Compressor not outputting DVD even after numerous fixes attempted

Question

Compressor not outputting DVD even after numerous fixes attempted

I’m having problems getting Compressor 3.5 to output a DVD. Source file is a 135GB ProRes 422 HQ Quicktime file at 1920x1080 resolution -- it’s the final cut of my 106-minute feature film. I’ve tried numerous solutions to the problem described below but nothing works.

Last year after outputting the film’s rough cut to DVD, I was unhappy with artifacts, so I put off further DVD outputs and used Compressor’s Blu-ray template to output a BD-R screener (using default settings). It looked great, and I used that same template to burn BD’s of the final cut. But when attempting DVD output again, I decided (because of the artifact issue) to try this tutorial -- http://lumenosity.blogspot.com/2010/07/best-apple-compressor-settings-for-dvd.ht ml -- which the author claims produces excellent results, albeit with long encode times. I tried his settings numerous times, and in each case, Compressor stopped/failed after about 10 mins. (it would encode the .ac3 audio but not the m2v video).

I installed and ran Digital Rebellion’s Compressor Repair (http://www.digitalrebellion.com/compressorrepair/) which made no difference.

I tried everything listed on Apple’s “Compressor 3.5: Troubleshooting Basics” support page (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1888), including reinstalling Compressor today. That hasn’t solved it.

I thought upgrading to Compressor 4 might solve the problem, but first had to upgrade the OS from Leopard to Snow Leopard, which I did today (I know, I'm behind in the OS, but my Mac Pro is a circa 2008 machine). I still haven’t upgraded to Compressor 4, though, and wonder if that’s likely to make any difference.

A few hours ago I tried to output a 10-minute sample of the movie (still in ProRes 422 HQ format) to DVD via my newly re-installed Compressor 3.5, and using the “Burn DVD” template, and what should have taken 30 mins. (according to Compressor) was locked at 95% complete and hour and a half later. When I cancelled, the m2v and ac3 streams were completed, but Compressor never asked for a blank DVD to complete the job. I repeated the process and it failed again.

Now, BEFORE re-installing Compressor today, I did successfully output a 2 minute DVCPRO-HD file to DVD using Compressor’s “Burn DVD” template, but when I attempted to re-output that same file again later – after updating the OS and re-installing Compressor as described above – it failed just like the 10-minute sample movie above (locked at 95% complete).

And for what it's worth, I should mention that many times in the last year I’ve used Compressor 3.5’s “Create Web Reference Movie” template and it has always worked, though the History pane ALWAYS says it failed.

Thanks for any ideas on how to solve this mess.

Mike

Posted on Sep 2, 2013 9:51 PM

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Answer 1

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Sep 3, 2013 7:09 AM in response to Mike Boedicker

It sounds like Createdisc isn't kicking in. That is the application that takes over to burn the disk after encoding.

Try encoding a very short section of your movie. In Job Action, choose Hard Drive as Output Device. See if it completes and makes a disk image. (I'm guessing it won't.) From the Apple menu, choose Recent Items and then Create Disk>File>Open. Click on the most recent job and see whether it kick starts the process. If it does so, I would expect it to work for the entire project.

Russ

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Answer 2

Sep 3, 2013 2:43 PM in response to Russ H

Russ,

I followed your instructions with a 2-minute clip but it didn't work -- Compressor ouputted the video and audio streams but didn't initiate the Create Disc process. I chose Hard Drive in Job Action and later followed the path Apple > Recent items > Create Disc > File > Open Recent > Clear Menu; there was no recent job listed by name (which was "GaryOuttakes2"), only "Clear Menu".

Is my best bet to just upgrade to Compressor 4? I'm running a 32 bit MacPro (Circa 2008) and Snow Leopard; is that an issue for Compressor 4?

Thanks.

Mike

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Answer 3

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Sep 3, 2013 3:04 PM in response to Mike Boedicker

Compressor is still 32 bit (I know…) and unless you're ding a lot of Web work 3.5 can easily hold its own.

Try the test again. In Job Action, choose Create Disk in the When Job Completes field. For Background, click the Add Button, then hit cancel. (If you had previously added an image, delete it.) Submit the job again.

Russ

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Answer 4

Sep 3, 2013 3:50 PM in response to Russ H

Russ,

No, still no dice. This time I re-outputted the 2 min. test file (from FCP) and renamed it, just to see if that made a difference, then followed your instructions. I waited 15 mins. for it to complete -- which should have been enough time as I used default settings -- and once again it outputted the 2 streams but didn't burn the disc. As before, it freezes at 0:00:06 seconds remaining, or 95% complete (according to the Info pane).

It's so odd and frustrating -- under Leopard, I burned Blu-rays and DVDs just fine with Compressor 3.5, using templates. It wasn't until I tried tweaking the "Burn DVD" template, using the Lumenosity article referenced above, that Compressor wouldn't complete the burn. Unlike the most recent problem of it not completing the Create Disc step, with the Lumenosity changes it supposedly compressed the files at an incredibly fast rate (like 10 mins for a 106 min. project), and the desktop would briefly show both the video and audio streams there, but then when it failed, the video stream would disappear, and only the audio stream was encoded.

Now, after upgrading to Snow Leopard, I can't even successfully use the Compressor templates, let alone make chages to settings. The settings changed in the Lumenosity article are just basic things like changing "Better" to "Best" for various parameters, etc.

Mike

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Answer 5

Sep 3, 2013 3:52 PM in response to Mike Boedicker

One quick follow-up note: the "Par" folder doesn't appear anymore, even though the audio and video stream do appear.

Mike

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Answer 6

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Sep 3, 2013 4:59 PM in response to Mike Boedicker

I'm going to have to come back to this a bit later tonight or tomorrow morning. Perhaps someone else will weigh in with ideas.

In the meantime, try sharing to DVD directly from FCP. Again, I would choose Hard Drive for Output Device.

Also – if push comes to shove, we can get a DVD out of DVD Studio Pro.

Russ

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Answer 7

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Sep 3, 2013 6:28 PM in response to Mike Boedicker

Have to say that I'm very surprised that Create Disc didn't kick in using those two methods. BTW, when you ran Compressor Repair, did you check the Trash Preferences box in the dialogue window?

It's bothersome that now the problems seem to extend beyond Create Disc to the the basic settings. It seems like there may be something amiss with the installation.

How did you upgrade the OS and install FCS? Was it a clean OS install and did you install FCS from the installation disks? Also, after installing FCS, did you run Software Update repeatedly until there were no more updates and did you repair permissions?

Russ

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Answer 8

Sep 3, 2013 6:48 PM in response to Russ H

Russ,

Before answering your most recent post: I used Share in FCP to send that 2-min. clip to the desktop. I selected DVD and checked the "Create DVD" box. In the popup window, I selected Hard Drive as the output. The encoding started at 8:16pm and now, at 8:32, it's still running, although the video and audio streams WERE outputted to the desktop in just a few minutes. The Share status window says "Time remaining: About 8 seconds" and "Time elapsed: 2 minutes and 32 seconds." The Create DVD portion (if that's what is supposed to happen in this method -- I've never used Share) never happened.

Re your other questions: Yes, I checked Trash Preferences in Compressor Repair. I even ran Compressor Repair twice, a few hours apart. To upgrade the OS, I just inserted the Snow Leopard CD-ROM and followed the onscreen instructions. I did some more tests of short outputs, and when they choked, I moved on to uninstalling Compressor 3.5 using the instructions found here -- (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1888) -- being very careful to follow it to the letter. In fact, I followed all of the various solutions in that document, not just the uninstall and reinstall. I re-installed Compressor 3.5 using the original FCS Studio 3 discs (upgrade version), and the process took several hours and asked for all FCS3's discs at various points (I was surprised it even asked for the Audio Content discs).

Mike

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Answer 9

Sep 3, 2013 6:52 PM in response to Mike Boedicker

Sorry, forgot to add: yes, I repaired permissions, and ran software update several times. I didn't update certain things, like iTunes, etc. but updated everything described as being applicable to FCS and its many applications. I'll go ahead and do ALL the updates now, just in case.

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Answer 10

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Sep 3, 2013 7:41 PM in response to Mike Boedicker

Mike Boedicker wrote:

I moved on to uninstalling Compressor 3.5 using the instructions found here -- (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1888) -- being very careful to follow it to the letter. In fact, I followed all of the various solutions in that document, not just the uninstall and reinstall. I re-installed Compressor 3.5 using the original FCS Studio 3 discs (upgrade version), and the process took several hours and asked for all FCS3's discs at various points (I was surprised it even asked for the Audio Content discs).

Mike

It sounds like when the FCS re-install was run that the entire suite of software was installed. I'm surprised that could happen. I thought whatever apps the installation disk saw were already on the machine were automatically grayed out in the dialogue window.

You should be able choose only the applications you want to install, which would be Compressor and Qmaster. There should be no content disks involved and the whole process should take no more than 20 minutes.

Digital Rebellion makes a utility calledFCS Remover.It removes the correct files automatically. Try running that and check Compressor and Qmaster only.

As for the reinstall, omly Compressor and Qmaster should be selected.

Russ

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Answer 11

Sep 4, 2013 5:54 AM in response to Russ H

Russ,

Yes, the install screen did appear as above, with only Compressor and Qmaster automatically selected and highlighted, and I selected no others. DVD Studio Pro was also automatically highlighted, though greyed out, so I couldn't unselect it. That's why I was surprised when the re-install asked for all the discs. I just assumed there must be portions of relevant code on all of them, even the Audio Content discs. Don't know if it matters, but my version of FCS3 is the upgrade version.

Before doing the above, I did use FCS Remover to uninstall Compressor (forgot to mention that previously), but the same problems remained, so that's why I moved on to the manual uninstall.

BTW, I do have a 64bit machine -- had assumed mine was 32 because of its age, but checked last night and it's a Quad Core Intel Xeon which Apple's website confirms as 64bit. I mention it because the Mac App Store says Compressor 4 requires a 64-bit machine to run (even though the app itself is 32 bit?), and it's only $50, so unless you think there's a good chance updating won't solve the problem, that seems like the easiest solution, yes?

Thanks again for your time!

Mike

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Answer 12

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Sep 4, 2013 6:35 AM in response to Mike Boedicker

Well, sorry we couldn't diagnose the problem. That is not a first by itself, but getting Create Disc to kick in has never been such an intractable problem.

A final thought: I don't recall exactly what happens when you insert the FCS disks because lately when I've installed I've done it through disk images and the process is a little different. I don't think that the fact your disks are for upgrading should have any bearing on things, but I may be wrong.

If I were in your situation, I probably would do one of two things: 1) use DVD SP to make the DVDs; or 2) do a clean install of the OS and then FCS. For a very long time it's been drummed into my head that to avoid stability issues the pro apps are best installed on an OS that has been installed clean and that the apps themselves should be installed from the original disks. (Of course, now everything is in the Cloud.)

I know it's a royal pain to wipe the system and reinstall, but assuming one has a recent back up and screen shots of important settings and a record of UIDs and PWs, it often is less bother in the long run to start over.

Also…you could also try the folks over at the FCS forum. Lots of smart, experienced contributors who may have the solution'

Let us know how you make out.

Russ

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Answer 13

Sep 5, 2013 6:54 AM in response to Russ H

Just a quick note to say that I upgraded to Compressor 4 yesterday and the problems disappeared. I outputted about a half-dozen test DVDs, using both templates and custom settings, and they all worked fine. Thanks so much for helping me work through this issue!

Mike

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