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Thread: File wont play -but indicates that it is.

  1. #1

    File wont play -but indicates that it is.

    Hi there,

    I've got a strange one here, in a show I'm doing I have a cue which won't run a file on the Catalyst.

    Basically I'm using 3 layers across 2 networked Catalysts in the Cue, with the 1st layer set as ID1 and the other two layers set to Sync to it. When I run the Cue, the 1st and the 3rd layers run just fine (the 3rd layer being on the 2nd Cat) but the second layer (on the same machine as the layer it's syncing to) remains static. Where it gets weird is that in the HUD, the timeline indicator (the wee yellow bar in the line at the bottom) for that layer seems to show that it is playing -but it isn't.

    What is also odd is that, if I release my playlist and jump straight to the cue, it plays fine. (I'm using a Hog II on the latest version of software which I'm aware may have some 'issues')

    Now, the fact that releasing the playlist cures the problem would suggest that it is a desk / playlist issue but the running timeline in the HUD looks like a Catalyst bug.

    Anyone else come across anything like this ? or am I being dense !

    Thanks for your help

    Richard

    PS. I'm also using Catalyst v 4.10 m119

    I'll check to see if there's a timecode track attached to the movie in case that is the problem.

    Cheers
    Last edited by jzbdski; 11-07-2007 at 01:00 AM. Reason: Additional info

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    UK - Milton Keynes
    Posts
    807
    Send a screen shot of both HUDs and a copy of your show file....

    Check that you have not set the sync ID of layer 2, to the same as layer 1 on the HUD

    If the content is identical on all 3 layers, then use 'uselayer' for layer 2 on the same server - not sync ID.

    If you are using 3 different bits of content - check that they are all exactly the same length. (and stick with sync ID)

    Are you using a 'once' playmode as opposed to a 'loop' - check your programming and make sure that it is not playing in the previous cue, before your cue goes live - use 'onceFW>0' mode instead.

    Hope this helps

    S

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by jzbdski View Post
    Anyone else come across anything like this ? or am I being dense !

    Thanks for your help

    Richard

    PS. I'm also using Catalyst v 4.10 m119

    I'll check to see if there's a timecode track attached to the movie in case that is the problem.

    Cheers

    seen this quite a lot recently . dont know what is causing it. only affects some files - not all- in any one batch.
    its not you - im trying to figure out what is causing it- at the moment the common link is compressor rendered files - in particular compressor 3. seemed to only affect photojpeg to begin with.
    Seemed to happen more in files created by compressor with a timecode track- though removing this only helped with some files.

    Please try to find out how your files were created or post-processed.

    not everyone has seen this yet - which seems to me its something that changed in an OS or quicktime update- but im not certain.

    I can make this happen on a whole set of files here. it surprised me too.

    thanks

  4. #4
    i think there is a faulty compressor preset - or output preset in compressor- or bug ( or change in quicktime documentation ) which puts conflicting information into the movie file - about the frame rate of the file.

    I examined some files which 'did not play'-

    and in quicktime player the frame rate shows are 24.97fps!
    This is clearly not right. These are 'PAL' files and the indicated frame rate should be 25FPS - so clearly apple hasnt figured this out either.

    Also in my pdf information - the time scale of the movie is wrongly indicated -

    seems like compressor has some kindof bug when it is asked to convert files from one frame rate to another.

    ---

    On one file i have which doesnt play - which i think was converted from ntsc to PAL using compressor -
    For the very technical- the movie header information on one file says its time scale is 2500, its duration 11700. But the media handler says that the timescale is 2997 and the length 14040.
    11700/2500 = 4.68, 14040/2997 is 4.684684 - the second ratio is not exact....
    Attached Images Attached Images

  5. #5
    I think I ran into this on two shows. The files were photo-jpeg, encoded using compressor, and using presets I had made. The first show I ran into this, I wasnt able to figure out what was going on, the second show I was able to track it down to a specific file, and re-encoding it (oddly enough using the same preset) fixed it.
    It doesnt seem to always happen, as I did batches of encoding where the files were all made using the sme program, with the same settings, etc, and it only happened on one file in the batch.

    The probelm I would see, so that if anyone else runs into this they know, is that the file will freeze playback, but all other parameters are still controllable via DMX, i.e. color, intensity, position, etc. It really threw a wrench into my day when it happened, as I figured it was something else that had gone wrong with the server.

    Jason

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by jasonrudolph View Post
    I think I ran into this on two shows. The files were photo-jpeg, encoded using compressor, and using presets I had made. The first show I ran into this, I wasnt able to figure out what was going on, the second show I was able to track it down to a specific file, and re-encoding it (oddly enough using the same preset) fixed it.

    Jason
    Which version of compressor?

    compressor seems to be doing something wierd- and creating inconsistent information in the movie header - it threw me too.

    I will see if i can find a workaround.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by jasonrudolph View Post
    It doesnt seem to always happen, as I did batches of encoding where the files were all made using the sme program, with the same settings, etc, and it only happened on one file in the batch.
    Jason
    that file probably had the math error between the movie information headers i indicated above.
    they are doing a frame conversion with non-accurate math.

    one of my users reported using several different output codecs and it not working with any.
    so it could be this...

  8. #8
    Hi there,

    Thanks for all your input.
    I'll grab some screen shots of the HUD this afternoon, Tried to delve into the file info in Quicktime but only got the very basic stuff, no mention of Compressor used, Timecode or anything -are these QT Pro features ?

    It's quite possible the files have been buggered about in Post before making it my way, their Aspect ratios have been squashed such that I've a 12:3 image in a 4:3 format so they could have been subjected to almost anything.

    Cheers

    Richard

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by jzbdski View Post
    Hi there,

    Thanks for all your input.
    I'll grab some screen shots of the HUD this afternoon, Tried to delve into the file info in Quicktime but only got the very basic stuff, no mention of Compressor used, Timecode or anything -are these QT Pro features ?
    Compressor is apple's pro compression software that is a part of Final Cut Studio. It allows you to save presets of settings to encode files as, and allows you to do batches of files at once, so you can leave 1 or 100 files encoding and it will run until it finishes them.

  10. #10
    Aha !

    I've grabbed a couple of screen shots of my HUD.

    In the situations where the synced layer doesn't run, it shows that it is 1 frame behind the layer it is syncing to. (both movie files are 125 frames, 720x 576 nd were encoded using a Blackmagic DeckLink DV codec)

    When it plays fine, it shows that it is on exactly the same frame.

    I'll post the images once I can get them across to this windoze box.

    Does this explain anything ?

    Cheers

    Richard

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