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01-31-2010, 15:59 oracio Joined on 12-24-2009 Posts 16 Issues Exporting to Presentation Hello, I'm trying to export a very simple scene that contains only a QuickTime movie (H.264). The movie is full HD. (1080i). I exported a 3 minutes version of the movie to a presentation file with no issues. The issues started when I replaced the movie with it's full version (45mins - about 15Gb file size...). I'm able to view it perfectly in the Renderer but when I try to export it to a Presentation I get this error: "DOC: Operation failed Couldn't write Presentation: FileName.vpr / max must be greater than zero Parameter name: max" Please help, Uri    Report

01-31-2010, 19:17 The Krix Joined on 08-22-2007 Dubai Posts 243 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Wow. That is insanely huge.  Files like this you should never ever include in the actual presentation VPR file. I would highly recommend that you link to the movie externally. Easiest way to go is to put the movie somewhere else on your playout machine, for example c:\, use a URL node in your scene, set it to File mode and enter the absolute path. This will link to the movie directly and you do not have to include it in the VPR. And the best part, if you have to change the movie, you can just replace the file and do not have to export the VPR again. Krix P.S. King of VPR file sizes. I salute you!! :)    Report

01-31-2010, 20:17 oracio Joined on 12-24-2009 Posts 16 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Hi Krix! Thank you for the tip... I have to disappoint you but after I implemented your tip (which works great), the vpr file is less than 100kb... I have a question about formats. We create our videos in  Final Cut, which means that wmv and avi are not native supported. What formats, from your experience, has the best quality/performance/size ratio... and one more, on the event day, should we export a vpr or work with the ventuz project, on a full screen mode... (I can guess your answer but I just wanted to be sure:) ) Thanks again, Uri    Report

01-31-2010, 22:51 The Krix Joined on 08-22-2007 Dubai Posts 243 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Glad I could help. 100Kb should be easier to handle. :) Codec wise I try only to use Quicktime when working in a Cluster or when I have genlocked graphics. For the rest I use WMV (Profile 9 - not VC-1 Advanced) with Constant Bit Ratio, Decoder Complexity set to Simple for high-quality movies. And MPEG1 actually for movies that are part of the design. Here I use TMPEG to encode MPEG in various sizes and even at very high bit rates. But most of time and on our last jobs I used WMV and sometimes Quicktime. For playout I only ever use Director mode. We work a lot with Remoting to load/unload scenes, etc and that does not work with VPRs. And I can easily update files when working in Director mode. Even if you only use one scene I can recommend you use Director mode. Simply rename your scene to default.vrs and when you launch the Director it will automatically load that scene. Krix    Report

02-01-2010, 0:13 oracio Joined on 12-24-2009 Posts 16 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Thank you for the helpful information. Krix, you know all the trix :) (I had to write that.. sry) About genlock audio and video. is it a must? If i have a quicktime movie and I want to play it in a theater and of course I want the lipsync to be tight, do I have to sync them with a 3rd party device or can I trust the common playing-it-all-from-my-computer method. sorry for the basic question, and thank you for your help, I do learn a lot... - Uri    Report

02-01-2010, 0:23 The Krix Joined on 08-22-2007 Dubai Posts 243 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Oh no. Genlock is not a must. That is only for really advanced setups. Quicktime Movie Node has two modes. One for Cluster-Rendering where Audio and Video are not synced and a mode for regular playback in which it acts like any other movie playback - lipsync and all. You will be fine. It only starts getting a bit more complicated when you split the video across two or more separate computers. So .. no external sync or anything is required. Just play back the movie and you will be fine.    Report

02-06-2010, 21:55 oracio Joined on 12-24-2009 Posts 16 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Hi Krix, I started to see a lip-sync issue when I playback the Quicktime movie (H264). It happens after few minutes of playing, and a gap between the audio and the video starts, it is very mild but it is noticeable and unacceptable... I tried sending the audio to the onboard sound card and to the Decklink hd extreme. and in both I have the same issue. transcoding the H264 to avi or wmv should fix that? Please advice, Uri    Report

02-07-2010, 11:29 The Krix Joined on 08-22-2007 Dubai Posts 243 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Please check the "UseAudioClock" property of the Quicktime Movie Node. This one has to be Activated if you are just playing back Quicktime on a single machine. Only if you are in a synced cluster you have to deactivate it. This will sync the video to the audio and not to the cluster clock. That most probably is the reason for the delay. I just did another test of 720p and 1080p clips from apple trailers site. no sync issues whatsoever - even with longer clips. another common issue is performance. quicktime is a notoriously bad performer. you need a powerful system. i am running a core i7 970 extreme system at the moment under windows 7 x64 and i have no issues whatsoever. i did encounter issues in the past with full hd clips on older 2.66 ghz machines though. so you might want to check that as well. transcoding to WMV is only really necessary if you continue to run into problems. if so, then use CBR for audio and video and set the decoder complexity set to simple under advanced settings. Krix    Report

02-07-2010, 13:27 oracio Joined on 12-24-2009 Posts 16 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Hi Krix, the "UseAudioClock" property wasn't checked. I checked it now but still the sync is off. The movie bitrate is 25mb/s. (1080) Maybe it's to much? My machine is - core i7 920 under windows vista x64. I transcoded the movie to AVI (DivX5) at 10mb/s bitrate and it is running smoothly from the start to finish (almost 50 minutes), no sync problems. Also the transcoding turned the movie's colors to more vivid and contrast. Do not know why but I like it :) Thank you for your help, Uri    Report

02-07-2010, 13:36 The Krix Joined on 08-22-2007 Dubai Posts 243 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Good to know it works. I never tried a 50 minutes movie anyway. You probably are the first one to do that. Does it work in Quicktime Player itself? :) I just did a few more tests on my system and I was able to playback 4 1080p clips at the same time in sync. OK, those clips were only trailers at around 2min 30sec but still worked very well. It is very important to have very fast HDD access if you plan on playing back huge and long files. Get a RAID0 of fast drives.    Report

02-07-2010, 13:47 oracio Joined on 12-24-2009 Posts 16 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation Hi Krix, It works well in the Quicktime player itself. And when I run the project, I run it in Director mode and I close all the tasks that are not a must for the Windows to work. Our event is on this week, so I guess I will stick with the DivX on this one. And we are going to buy a dedicated machine for Ventuz, so we will build a fast RAID on it. I have to mention that in our case - a 50mins movie, the syncing issues starts after 5-6mins of playing... So testing a 2-3 mins trailers might not be the best way to test that, and also our movie is 25mb/s and I doubt that those trailers are... I found in the forum that I am not the only who has sync issue with QT: link to the post: http://forum.ventuz.com/forums/3814/ShowPost.aspx Uri    Report

02-07-2010, 15:25 The Krix Joined on 08-22-2007 Dubai Posts 243 Re: Issues Exporting to Presentation i know about that thread as well. seems like i should test some really long movies....    Report