adjust the geometry at all with this workflow since I thought that this format automatically used the current frame geometry settings from the sequence. However, having no luck with this I attempted to fix the problem myself by adjusting the geometry to match my sequence settings in FCP.
Unfortunately, my attempted manual override of the compressor export failed. The quicktime that I got from this was squeezed to 4x3 just as before!
Using QuickTime Conversion directly from FCP I was able to get the appropriate 16x9 quicktime, but I really need to figure out how to do this in compressor since I have to process a lot of sequences and need to keep FCP available and Compress in batchs. So, any suggestions?

Your problem is one of the most common suffered by people new to editing or new to the anamorphic scene.
It starts with a misconception. DV anamorphic video is NOT 16x9. The camera that shoots anamorphic 16x9 is actually shooting squeezed 4x3 video. If you note the sequence settings in your first picture, you'll see that your actual frame size is 720x480 which is a 4x3 frame size (3x2 actually, but it's essentially the same thing). The anamorphic check box is merely to let FCP know that the footage was squeezed when shot so that it displays it properly to you.
Though FCP can most times recognize anamorphic footage upon capture, QT player does not. All it sees is the 720x480 frame, so that's why it looks squeezed.
To get it to look correctly in QT, you have to actually change the frame size in Compressor to a 16:9 frame size. For DV, that is 854x480. Go to your Geometry controls and choose Custom 16:9 from the drop down menu. Then type 854 in the horizontal box. Then save that as a preset for you.
When Compressor does it's thing, the finished movie will open up as a 854x480 clip in QT which will be the proper aspect ratio for your video.
On another note, I'm not sure why you're going from a DV/NTSC sequence to compressing in Uncompressed 10bit. Because the video was captured and edited in DV, it'll never be of higher quality than DV. You might as well keep it that way, unless there's something else about your workflow that I don't know/understand.
I hope this helps you understand how anamorphic works.
Andy

Compressor fails when using FCP "export to Compressor"

I have a 6-minute long, ProRes422 (HQ) project that I'm trying to export uncompressed.
I'm trying to avoid the typical "Export QuickTime Movie" function because I get awful gamma shift issues. The colors are washed out and the image just looks like complete garbage compared to what I'm seeing in my FCP canvas. When I export using Compressor, the issue is a lot less severe.
Now, when I export a small part of the project using Compressor at ProRes422 (HQ) settings--say, a few seconds or so--it exports just fine.
But when I try and export the entire sequence, things get wonky. It starts exporting and the progress bar churns along ... then the project bar goes blank and the time reads, "Unknown time remaining" ... then the progress bar starts again ... and then again, blank with "unknown time remaining." Finally it just gives up and says, "Failed."
I have no idea what's causing this problem--but I've tried exporting to ProRes422 (HQ) 6 different times, and it has failed every time. I've exported the same sequence to H264, using Compressor, with no problems at all.
Thoughts?

Hi chris, have u made any progress with this? If not, then it's worth trying to isolate the problems to transcode your distribution on compressor.app?
Questions:
1) Despite your reluctance :) , to export a master from FCPX as part of your workflow, does FCPX render the storylines (project) out completely? And .. Then...
2) does the project play back from within FCPX to your satisfaction?
If not then determination of issues should be directed to the elements , objects and effects n transforms you used for your FCPX project composition
Else, If 100% expectation from FCPX as a above, Then proceed to compressor And Qmaster problem determination.
As posted many times in this forum, a workflow involving a "send to compressor" from with FCPX etc, involves building a transient master to hand off to compressor.
It's possible that the compressor and Qmaster structures in your home directory are corrupt and it's very simple to fix.
And yes, FCPX CANNOT take advantage of a qmaster cluster when submission of the transcode is made directly from FCPX.... (Old news)
So..
Look in /var/logs (console.app) for any obvious errors as well.
Check out this thread for example.. 3rd or 4th post down...(there anew many similar procedures in these forums) ..
Preserve your settings and destinations from compressor if u have than Just clean out the Compressor and Qmaster structure... Reset Qmaster if u intend to use it.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17356372#17356372#17356372#17356372
Hth
Post your results for others to see.
Warwick

Compressor is not working. When I export to compressor from FCP to encode DVD, FCP freezes and Compressor appears to be working but the progress bar never fills no files are created. I'm using a MacBook Pro 10.6.7 version 2.66 GHz core 2 Duo 4GB 1067 MH

Compressor is not working. When I export to compressor from FCP to encode DVD, FCP freezes and Compressor appears to be working but the progress bar never fills no files are created. I'm using a MacBook Pro 10.6.7 version 2.66 GHz core 2 Duo 4GB 1067 MH. I'm not new at this. I re-installed FCP successfully. I trashed the preferences. Please help.

Do you have any filters applied to your clips?
This happened to me before, I accidently had applied a broadcast safe filter to a color matte that was black....
I figured it out by duplicating my sequence and deleting items from my timeline 1 by 1 until I was able to export a reference movie.
Anywho, export again, this time with "self contained" movie selected.
Then try to import to Compressor.

Can you batch export in FCP X, can you batch export in FCP X

I work for a business and am constantly working on projects that have multiple, separate projects within the same project. because of this I do all my editing during my business day and then when I leave for the day, I used to batch export the projects and the next morning I would come into work and be able to move onto the next thing. so far in FCP X I have not been able to find out how to do that. I know that in FCP 7 you could do it obviously, but I'm wondering...does FCP X have that same capability because I can't seem to find it and I don't really have the time to waste by exporting during the day.
Thanks for your help,
Scotty

Hey Scotty,
Andynick is correct about the batch export workaround. The way I do it is this:
1.     Go to the Project Library
2.     Select the first project you want to export
3.     Go to file>Send to Compressor. (I set a shortcut -Sift>Option>C from preferences, If you need help with that let me know.
4.     Repeat this process for each project
5.     Go to Compressor (it will already be open)
6.     Now here's where it gets kind of anoying, You need to choose which batch you want to make your main one. Pull off the tab on top and drag that project into your prefered batch, then close the old tab. Now you'll have two projects in your chosen batch.
7.     repeat that process for the rest of the batches Compressor created. When you're done you should only have one batch open with all of your projects in it.
8.     Submit the batch and let Compressor do it's thang.
Things to note:
When you send a project to compressor, it will automatically choose your default settings and location. If you want them to be different you'll have to do it mannually or change your defaults before you begin this process.
FUN right! Hopefully Apple will fix this so you can at least select multiple projects in the Project Library to make it a bit easier.
If anyone has a better workflow I am all ears!

Premiere CS5 Batch Export and Sony PMW-EX1R

Hey Guys!
I have multiple sequences that I need to batch export, and was wondering if there's some kind of plugin that I can use in order to do so.
Normally, I would have to select each sequence, press Command M and place it into the render queue for Media Encoder. Is there a way I can do this by selecting a batch of sequences by highlighting them and send them into the Media Encoder's Render Queue at once, rather than individually?
Also, we film on a Sony XDCAM PMW-EX1R and need a workflow to help us out with compression.
We're working on MAC PRO's and so Media Encoder doesn't have a WMV compression setting for our computers, and the MOV settings give us weird bugs on our website. So to work around this we use Compressor to compress a raw file into various MOV and WMV movies and use Media Encoder to encode F4V files.
We export from Media Encoder in h.264 with a .mp4 extension to try and replicate what our camera shoots in, but I have a feeling that that might not be the correct format to do this in because Compressor gives us this weird Frame issue where it places a single random Frame at the very beginning of our video.
Is there a better export option for Sony XDCAM PMW-EX1R users that will give us a fairly small file size and also have great quality to match our original footage, as well as not having us have to wait long periods of time for export?
We've tried
Quicktime ProRes 422
Quicktime Uncompressed
Animation
Jpeg Sequence
And they all gave us extremely large file sizes (which I understood since they're lossless) and H.264 seemed to give us as big of a file size as FCP did with it's MOV files which is what we're trying to do.

So you're saying that I basically have to pick either using a file that isn't good for delivering content, or selecting a file that's big in size and long to export?
Well, look at it this way: if you want the highest quality output, you want to start with the highest quality source. If you're exporting from Premiere or through AME to a deliverable file--like a WMV or an H.264 MP4--you're all set, because you're accessing the original source media and unrendered effects as they exist in the Premiere Pro sequence. If you're exporting from a different app, you want the most pristine source file to create your deliverable.
Let's say you make apple juice. If you get whole apples from the orchard and press them, you make some mighty delicious juice. However, if you're trying to cut down on shipping costs, and you have the farmer smash the apples into chunky apple sauce so that you can fit more apples in the same amount of space, you can still make juice... but it won't be quite as tasty It's sort of the same with encoding...
An intermediate file will take up more space, because it's uncompressed (or less compressed), but it shouldn't take as long to generate, either--again, because you're not compressing it or you're compressing it less than your final deliverable. Obviously, there are dozens of codecs you could potentially use, so there's a fair bit of experimentation you need to do to determine the best combination for your purposes. There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to encoding, unfortunately; it's a path fraught with compromises.

I'm getting a still image in the beginning of my movie when I export. Why??

I don't understand why FCP is doing this. I export a bunch of movies (using batch export) and some of them export right while others get messed up. There would be a still image in the beginning or sometimes the end instead of seeing the actual movie. I can still hear the sound so it's only a problem with the video.
Because I use QT compression to export I don't have the option to re-compress all frames like in the "export using QT movie" command... right?
Help me out here. It's driving me crazy having to export everything a few times until final cut gets it right... Thanks.
Message was edited by: CBeditor

NLEdit,
Here's what I have (to the best of my knowledge):
Original source: mini DV tape, it's all HD
I use capture now to digitize the whole tape. My easy setup is: HDV- 1080i60 FiriWire Basic. After I have digitized all of it - it's an .mov file with the settings I just posted above. So when final cut is done digitizing I already have all the files in my browser window and I just drag them and drop them in the timeline and I choose to match the timeline settings if they're different. So my timeline settings look like this:
Frame Size: 1440x1080
Vid Rate: 29.97 fps
Compressor: HDV 1080i60
When I'm done editing, I use batch export to export a bunch of sequences (they all have the same settings I just mentioned above) and I chose:
Format: QuickTime (custom), Compression Type H.264, frame rate: 29.97 fps, key frames: every 24frames, compressor quality- high, encoding: best quality. Then for size I choose either 1280x720 HD or I use "custom" to make them half the size of that so that would be 640x360. My point is to end up with an .mov file which I can then encode into an flv or just burn it on a data cd.
As for your question number 1: I'm not even sure what you mean by that.
Does all that make any sense now?

Video lags when I add effects

When ever I ad effects to my video the video lags. Its fine when I export it. Is there anyway I can turn the videoquality down to stop this or something,

Clip Properties
Name                        takekeys1
Type                        Clip
Creator            QuickTime Player
Source            NewVolume take me with you :mov:takekeys1.mov
Offline
Size                        377.8MB
Last Modified            Today 7:32
Tracks
Vid Rate            29.97
Frame Size            1920x 1080
Compressor            AppleIntermediate Codec
Data Rate            7.4MB/sec
Pixel Aspect            Square
Anamorphic
Field Dominance            Upper(odd)
Alpha                        None/ignore
Reverse Alpha
Composite            Normal
Audio
Aud Rate
Aud Format
Sequence Properties
Name                                    Sequence1
Type                                    Sequence
Creator
Source
Offline
Size
Last Modified                        Today7:32 PM
Tracks                        5V,6A
Vid Rate                        29.97
Frame Size                        1920x 1080
Compressor                        AppleIntermediate Codec
Data Rate
Pixel Aspect                        Square
Anamorphic
Field Dominance            Upper(odd)
Alpha
Reverse Alpha
Composite
Audio                                    2outputs
Aud Rate                        48.0KHZ
Aud Format                         32-bitfloating point
Im using final cut express4.0.1
Right now I am using the blink effect. I wasn’t sure if it was just that effect so I tried the emboss effect and a blur effect and the video seemed to lag when I used them as well. When I export the video the blink effect runs smoothly, but its hard to tell if I got the video how I want it when it lags in the preview window.

How can I fix my Batch Exporting problem?

"the batch export failed for some items" is what I get when I try batch exporting footage.
It worked fine for the first month of using FCP 7.
All I want to do is convert my quicktime clips to Apple Pro Res.
I have no Idea what the problem is!
Help?

After I resist the temptation to ask why you're transcoding to ProRes in mid-stream, all I can come up with is:
Need more info on the error circumstances
OR
You could batch the source clips in Compressor and start over
OR
Try smaller batches
OR
Trash your prefs, repair permissions, and try again

Is there a way in Final Cut Pro 7 to save custom Batch Export settings?

Is there a way in Final Cut Pro 7 to save custom Batch Export settings?

Don't think so. Years ago, I seemed to figure out a way in an earlier version of fcp, but when I tried to recreate it, I couldn't make it work.
You can send to compressor and save custom presets there.

How do I include formatting when I export Discoverer Report to Excel?

Hi All,
Using the Desktop version of Discoverer I can export to excel but the formatting is not included.
But when I use the Plus or Viewer version to export, the formatting is included.
I would like to export using a batch file at the command prompt but the formatting is not included.
Any ideas?
Here is my command line:
c:\ora10g\bin\dis51usr.exe /connect user/pwd@teamprd /opendb "TEST" /sheet "X" /parameter PRODUCT '007441' /batch /export XLS c:\resource_managers\TEST

Hi,
Have you tried exporting to HTML and then opening the HTML in Excel, e.g.
c:\ora10g\bin\dis51usr.exe /connect user/pwd@teamprd /opendb "TEST" /sheet "X" /parameter PRODUCT '007441' /batch /export HTML c:\resource_managers\TEST.xls
Hope that helps,
Rod West

How do i change the size of a clip using batch export?

hi, when i try and do a batch export to change my clips from a DV PAL to PhotoJpeg 320*240 sized clips the "options" button is greyed out. so all i have as export settings are the QT presets in a pulldown list. is there any way i can create my own setting? (and the also save that?)
thx

what i'm seeing is that
a) selecting all files in Media Man. gives me the option to size and set codecs but not the audio off.
b) selecting all files in Batch Export allows me to pick a format (QT, aiff etc) choose a preset (photoJpeg included) select whether to include audio and video or both but not set the size or customize the QT settings
c) selecting all clips then "file>export>using QT conversion" gives me all options, but seem to grab only the first clip.

No Method of Batch Export for Clips with Alpha Channels?

Good morning,
As many a flustered editor has eventually discovered, in order for FCP to export sequences with alpha channels to a 32-bit format, the timeline has to be un-rendered at the time of export, or else the transparent parts will appear black in the outputted file. This sort-of makes sense if you know how FCP and render files work, but in a perfect world I think I'd have designed the export interface a bit differently. Now that I think about it, I'm actually working in an Animation (Millions of Colors +) sequence, so converting transparent areas to black makes no logical sense at all.
Anyway, I have several sequences that I would like to export as 32-bit TGA QuickTime files, preserving their transparency. If I Export Using Compressor, the process results in pre-rendering of the sequence, turning the transparent areas black. The same problem occurs if I export QuickTime reference movies from FCP and open them directly with Compressor.
Does anyone know of a way to avoid this silly phenomenon or am I stuck individually exporting each sequence from FCP, one...at.......a................time?
Thanks,
Zap

Thanks, Andy, "Batch Export" eventually did the trick!
I forgot about that tool because I've never actually had to use it before! After playing around with it for a while, I found that as long as the sequence settings for each sequence in the batch are set to a codec with an activated alpha channel, it works just fine.
Thanks again,
Zap

Compressor Lag when Batch Exporting

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