Exporting to custom m4v files from FCPX issue

Hey Russ,

Shift-Z was the first thing I tried... didn't see anything unusual. Timeline was empty after the end of my edited video.

When played back in QTX (or QT7), it's just a black screen and plays until the end.

I changed the bit rate to save on size for this particular video... the video quality loss is minimal.

However, after more poking around, no matter if I 'Send to Compressor' or export directly from FCPX to one of the native export settings (1080p for Apple Devices, for example), I get the same result. Every video I export, no matter the length, winds up with a huge chunk of empty video at the end. One test was only 5 minutes long and the resulting export, whether through Compressor 4.1 or FCPX, had about 2 minutes of empty black footage. On a video 2 hours long, exporting directly from FCPX to the '1080p for Apple Devices' setting, I have about 20 minutes of black footage.

Now, the workaround is to simply trim that black footage out in QTX and save the file, but obviously something is not working correctly here.

I've tried exporting from multiple projects/timelines all with the same result.

If I figure this out, I'll chime back in. Please feel free to offer more suggestions. I may just remove FCPX and Compressor and re-install and see how that works out.

Oh... this might be important... the project was originally edited in the previous version of FCPX and was updated.

Yes, when exporting an m4v file directly from FCPX, or by means of 'Send to Compressor' from FCPX, a blank section of video is added to the movie. The longer the video, the longer the blank section. This leads me to believe the root issue lies in FCPX 10.1. I tried multiple projects to rule out an individual timeline issue. This event was converted from the previous version of FCPX to work with the latest update. Removing the software and re-installing had no effect.

However, I did a test with a project natively imported by 10.1 and exported to m4v with no problems... no blank section was added to that export.

So, my guess now is anything that was converted from the previous version of FCPX to 10.1 is affected. At least on my end. Ultimately, this will no longer be a problem for me as anything I work on going forward will be imported natively in 10.1.

I stand corrected on my last post. This is happening quite often... even with projects that were natively created and imported into 10.1. All of the videos I'm exporting, which average 2 hours in length, add anywhere from 2 minutes to 30 minutes of additional black screen at the end of the exported m4v files.

I've tried trashing preferences, removing all pro apps and reinstalling (using the Digital Rebellion utilities), rebuilding projects in new timelines... just about everything I can think of.

Although trimming the movies does work, it's an unnecessary and timeconsuming step (didn't have this issue with the last version of FCPX).

It's absolutely FCPX. I'm not even sure why I posted this in the Compressor forums. There are so many bugs with Apple's software my head is spinning. Now I can't open Aperture because I did a fresh re-install of FCPX. And it turns out, I'd have to reinstall Mavericks every time I do a fresh reinstall of FCPX just to get Aperture to work:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4475322?tstart=0

I have four systems... and it's incredibly frustrating when things are working perfectly with one version of a program than all of a sudden they stop working correctly adding additional steps, troubleshooting, reinstallations, more troubleshooting, etc. etc. IE- more time. Instead of editing at any point today, I've been troubleshooting FCPX and Aperture all day long just trying to get the programs to work properly.

My head is about to explode and an iMac about to go through a window.

All my frustrations aside... since my last post I've trashed preferences and reinstalled FCPX, again. I then rebuilt the entire timeline of the project in question into a fresh timeline. This has to be done by copying and pasting bits and pieces at a time. Yea, after the last update, you can't copy and paste an entire timeline into another project or timeline without everything going haywire. Imagine a failed transport in Star Trek... instead of a human being coming out on the other end, there's a mass of jumbled hands, feet and eyeballs in a mushy clump on the ground. That's what happens when you try to copy and paste an entire project into a new timeline on my end, on any of my four machines after any amount of trashing of preference or reinstalling pro apps or OSX.

Back on track, after rebuilding my project piece by piece, manually placing new chapter markers througout, I took your suggestion of adding in and out points. I've never done that before so I hope I did it right. I hit "i" at the very beginning of the video (00:00:00:00) and "o" at the very end (02:00:37:13). The video is 2 hours, 37 seconds long. Not sure if that will solve the problem, but I'll report back after the export process (to m4v 1080p for Apple Devices).

I've only ever exported to a master file (prores) once. My videos are so long that the resulting video file is absolutely huge. It takes and awfully long time as well. I did a lot of tests with FCPX and have found that an m4v file exported at 1080p for Apple Devices looks just like a master prores file when played back. When burned to disk, they also look exactly the same. So I've never seen the need to export master files to prores when I can simply export to 1080p m4v files that look identical, take a ton less time to create and at a fraction of the size of a prores. An added benefit is I send all of my clients the 'master' m4v files anyway. Perhaps the only downside to m4v is compressor won't recognize the chapter markers for some reason. So when I have to make DVD files, I have to create the chapter list in text edit for import. But that's yet another bug that I'm really not too worried about.

I appreciate your assistance, Russ. Your advice is usually always helpful. Hopefully setting the in and out points will solve this issue on my end. And if I'm doing that wrong (setting the in/out points), please let me know. Sorry for venting, and thanks for listening! I just wish Apple would pay attention to these discussion boards. I've tried reporting the problems but they never get fixed with fresh updates.

No luck with setting in and out points. I tried it on three different 2 hour long projects... same result. One project had three minutes of empty video at the end. One had 31 minutes... another 22 minutes. It's completely random and unusual. Never did FCPX do this before the last update.

Just a heads up... there's no solution to this. I accidentally hit the wrong button (meant to hit 'Reply'). Wish there was a way to un-do 'This solved my question'.

I exported a file to the default Master File setting in FCPX (Apple Pro Res422). The resulting file did not experience the same issue. It ended when it is actually supposed to end.

Surprisingly, the quality of the Pro Res file is not as good as the m4v file. Without a better way of explaining it, it looks like the Pro Res file has some 'striping' issues. In some scenes, especially when objects or people are moving, you can see lines on the object or person's outline. Really odd... you'd think a file that's 14 time larger than an m4v file would be of the same quality. Either way, I prefer exporting to m4v because of the smaller size of the resulting file and, apparently, the better quality.

Apple did contact me about the issue (which I greatly appreciate) so hopefully they're able to figure out what's going on. If a solution is found I'll report back.