Error, can't render 4K video?

New Davinci Resolve user here. I've managed to edit together a project and am trying to render the output (from the "Deliver" pane), and I keep getting an error, and have no idea what to do about it.

My source video consists of a variety of 4K video clips (3840 x 2160 at 24 fps). The source video is MP4, using the H.264 video codec. I haven't done anything specially fancy-- basically just trim and join video clips, a crossfade here and there, some very basic titling.

When I go to render the output video, I want to keep the output settings the same as the input video, so for my export options, I choose MP4, H.264 codec, 3840x2160, 24 fps, same as the input.

However... when I click the "Start Render" button... after just a second or so, a dialog box pops up with this error:

Recording Failed.
Recording failed with Error : Failed to encode the video frame.

...and no other information whatsoever. I've tried googling around, haven't found any reliable answers. I saw one suggestion "lower your render speed" on one forum elsewhere, but I've tried setting the render speed to "1" rather than the default "Maximum", and the same thing happens.

I'm on a Windows machine with 24 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, running a freshly installed Davinci Resolve Studio 14, version 14.0.0.078.

I note that I got the same error when I was using the free version of Resolve 14. When I asked around at the time, someone had suggested "oh, the free version doesn't do 4K video", which is why I shelled out for the paid version... but it's still giving the same error so now I have no idea what to do or why it's unhappy.

Any advice would be much appreciated! Thank you.

You can't render 4K h.264 under Win7. Export to an intraframe codec and compress it in another application.

You can't render 4K h.264 under Win7.

Thank you for the information, but could you clarify? (Bear in mind that I'm completely, utterly new to editing video in any form, so the practical details of what works where, and what doesn't, and why, and how to work around it, is a total blank to me. I know what a codec is, but not the practical matters.)

For example, if instead of choosing MP4 at H.264, I choose QuickTime output and some other codec besides H.264 (for example, "MP4 Video"), then it renders just fine, and plays back just fine. Unfortunately, that doesn't meet my requirements because my TV won't play back that codec. If I choose QuickTime with the H.264 codec, then I get the same Resolve rendering error as before.

It would help if I could understand why it won't render. Is this some fundamental limitation of the operating system? Something I could fix by installing some third party product? What's the deal with this particular codec, given that it can read just fine, and that there's no problem encoding to other codecs at 4K? Any suggestions where I could find references for further information about this sort of thing? What other platforms do support encoding in H.264? Would this work if I had Win10? Is this a problem with the software (i.e. "Davinci Resolve 14 has a bug, and some other software could work")? Or is it a problem with the OS itself (i.e. "it is not physically possible for any software running on Win7 to do encode H.264 at 4K")?

Export to an intraframe codec and compress it in another application.

Thank you. Had never heard of "intraframe codec" or "interframe codec" before I googled it just now. I get the idea (I understand the tradeoffs around data compression in general, I just haven't needed to work with video editing myself before this). If I understand what you're telling me, what you're saying is, basically, "take the source video, transcode it to a completely different codec that's semantically nothing like H.264, export it that way, then use some other app to turn it back into H.264 again."

Won't that result in a massive degradation of quality, like taking a photocopy of a photocopy? Will I get usable video out of that?

And by "compress it in another application", I'm guessing you mean I need to get some other software that can convert a video file from one codec to another? Any suggested examples of such? If Davinci Resolve 14 can't write it, any ideas what other app can?

Apologies for the huge slew of probably-stupid questions, it's just that I simply don't know where to begin. I'm just looking for some way that I can take my 4K H.264 source video, do some basic editing on it, and then play the resulting video on my TV, ideally at about the same quality as the original video. I got Davinci Resolve hoping that that would do the trick, but haven't found a way to make that work yet, and I'm open to any practical solution or workaround to let me get there. Any suggestions most welcome.

Won't that result in a massive degradation of quality, like taking a photocopy of a photocopy? Will I get usable video out of that?

And by "compress it in another application", I'm guessing you mean I need to get some other software that can convert a video file from one codec to another? Any suggested examples of such? If Davinci Resolve 14 can't write it, any ideas what other app can?

Apologies for the huge slew of probably-stupid questions, it's just that I simply don't know where to begin. I'm just looking for some way that I can take my 4K H.264 source video, do some basic editing on it, and then play the resulting video on my TV, ideally at about the same quality as the original video. I got Davinci Resolve hoping that that would do the trick, but haven't found a way to make that work yet, and I'm open to any practical solution or workaround to let me get there. Any suggestions most welcome.

No, it won't cause massive quality degradation, because those codecs are called "intermediate" and offer very good quality. Loss is minimal. It's very different to h264 etc which used to deliver final product to consumer. This in most cases means small files, but quite substantial quality loss (definitely compared to intermediate codecs). Both codec types server very different needs.

If you want to "easily" watch Resolve timeline on TV you need BM HDMI card. This will give you full screen TV preview while you edit your timeline (at 100% quality). Simple card costs about 150$.

No, it won't cause massive quality degradation, because those codecs are called "intermediate" and offer very good quality. Loss is minimal. It's very different to h264 etc which used to deliver final product to consumer. This in most cases means small files, but quite substantial quality loss (definitely compared to intermediate codecs). Both codec types server very different needs.

If you want to "easily" watch Resolve timeline on TV you need BM HDMI card. This will give you full screen TV preview while you edit your timeline (at 100% quality). Simple card costs about 150$.

Ah, okay, thanks.

To be clear on my requirements: I'm not plugging any special hardware into my TV, other than a little external hard drive where the media sits. I just need to have a media file that the TV itself can play. I've done some rummaging into the tech specs for the TV, and it looks as though H.264 is pretty much the only codec it can handle. So whatever I create, it has to ultimately end up in H.264.

So, my overall situation is: I have a bunch of H.264 source videos. I want to edit them (trim, splice together, add crossfades, etc.) into a new video, which is also H.264. This is what I have to have, otherwise any video editing is meaningless to me.

The way I was trying to do this was to do all the editing-together in Resolve 14 and then directly export to H.264 output, which doesn't work because Resolve 14 apparently can't output H.264 for some reason I do not understand.

Therefore, if I'm understanding correctly, what I should be doing is something like this, yes?

1. Edit together my video in Davinci Resolve 14.
2. Export it in <some codec other than H.264> at the highest-quality 4K I can, to a file
3. Feed that file to <some other converter program> that can read the file which I output from Resolve, and re-encode it as an H.264 file.

Correct?

If that's the case... then the only two missing things I have here are, first, what file format and codec should I export from Resolve in step 2, and, second, what converter program (that will run on Win7) can I run in step 3 in order to generate the file that I need?

Doesn't have to be a free program, I'm perfectly willing to spend money (heck, I already shelled out $299 for Resolve, what's a few more)... just have no idea where to start looking. Are there any suggestions? Thanks!

Handbrake is a common go-to video transcoder for converting intermediates into delivery codecs. It's free.

If that's the case... then the only two missing things I have here are, first, what file format and codec should I export from Resolve in step 2, and, second, what converter program (that will run on Win7) can I run in step 3 in order to generate the file that I need?

Doesn't have to be a free program, I'm perfectly willing to spend money (heck, I already shelled out $299 for Resolve, what's a few more)... just have no idea where to start looking. Are there any suggestions? Thanks!

Resolve does export h264- it doesn't offer great control and quality, but it does export h264 (just note that WIN7 is unsupported OS for Resolve).

You can export ProRes ( if on Mac) and DNxHR HQ or Cineform (eg. Medium quality) MOV if on PC.
Then you can use Handbrake, Hybrid, VirtualDub FilterMod (anything x264 based) to export final h264 files. All those apps are free- not need top pay money for this step. Try Handbrake first. Google for typical settings.

Any suggestions most welcome.

Out of curiosity, you have assigned a *valid* destination drive/folder, right?

jPo, CSI

Try this topic: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=68825&p=384793&hilit=windows+7+h264#p384776