Hi,
I have a 1440x1080i project that was edited in Sony Vegas. It will be color corrected in FCP, so I installed the DNxHD codec on my PC and exported a QT .mov file using DNxHD codec with the 1080/59.94i 220 10-bit setting. My FCP editor also installed DNxHD on his Mac. He's able to view properties of the .mov in FCP:
frame size = 1440x1080fps = 29.97compressor = Avid DNxHDpixel aspect = HD (1440x1080)field order = upper
Either the file was exported oddly (perhaps Vegas "added" something that FCP doesn't like) or maybe the FCP editor may have just installed the codecs incorrectly. This doesn't seem like an Avid issue.
Kenton VanNatten | Avid Editor (for hire)
"I am not obsessed... I'm detail-oriented"
I'll ask him to double-check the install process. I'm guessing, there's only one way to install it on Mac? (at-least on Windows, there's just one way)
Also, is this the right URL to download the codec from?
http://avid.force.com/pkb/LegacySearch?DocId=263545
Thanks.
Yep, that's the right link. Though he should make sure he downloaded the Mac version (it's been known to happen that some people don't read and click the wrong one)
Also, this is a long shot, but I wonder if his version of QT has anything to do with it? Avid qualifies certain versions of QT to let users running Avid products know which QT is compatible with their version of Avid software, however something like a codec shouldn't be affected so much by the QT version (at least I wouldn't think so).
How large is the file you're sending him? One thing we can try is to have you post your file somewhere where I can download it, and I'll try to import it into my Avid system. That way, if successful, then we know it's not something in the way you're creating the file. If the file is too large, just send a 5-10 sec clip but use the exact same parameters you used when sending the original to the FCP guy.
Here's a link to a 3-sec clip of the file:
http://www.transferbigfiles.com/b0193ec2-a201-40d1-8045-bffbe2223086?rid=03y5XQUnOdcjhWnZffWGIQ%3d%3d
If you are taking a project from Vegas into FCP, transcoding to DNxHD seems like a rickety workaround to me. Why not take whatever uncompressed file Vegas outputs into Compressor. There you transcode it into a high-quality Prores 442 which Final Cut will accept with open arms.
I admit I say this with some trepidation. Every time I think there must be a simple solution for something, there's some obvious reason for the complexity and I'm just not seeing it.
Tim
Pel2na:Every time I think there must be a simple solution for something, there's some obvious reason for the complexity and I'm just not seeing it.
IIRC, ProRes can only be read by PCs so he wouldn't be able to produce a ProRes QT for the FCP user. It seems as they're using DNxHD as the common denominator.
I checked out the file you uploaded:
When I open it with QT Player, it shows it as being
AVID DNxHD Codec, 1920 x 1080, Millions+16-bit Integer (Little Endian), Stereo, 48.000 kHz
29.97
So, first major thing I notice that is different from what you said above is the frame size. This is saying that it's 1920, but you said your FCP guy reports 1440. AFAIK, you can't have DNx220 (or 220X) in a Thin Raster format like 1440.
Secondly, I notice that your clip has an unnecessary Alpha Channel ("Millions+" - the + indicates an Alpha). It doesn't seem to bother Avid when I import it, but FCP might not like it too much.
Now, I imported your clip into a 1920x1080/59.94 Avid Project at DNx220X with 709 color space setting and I got an error. If I change my import to RGB, it seems to work. So, I'm going to assume that Vegas works with RGB color space and not Broadcast (601/709). AFAIK, FCP also works in RGB but I believe that there is a setting one can change to make it work in Broadcast.
What I also found weird is that if I tell the clip that it is sized for the current format in my Import Settings, I get letterboxing on the image. I can see letterboxing on the QT player file too. If I change my Import Settings to tell Avid not to Resize it, then it actually comes in Pillarboxed and with the Letterboxing on the native file, it looks like a postage stamp.
But, in the end I was able to successfully import your clip into my Avid system at DNx220X (RGB) and got it to playback etc. So, I don't really think there is anything wrong with the file itself, but perhaps FCP is just unable to interpret the codec fully to "decompress it".
You could try re-exporting your clip and this time make sure you don't enable the Alpha, maybe FCP is getting tripped up on that?
Kenton.VanNatten:IIRC, ProRes can only be read by PCs so he wouldn't be able to produce a ProRes QT for the FCP user. It seems as they're using DNxHD as the common denominator.
Au contraire, Kenton. Compressor is part of the FC Suite (which runs on Mac) and Prores is one of its main features. Two or three weeks ago I had a problem H.264 that AVID kept crushing the gamma on so I tried it in FC and it gave the app the whim-whams. I took my sequence into Compressor, made a Prores 442 out of it and Final Cut welcomed it like a long-lost cousin. This was on an 8-core Mac Pro running 4.0.5.
Pel2na:Compressor is part of the FC Suite (which runs on Mac) and Prores is one of its main features
Right, but the OP has Sony Vegas which is PC only, which also means they don't have Final Cut or Compressor. ProRes is licensed to be read-only on PC, therefore Vegas can not export a QT with the ProRes codec.
Ah, my bad. While his Editor has FCP, Kufloyd (the OP) does not. And the Editor doesn't want to do the transcoding. I knew there'd be something.
In case it helps, I have an almost identical problem. I rendered from Sony Vegas (9e) to DNxHD and tried to import it to FCP (7.0.2). I got the error message that the codec was not found. However on the same machine, it plays OK in QuickTime Player. Sounds therefore like an FCP pernicketiness! In that case they could at least have a more meaningful error message...
However in contrast to kufloyd, I rendered to 720p50. It was a 720p50 project going to a 720p50 mode of DNxHD. The exact DNxHD format I rendered to was:
<<<HD 1280x72050 fpsProgressivePAR 1.0Avid DNxHD Codec24 bpp colorQuality 50% (The default - I know some recommend 100% but image looked OK so I left it)Configure: [RGB, 720p50 DNxHD 145 8-bit].
>>>Subsequently I also tried 185 8-bit. And I tried 32 bpp as well as 24bpp.
I got the same issue on two different kinds of Mac, one having Leopard, the other having Snow Leopard, and different versions of QuickTime on each (7.6.4 and 7.6.6)
I sure would like to know how to fix this!. Is there a DNxHD "sanity-check" tool to verify that the DNxHD file header is OK?
"Watch the show not the pixels"
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