Blackmagic Forum

having a problem and cant seem to solve it.

i have done some footage processing (3:30 min) with only a couple of nodes.
as per usual, i setup the IO as quicktime but when i start the render, it only reaches fr25 and returns an error.
console only produces ad "saver failed to write frame 24..."
tried enabling fusion and qtserver in my AV and firewall.

piping in the source footage directly into the saver produced the same error.

i posted this under general aswell, my mistake.

if you go in the timeline to the frame where it fails does it also fail in the viewer?
maybe there is something wrong with your input media?

hi michael,

thanks for the reply.
that occurred to me but the playback works alright.

The eyeon quicktime server that is still used by fusion has a number of problems, some of which are documented on various forums. There are also lots of issues with the quicktime format and player themselves, with many many internet pages dedicated to them.

One of the fusion problems that I've found is that if you attempt to save to a quicktime file and the quicktime file already exists then you often get the type of error you are experiencing, as the render will fail when it has enough frames cached to try and write to the output file. Sometimes it will write, but the suffix will be changed to "MOV" as opposed to "mov". And if you try and delete the quicktime you often find that you can't as the quicktime server is holding it open. Solution is to exit fusion completely, delete existing quicktime, re-open fusion and try again. Or to write to another format and create the quicktime as a seperate step.

Hope this helps.

thanks JP,

i always make sure to specify a new name for the file being rendered to avoid any overwriting issues,
even then the problem remains. i´ve asked for a new bounce of the source footage but until then, do you have any tips on alternative formats?

tbh i cannot see any codec known to me, certainly no avi format.

cheers,

maybe render to an image sequence and use a encoder to convert to your delivery format?

good idea. i will try that.
thank you both for the tips.

tiff seems to work.
fwiw qt again did not, even with the new source footage. broke down at same place even which is very odd.

thank you for your suggestions again.

Did you try another Codec in QuickTime? Maybe it is some probleme at the encoding part

When you say that you can't see any codec know to you, you are looking in the preferences tab under I/O Quicktime, right? Not just in the saver node?

One other thought - I've had issues where writing AVID DNxHD quicktimes can screw up if the resolution and aspect ratio are not one supported by the codec i.e. standard HD.

yes, i was referring to the saver module dropdown.
i remember seeing some I/O settings in prefs, might take a look there.

as michael suggested, i´ve tried a different codec for QT. this time h.263.
the rendering got passed the frame 24 and 25.

pretty bizarre. tried h.264 again and same problem.
the footage is 2k res.

Hi,

using quicktime-export in fusion is a "not-so-good" thing.

I prefer open-exr (*.exr).

Why?

- exr has 16 bit (or 32bit) floating-point range so grading in the NLE is still possible.

- rerendering a project from fusion when the result ist used in e.g. resolve, fusion cannot render quicktime, because the quicktime movie ist set to readonly by the NLE (e.g. Resolve)
Rendering exr works without any problems in such cases.

- often I have to rerender a project after a correction that does affect only a part of the project.
with exr you can rerender just the affected range of frames instead of having to rerender the whole project.

I hope it helps.
Peter

Exrs are a good idea but unfortunately some projects require qt delivery, like the one I am working at the moment for example . . .

A final thought - I have in the past had some pretty whacky issues where fusion would not render a quicktime to a particular disk under windows. Something to do with the format or permissions - I never really tracked it down but got around it by rendering to another disc. Only a thought . . .

since this is the final render, exr might be overkill for my purpose but i will keep it in mind.
usually go 16bit exr from 3d packages.

tiffs seem to work nicely when writing out of fusion.

jp, i also tried multiple locations and hard drives. always the same hangup.
cant understand it but atleast there is a workaround. actually the rendering process seems to be faster when writing out as tiff, compared to qt.

i can encode in adobe software. not ideal, but im still paying them so might aswell put it to use.
thank you again for your insights.

The free version of Resolve is also a very good encoder (with lots of formats) and is used a lot professionally.

JP Docherty wrote:The free version of Resolve is also a very good encoder (with lots of formats) and is used a lot professionally.

I've found just the opposite. It's completely missing HEVC, the framerate cannot be changed, the settings for h.246 are not professional grade, you can't do anything while it's rendering, and it makes artifacts if you use other GPU utilizing applications while you encode with Resolve (which may be Nvidia's fault, but I haven't had the same issue using other encoders).