Problem with Qmaster (Compressor 2.3.1)

Our cluster has worked fine for years. All of a sudden when I send a job to the cluster it just sits on "Processing: Copying Source File" and that never finishes. Angy ideas
Somehow I posted this twice. Ignore this post.
Message was edited by: Brent Hilgenkamp

Figured it out.
Long story short it seems that Compressor sends information about the encoding job to the controller telling it to respond on whatever IP address en0 has. So in my case when I added an iSCSI device onto en0 with a zerconf/Rendezvous address, this is the IP address that Compressor told the cluster controller to respond on, rather than the en1 IP that the request was actually sent on. Once I swapped cables and IP addresses on en0 and en1 everything started working again.
So if you're using more than one ethernet interface be sure to have your cluster controller subnet attached to en0.

Similar Messages

Problems with Qmaster and compressor

I have tried all the digitallrebellions downloads and instructions to fix compressor and Qmaster.
Now I get...
Qmaster - is not running
Compressor not properly installed
I have not tried the pacifist download. I'm to gun shy and frustrated at this point.
So my questions are, if I bite the bullet and purchase compressor 4 will this fix my problems?
Im still using FC Studio Pro 6.0.6
Will compressor 4 even work with FCP 6.06?
I really just want a way to encode my videos so that I can make cool HD DVDs with chapters and the ablity to make them loop for trade shows.
Having compressor back would be nice!
THNX
GB

Thanks for the quick reply,
I actually stumbled upon a simple fix for now.
I spent days of frustration and trying all sorts of solution, including installing Digital Rebellion's downloads and tried following their instructions. No luck.
Then I accidently I noticed that on one of my external drives that I had been previously running Macs back-up program “TimeMachine”. So I went back in time and grabbed the two applications before they stopped working and put them back on the start up discs in the applications folder and whala the programs work again. Go figure!

Trouble with Qmaster, Compressor

Hello all!
I am trying to compress a 48 Minute long HDV sequence to HD-DVD using the H.264 60 Min encode settings, and I am having problems.
I have read how to setup Qmaster to run multiple cores, so I have made a 4 core quick cluster on Qmaster with the following settings
"Quick Cluster with Services" - Checked
Under the services box, I have "Share" checked for Compressor
I have 4 instances selected (out of 16 possible)
"Include unmanaged services from other computers" - Checked.
All other options unchecked.
On Advanced menu, only "Log service activity to file" was checked.
What happens is that when I submit the job in compressor (I select the 4 cluster when I submit), I see all the instances in Activity monitor, but one of them is red and non-responding. I can't get all the instances to do work at the same time, as the cpu utilization is only indicating one instance doing work at a time. I thought they were all supposed to be utilized.
In the end, I waited 36 hours, and the encode still wasn't finished.
Any ideas what could be going on? Am I set up correctly? Let me know any thoughts!
Thanks,
Ken

Hi Ken here's some ideas. I use compressor/Qmaster all the time. I too have a brand new Nehalem MACPRO 2.93 @ 12GB.
Firstly for distribution, *compressor is your best friend*... see why...
Some diagnostics tips first:
• go check out /var/logs or the utilities/console.app (leave the late in the dock). Look under the various directories for QMASTER. There is usually a wealth of information in there.
• COMPRESSOR.app/prefs: not always but worth it to (a) MOUNT the shared cluster storage you used in /system prefs/qmaster/advanced: shared cluster storage
• COMPRESSOR.app/: look at HISTORY
• Batch MOnitor.app : check on the "i" status for each node running a segment in the multi pass segmented transcode (segment=TICKED in inspector video for compressor). Look at the "status" and "logs" in the pane.
• turn off ALL network devices (airport, EN & FW) until you get it working QMASTER seems to go looking everywhere for other nodes.. so dont let it.
• COMPRESSOR.app/prefs: set "NEVER COPY SOURCE TO CLUSTER" - we'll work about his when yu start to use other nodes outside your MACPRO.
• COMPRESSOR.app/reset background processes - to start
OK when you have all tjis done... let look at some ways to commence to fire up Compressor using Qmaster cluster.
• assume QUICKCLUSTER ste up: click "managed services=ticke" if you like
• *systems prefs/qmaster:* set SERVICES: for number of instances I am using 14! (*yes 14 instances*) on this MACPRO and it rides all the 16 cores and I can edit fine on FCP at the same time..PLenty of head room in these new MACPROS 2009 models (+doubters go buy a dell p.o.s+ ). *CAVEAT= YOU HAVE ENOUGH RAM* - not sure if 6GB will cut it so trial and error.. works great for me thou and I have 8GB not used from 12GB!. NOte in the non Nehalem MACPRO era the R.O.T. was one instance of compressor per core... however since I have bene usingthis baby on the last few days I have cranked it to 14 instances and it runs fine and all cpres are nearly 100% usage with a very responsive machine. THe transcodes are at least 3-4 times faster than my 8*core 2007 MACPRO!.
• *systems prefs/qmaster:* / advanced: tick the port ranges =on.
OK .. now you're ready to rock!
1) *systems prefs/qmaster:*: setup: clock OPTION=CLICK over the start button to RESET any transcodes that were going.
2) Set up a job in compressor.app making sure "job segmenting" is ticked in the ENCODER inspector.
3) submit and select your cluster in the list box.
4) sit back while your new MCPRO 2009 earns its money! - watch all the cores light up GREEN in the activity monitor!
5) watch teh console.app "all messages for errors" form QMaster.
OK.. this is only a summary.
POst your results of PM me if you need help.
I love compressor and Qm especially on this NEW MAC PRO.. it just smokes anything else I've used for transcoding.
Oh: *and one other tip for your workflow* which you can take or leave regarding HDV. Yep its not on may favourite codec list but here's some good tips for getting your compsition ready for distribution as you are trying to do from when I owned a SONY-Z1P HDV some years back.
This will cut 10's of hours of what you are seeing. (well maybe not that magnitude).
With the edit prepared and not rendered:
• take ALL the footage fomr the HDV that you ingested form the tape in the CAPTURE folder and use COMPRESSOR.app and transcode it to PRORES422 only. (Same resolution etc etc).... Simply try this out please. USe "copy and BLOCK SELECT + paste all the codec+targets information in the COMPRESSOR window.. its simple... submit it to your QMASTER and come back in say 10 minutes .. it shoud all be done. (what you have done is to make a mezzanine instance of LGOP HDV footage into iFRAME PRORES422 - no quality has been lost nor gained.
• in your FCP project DISCONNECT all the media from your Sequences and then RECONNECT the media to the same file names that are the new PRORES 422 - (conforming) in FCP.
• now your edit sequqnces are pointing to the PRORES versions of your clips. edit at will here and watch the play head and edits slice through prores422 like the proverbial +hot knife through butter+ (assume you have a fast disk system underneath.. my MACBOOKPRO does this in its sleep).
*when your ready to make a distribution*, try this from within FCP timeline/sequence:
• export QUICKTIME MOVE" as a reference movie (untick "self contained") and call the movie client_ref.mov (etc) . *This step is very important*. And +DONT EXPORT TO COMPRESSOR+. this is nuts at the moment. wait for FCS V3 soon I hope.
• last step: make this distribution using COMPRESSOR by using the reference clip client_ref.mov as input to compressor.
And as they say .. thats it!
Ph one more cool thing.. while it is transcoding and all your cores are ringing out at 99% each, try setting up a COMPRESSOR DROPLET. Set this on your desktop and drag and drop client_ref.mov onto it.. and watch compressor and master do their work.
Yes.. compressor is your best mate when you set him up properly.
HTH
w
sorry for the typos, I'm in a hurry...

Strange problem with HD compressor.

Hey all, I recently had to reinstall my OS on my G5 because the boot sequence randomly got corrupted after downloading a service update. (Re-installed with keeping all original files)
Here is my problem now:
I had an old FCP project with HD footage using HD compression and edited as such. After the reinstall of the OS which kept all original files, it seems to have done something to my FCP only pertaining to this compressor. When I load the project from scratch, here is the message I get:
"Codec not found. You may be using a compression type without the corresponding Hardware Card."
I brush through this by pressing OK about 5 times, and the project loads. When it loads, there is no timeline. I then try to open an original timeline and I get the same message, followed by a message saying "Out of Memory". Then finally I go into the settings of the timeline to see what the problem is and I get this message:
"Video compressor HDV 1080i60 was not found. Please check that the hardware is present and enabled for this compressor. Setting the video compressor to Animation."
After this I am able to go into the settings and indeed, I see no HD compressor at all.
I really am at a loss at what has happened, perhaps I should reinstall FCP? Is it possible to do so without losing all my projects and current scratches? Anyone have any ideas? Thanks very much in advance.

I reinstalled Leopard on it using the target disk method (because the DVD drive is broken on the computer). It installed fine, and I can see all system files on it, but I can't boot off of it-- same problem. Thanks for the suggestion... any others?
Tim

Tough, quirky, hard to figure sync problem with FCP / compressor / DVDSP

OK, where to begin?
I have a dvdsp project. Everything started in FCP. The video, because of poor results in compressor, has been compressed using bitvice. This results in an mpeg2 that is slightly longer than the original, because of the way bitvice handles 24p material (intersting aside, once the track is in dvdsp, its back to the original length)
So, in final cut pro, I took the audio tracks and put them at a speed of 99.9% to make them match. Then the audio went to compressor to make an ac3. The files that compressor output match up with the video, as far as length goes, just fine.
Here's where it gets a little wierd. Out of two tracks, one appears to be just fine on the very first pass through compressor... in sync, proper length etc...
In the other track, I got a delay, in the surround speaker tracks, that got longer as the track went on. I examined the fcp sequences that the individual sound files were exported from... same settings. I looked at the self contained quicktime files that were exported from FCP... all the exact same length. Yet, listening to the tracks separately, I could tell that indeed, a couple tracks drifted later (but still didnt add any length on to the end of the track). The only difference in the workflow for those tracks was that some were exported individually and some were batch exported. (dont ask me how/ why/ if that made the difference). There was also a wierd dropout of audio on some tracks, so I figured maybe just a fly in the ointment, try again.
So then I very methodically started over with the sound and repeated the process. I couldnt repeat the whole batch export making a difference thing. The resulting ac3 was in sync within itself, and matched up in length with the video, but the entire audio track drifted late, out of sync with the video.
My solution has been to encode the audio at 100% which is now in sync, but is actually shorter in length in dvdsp and now ends almost 2 seconds earlier on the timeline (but yet doesnt lose sync).
So, one track worked as expected and one threw me a bunch of curveballs resulting in a fix the doesnt make sense but kind of works. The material in both tracks as far as source, settings etc.. is identical.
Can anyone help me wrap my head around some of this so I can have confidence in a workflow moving forward?
thanks,
sorry for the lengthy post
powermac g4 933

Audio/video timing accuracy is never better than the tool you are measuring it with. Therefore, you can't always trust time measurements based on SMPTE time code with your life, especially when 2:3 pulldown is involved. If you end up with a MPEG-2 multiplex that stays in sync on a set-top DVD player, then you are safe, regardless of what FCP, DVD SP or any other software tool think of it.
Why is that? Because the timing accuracy in MPEG-2 is at least 3000 times as accurate as any SMPTE time code. It is true that MPEG-2 video may contain SMPTE time code information, but it is only optional and even when present it is never used for anything time critical, such as A/V sychronization. It just wouldn't work.
Assuming that I have correctly interpreted your post, that the length of the movie is about 33 minutes and that no further info is required to solve your puzzle, this is my 2 cents guess:
In your paragraph beginning with "My solution" I suspect that that the AC-3 file might have been slowed down by 0.01% even though it "ends almost 2 seconds earlier" according to the DVD SP timeline. Alternatively, the video time code might have been misinterpreted, DF versus NDF, suggesting it being longer or shorter than it really is. This cannot happen in a real DVD decoder, since it does not rely the SMPTE time code at all.
In the BitVice log you can read exactly how many frames there were in your 24p movie. Divide that by 23.976 to get a reliable duration, in seconds, for the encoded file. Note that if you get a reminder (meaning extra split seconds) it represents 1 to 23 extra frames. Roughly, every extra 41.7 ms means an extra frame.
You don't want to go by the 29.97 frame rate, because then (due to the 2:3 pulldown) odd frames will last for 33,37ms but even frames last for 50.05ms.;-)
As you have noticed yourself, different tools like DVD SP, FCP, QT player et.c, may report different lengths of a MPEG-2 video file. But, given the frame count, from the BitVice log, you can always calculate the exact duration, +/- 10 microseconds, because it is controlled by a 90 kHz clock derived from the 27MHz crystal in the DVD player. This clock makes
3003 ticks for every NTSC/29.97fps frame,
3600 ticks for every PAL/25fps frame or
3750 ticks during a 24fps frame.
In comparison, due to its error prone and ambiguous nature, the SMPTE time code system is not even reliable enough to be frame accurate, unfortunately.
Roger Andersson / Innobits AB, makers of BitVice MPEG-2 encoder for Mac.

Trying to get my fcp project to burn to dvd at the highest quality? Ive used compressor and then tried to put it in dvdsp put its not working. I am having problems with the audio or when i burn it , i cant play the dvd? any help would be appreciated

Ive used compressor and then tried to put it in dvdsp put its not working. I am having problems with the audio or when i burn it , i cant play the dvd? any help would be appreciated

I suspect you are attempting to burn an HD DVD, which will not play on a DVD player...
But if you provide more details such as the settings you are applying in Compressor, then we would be able to provide you more accurate information.
How are you adding the files to Compressor?
In FCP, what are your footage properties (command-9) and sequence settings (command-0)

Old problem with compressor

Hi There,
I am using a somewhat older version of FCP (5.0.4)
A few years ago I remeber having some trouble with the compressor.
It could not find the file's or something like that.
Someone in this forum helped me to solve the problem.
If I remeber well something had to be changed in prefernces.
The forum does not contain this old questions anymore, I regret to say.
The problem now is that after editing in FCP and exporting to the Compressor it gives a warning
"error trying to open source media file"
After clicking the ok button nothing happens.
Does anyone have a clue?
Thanks in advance
Thijs

I thought it had something to do with misplacing the original files but alas

Problem with compressor 2.01

Hallo everyone.
I've a great problem with compressor 2.01 and Final cut pro 5.04.
When I try to export a movie from final cut to compressor, all the two application crash.
All is regular when I export the movie with Quick time.
This happens to me for the first time I used Final cut.
The second problem is that when I try to reinstall compressor from the original CD, compressor is gray and not black.
I've used yet every possibilities also with Disk warrior applcation without succes
Please help me. Thank you

You need to update to Compressor 2.3.1 for Leopard compatibility.
Use Software Update, under the Apple menu item at top left of your screen, or look here: http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/download/

Are the problems with Compressor's encoding fixed yet?

Sorry for the slightly vague title but I only use compressor once a year basically, which is after the production of a Christmas show I produce. Last year I upgraded ot Final Cut Studio to do the DVD and got caught out. I encoded using what I thought was the best setting (2 pass variable bit rate) and got jittery encoding. After investigating on this very forum, I found lots of comments about known problems with Compressor's encoding in this setting and ended up re encoding using one pass which was "ok".
I'd rather do the best job I can so the basic question is, "is it fixed yet". Keeping in mind I understand about altering settings so that I can get the time I need onto one disc (110 minutes unfortunately!) What setting will offer me the best possible picture quality, regardless of encoding time, with compressor? Many, many thaks for any advice you regular user can offer!!
Happy Christmas in advance, Gareth

Gareth:
According what was posted in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=760041&tstart=15
by Brian a lot of problems must be solved using the last 2.3 version.
Hope it helps !
Alberto

Im having problem with the dvd quality, I'm using compressor to convert the video fils from apple prores to mpeg2 .It doesn't matter how long my video is even if its just 5 minutes I'm getting cut edges in the video , does anyone have any idea ?

Im having a problem with the dvd quality, I'm using compressor to convert the video fils from apple prores to mpeg2 .It doesn't matter how long my video is even if its just 5 minutes I'm getting cut edges/lines in the video specialy if i have titles it comes up really bad , I took the same video to a friend of mine who have PC and he uses Encore , did the encoding there and it was just fine no problems! BTW I tried using doferent setings in compressor from CBR and VBR I even pushed up the setings to 8 or 9 BR and still no luck !
does anyone have any idea ?
Thanks in advence ...

Let's focus attention on just the Sony. (What model and what resolution are you shooting?)
For now, I'll assume you're shooting 1080i.
Take a representaive clip into a new sequence. Add a title.
In your sequence, make sure field dominance is set to Upper.
Set render settings to Pro Res 422.
After rendering, export QT self contained.
Import into Compressor (I'm now referring to v3.5).
Select the 90 minute Best quality DVD preset.
Open frame controls and turn on (click the gear icon). Set Resize filter to Best.
Submit burn and check quality on TV.
Good luck.

Problems with ac3-audio not encoded in apple's compressor

Hi everyone,
I'm working with DVD Studio Pro 4.0 and when encoding audio with the compressor into ac3, there were hardly any problems.
Now I have to get along with external ac3-files, not encoded with compressor. Settings, format etc. are identical to the compressor-created files; despite of these similar settings, I now expericene a very low sound (about 3x lower), not comparable to the volume of the compressor encoded files.
Has anyone an idea on this subject?
Thanks.
Greetz
Power Mac G5 Dualcore2Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

You might get better responses in the DVD Studio Pro or Compressor forum?

Compressor problems with software update

Software update has downloaded and installed once or more every day since last week thursday!
nothing works, the software update installs 2.01 compressor and QTmaster over and over again.
DVD Studio Pro is a mess...
How can I make software update wasting my time and bandwidth?
Message was edited by: Host

I was experiencing this same problem with the 3.02 update. It look like I was finally able to resolve it by manually downloading the compressor update and installing it instead of using software update. I only made the change today, but so far software update seems to recognize that I'm up-to-date.

I have FCP 6 and I've had nothing but problems with Compressor and DVD studio, I would just like to scrap 6 and move on to 10but use my same laptop, which is still running OSX 10.5.8, What do I need to do? to make this happen?

d

abelvideo wrote:
..... I finally did find involved clicking and dragging folders and files one by one to try it fix it from deep into utlity folders and such that I just gave up and been working with what I got, it really *****
If you have difficulties fixing problems with software that is acting up I would suggest that you do a clean install of your OS and the software. That is, after backing up your files, of course.
abelvideo wrote:
I am looking to go to a editing software that isn't Apple but will operate on a mac and has custum DVD capabilities included. But we'll see, best regards and thank you for your time.
Adobe CS is probably what you are looking for. But I'd go erase & install before throwing the towel.

Isolating problems with MPEG2 VBR "best"

There have long been discussions here around problems with the quality of MPEG2 compression with Compressor v2.x, usually difficult to quantify or "solved" with "It doesn't work, use something else" such as a different product, Compressor v1 or a Quicktime MPEG2 export component. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I have to believe that someone who owns the code behind the Compressor product really does care to improve the quality of the compression, and is just waiting for a decent test case to figure-out what everyone is complaining about.
That in mind, I would like to propose that the most visible problems I've seen can be isolated to something to do with what is done when switching from "VBR" compression to "VBR best" compression, either in 1-pass or 2-pass mode. I would be curious if others who have had similar quality complaints could also check if they are using "VBR best" compression, such as the various default presets for "DVD: MPEG2 best quality..." which use "2-pass VBR best". In short, it seems as though one can get rid of the most serious artifacting problems by taking a "best quality" preset and changing the quality from "2-pass VBR best" to simply "2-pass VBR" (and similarly for 1-pass).
My own example: I've taken a short clip (less than 30 seconds) from the start of a recent home movie and published it along with some results on my iDisk's Public folder (Finder > Go > iDisk...): member name "dickermn" [sic], with no password. There you will find the folder CompressorTest, containing...
-> 2006winter - a self-contained QT movie with the DV source material.
-> dualG4 - a folder with the results of Compressor's MPEG2 compression with various settings, as run on a dual-1GHz G4 system.
-> coreDuo - a folder with the results of the same settings as above, but with Compressor run from a coreDuo mini.
-> *.png - two pairs of window-capture shots showing the same frames as compressed with "VBR" and "VBR best" settings.
Background: after having various odd and intermittent problems with MPEG2 compression results, I've used the recent upgrades to start with a clean slate: on the G4 system I ran Software Update, then removed all the components of DVD Studio Pro 4, Compressor and Qmaster, along with all preferences, application support files, frameworks, receipts, etc, as recommended in these web pages to remove these programs, then did a full install of my unversal upgrade to Final Cut Studio, and re-ran Software Update. This got me up to the current ProApps updates and Compressor v2.3.
Using only Compressor's default presets, selecting "DVD: Best Quality 150 minutes - 4:3" (2-pass VBR best, 3.7Mbps average rate), gives results with very visible artifacting. Using this same preset but changing the quality to "2-pass VBR" appears to clear up the most visible problems. Similarly, selecting "DVD: Fastest Encode 150 minutes - 4:3" (1-pass VBR) gives good results, but changing the preset's quality to "1-pass VBR best") produces visible artifacting.
For the purposes of testing, I also installed just Compressor on my coreDuo mini - a clean install - then ran Software Update to bring this to Compressor v2.3. Running the same tests as above on the Intel-based machine produced similar artifacting problems when selecting "best quality", but in different places in the media than on the G4. Using the same quality settings as above, but moving the average bitrate down to 3.0Mbps has similar behavior, but the artifacts are just more pronounced, and using a default preset with higher bitrate (5Mbps average, not included here) the artifacts are still quite visible, but less pronounced. From the 3Mbps results on the G4, the still frames captured show good examples of the problems at hand, though the artifacts are much more visible with the video in motion. These are the examples described below.
The clip shows some still titles against a still, horizontal-blurred background. At the end of the titles, the blurred background "un-blurs" and the motion starts: a horizontal pan, a wipe transition, and a downward pan. The subject is all falling snow, trees, our back deck, my son and me. The footage was taken with a consumer-grade Sony handheld camcorder.
The problems first noticable in the video appear as a blockiness to the images, particularly notable against the floor of snow where the image shifts visibly to different intensities of gray/white as the camera moves. More severe are blocks which don't move correctly with the camera, at first visible as a jerkiness to the opening background as it un-blurs, but more pronounced in the trees and decking during the downward pan at the end.
At about 14s is a good still of the blocking artifacts, seen here in the 1-pass VBR still frame. Note the large blocks in the snow in the "best" encoding, which are small enough to be lost in the noise for the "not-best" encoding. These shimmer between the different shades of gray as the camera moves.
At the last half of the clip, as the camera pans down, parts of the trees appear to jump independently of their branches. This is very clearly visible around the straight-lines of the railing in the lower part of the frame as the clip ends. The still is from about 23s into the clip, and you can see a block of the railing in the lower right which has clearly jumped-above the rest of the railing. Interestingly enough, this is the correct placement for those pixels in the next frame (as the camera continues to pan downward). In each of these "jumpy" cases, it would appear as though blocks of pixels show-up one frame early, and their surrounding blocks catch-up in the next frame (while these hold still). Again, when using the same settings without "best" quality, the jumping does not occur.
Note that with each pair of still (png) images you can group-select the pair and double-click to open them both in Preview, which allows you to toggle back-and-forth easily between the "best" and "not-best" versions. Comparing the two, you can easily spot several blocks in the frame which shift relative to their surroundings.
While I am aware that MPEG2 at low bitrates is a complicated thing (though I will leave open for debate how low 3-4Mbps is in today's world), and consumer-grade video has lots of noise which the encoder has to dance-around, I do believe it is fair to assume that the "best" settings should give visibly better results than their faster "non-best" counterparts, all else being equal - at the very least, the results should not be visibly worse. It is worth noting that the "best" VBR settings do appear (subjectively) to give better contrast or color-depth, so clearly something right is going-on - I just have to believe that there is something going awry in the whole process which creates artifacts negating the other benefits, but which, with any luck, could easily be fixed.
Please post with your comments, experiences or similar issues... or exactly what is the proper way to get this information to someone who could fix it?
dual 1GHz G4 + coreDuo mini Mac OS X (10.4.8) Compressor v2.3 / Final Cut Studio (univseral)

Well, I've found one more piece to this puzzle: hardware graphics accelerators.
In short, I tried this same test running Compressor on my G4 PowerBook (with Radion Mobility 9700) and got better results. The terrible blockiness and pixelation problems seem - dare I say it - gone from the MPEG2 video. In this regard, the video compressed as both the default "2-pass VBR best" and the same preset adjusted to use "1-pass VBR best" both looked cleaner than any of the VBR "not best" encodings produced on this machine, or either of the others.
Unfortunately, we're not completely out of the woods: the problems evidenced later in the clip - blocks which appear displaced in space/time for one frame - are still there, though they have moved to different locations in the frame.
This gets me to thinking: my PowerBook is just barely past current muster in terms of hardware-accelerated graphics (enough to run Motion, for example), whereas my other two machines are not (NVidia GForce4Ti & mini's Intel graphics). So this starts to get to the root of "If these presets don't work, why does Apple label them best - or distribute them at all?" I'm going to hazard a guess that there are various pieces to the codecs which can take either a software-only path or a hardware-accelerated path, and the bugs seen here exist only in the software (non-accelerated) path. Anyone testing on the latest top-notch hardware with a fancy-shmancy graphics card wouldn't go down that path and see any problems. And the problems are subtle enough that they'd even slip by the occasional testing of the slower path.
So now I'm out to find a more-current-than-my-PB graphics card to run the test, to see if I can get rid of the other problem. Updating to Compressor v2.3 got rid of most of the problems, and if buying new hardware is all it takes to fix MPEG2 compression, I might just spring for it - and hey, I'd get to run Motion, too.
So anyone out there with a whiz-bang graphics card care to run these tests and compare/contrast with what I've got here? I might know someone with a new MacBookPro, which I hear has a pretty current graphics chip in it...

Problem with photos on dvd output

Not sure where the kink is in my process, exactly, but maybe someone will have run into this before...
i'm working with hi-res photos in my FCP sequences mixed with HDV video. I've been using the motion tab to resize and everything looks fine in final cut. When i use compressor to output the m2v file using the standard dvd presets, some of the stills have problems on the resulting file. not all of them look bad and it doesn't seem to be discriminating based on resolution of the original image file. I'm sure there's a good explanation, but the photos that get messed up seem to be random. some look great.
In the .m2v file played directly off of QT, they sort of just look darker, like perhaps they are interlaced strangely or something and the even or odd rows are black. but when i use that file to burn a dvd in dvd studio pro, the resulting image looks crazy messed up. Anyone know how to wrangle this one? Thanks

In case someone else runs into this problem, i did some extensive chatting with a final cut guru guy and all we could figure out is that i'm experiencing some sort of bug. that it shouldn't have been doing what it was doing. It started happening after my boss upgraded all of the studio software and quicktime to the latest versions. upon closer inspection, what was happening is that some of my photos were missing fields when exported as a qt, some weird byproduct of interlacing. we tried the settings all sorts of different ways and the problem did, indeed, go away when i changed the sequence to progressive, but i didn't want to sacrifice resolution of the rest of the footage just because of the problem with the few photos that were janky, so i found two workarounds that fixed the problem...
1) using the de-interlace effect on just the photos that were giving me problems. it lowered the resolution, but not enough to make a difference and it looked good.
2) using the motion blur effect. This filled in the missing fields and i did it at such an unnoticeable setting that it might have even looked better than the pictures i de-interlaced.
If this jogs someone's brain as to what the actual problem was in the first place and you think it's not just a bug in the system, then i'd be interested to hear how to avoid the problem in the future.

Problem with Qmaster (Compressor 2.3.1)

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