Some clips in exported project pixelated

OK mystery solved - it is the ColorFinale grading plugin that is the culprit. Disabling that results in a normal export, minus the grade of course. It's weird though - exactly the same grade is copy/pasted onto other clips from that same source file in the same timeline and they look fine on export. Nothing is different about the clips that export pixelated.

Thanks Terry for this suggestion and to both for your help solving this, much appreciated.

Just upgraded to Ventura 13.2 and everything works properly - exports look good.

OK, I have discovered this is only a problem on my M1 Macbook Pro. I tried exporting the project on a 2019 iMac (Intel) and it is fine. So obviously a bug, and I hope Apple is aware of it.

Ah, sorry - I thought you wanted the exported clip. I have updated that link to include a section of the original ungraded footage too.

This a section of a long 12 minute segment I filmed. Other portions of this footage export fine on the timeline, it's just some sections here and there that seem to end up pixelated in the exported file. They all have the same grade, retiming, etc. Nothing different causing it as far as I can see. And the exported file looks fine if I do the export on an Intel Mac.

Well the mystery deepens - I have just been on to ColorFinale support and they claim that "we are not involved with writing files. The issue is likely related to the way FCP encodes certain formats on Apple Silicon Macs." They also point out that I mentioned that writing to ProRes is fine, but not to H.264. "If the issue were with the plugin, it would have affected the results of writing to both formats."

So now I don't know whose fault it is. All I know is I can't export projects on my Macbook Pro when I use this color grading software, and will have to export everything on my iMac.

Hi Terry,

The project is 4K (3840 x 2160) 25p, as is the footage. For export I just use cmd-E (Export File) and usually use H.264. I tried MP4 but both are showing blocky footage on the same B roll clips. Other sections of the same footage are exporting fine. It's very weird. Only a ProRes 422 export shows the footage as it should be.

I'm on Monterey, 12.6.3 on both computers. I never update to the latest version because it often breaks third party software and I can't afford for that to happen in a professional environment. So I'm always one OS behind.

And yes, I will post a link to a clip but will have to wait until I'm back at my Macbook before I can do this.