CS3 exporting drop outs and red screen flashes when exporting via Media Encoder

Question

Hi forum
I have been using Premiere Pro CS3 for a long time on my dual core PC with no issues.  Suddenly, I am now getting a major issue i MUST get sorted asap for a client is waiting for the final video.
It is a HDV (1080i, 25fps) project/timeline.  An 8 minute video has been put together in this and every time I try to export as either MPEG2 (Blu Ray) or WMV, I am getting pixelation in certain places usually around certain cuts, or horrible red blocky pixels filling up the screen for a second or two. They seem to come always at the same point.  They don't happen when i render the timeline or show up when playing the edit itself in the timeline - just when i playback the exported video in premiere or in Windows Media Player.
To try a workaround I exported the whole video as high quality MPEG2 (blu ray - 30mbps), which I brought into a new sequence, then I exported small sections where this problem was happening as Uncompressed Microsoft AVI and called them "patch 1", "patch 2" etc. and brought them back in and overlayed over where the problems were occuring.  The short Uncompressed AVI patches seem to have exported with no glitches, so theoretically I thought I had a clean good timeline in my new sequence made up of the MPEG 2 video overlayed in the dodgy places with uncompressed AVI "patches".  However, trying to export a new MPEG 2 master from this has created the same problems, in the same places!!! Still drop outs and still those horrid red flashes filling the screen.  Not always as bad, and some places where there were problems are ok, but I am still left with most of the problems still there.
I am now trying to export the whole video as an AVI uncompessed but dont know if this will work and will take a very long time.
I do have Saphire plugins, but they are not being used in this new sequence so therefore could that be a possible problem?  I thought perhaps it was the brightness/contrast filter etc so removed that from some of the problem areas, and it helped on some of them, but not on others, so not sure its anything to do with my plug in or filters.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks, James

Answer 1

This topic is about a year old, but I thought I would reply because I just experienced this problem very recently and stumbled upon an easy solution.
Problem: When using Adobe Media Encoder to create an HD or .m2v video file, a bright red screen will flash followed by a mashup of red blocks/pixels somewhere within the file you've just encoded. This phenomenon lasts for exactly 10 frames before clearing up.  Most likely, you won't see this problem until you import the encoded file into Adobe Encore.  It shows up on the timeline, the preview monitor and the DVD itself. It occurs on edits that the system reads as being corrupt or when a flash bulb goes off from a still camera.  Both instances make the encoding process go haywire.
Solution: Encode your HD or .m2v file with CBR (1-pass) bitrate encoding rather than VBR (2-pass).  Don't worry about losing any quality in your video or creating unnecessarily large file sizes with your new renders. I guarantee you won't see much of a difference, if any.  I can't explain why this solution works.  It just does.
Hope this helps you as much as it did me.