Bugs of the Week - 10-20-13

Here's another installment of bugs in your NLE you should know about.

Premiere

Premiere will crash if you adjust the border on a wipe transition

Contiguous clips in an EDL will be imported without cuts (Avid has this behavior too but FCP 7 doesn't)

Media files corrupted by "Write XMP ID to Files on Import" feature (I always switch this off - it's damaged too many files to risk it)

Durations are wrong, nests must be pre-rendered

Crash when importing multichannel AVI files created by Blackmagic Media Express

TickTime error can occur on media where Interpret Footage is activated

It's better to license CS6 and CC on different Adobe IDs

Avid

Bins in subfolders move about as you navigate the project

Media creation setting not sticking for NTSC projects

Splitting stereo audio to dual mono may result in two A1 tracks

Background processing may not work if your DNS setup is incorrect

Perian can cause files to fail transcoding

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 21 2013 to Bugs of the Week, Video Editing, Software
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How to sync metadata between QuickTime movies

It's common nowadays for videos to be processed through one or more applications prior to editorial. Unfortunately that can result in camera metadata being stripped from the processed files. This can cause lots of problems later on if you need to relink back to the original files for grading.

QT Edit solves this by letting you import metadata from another QuickTime movie. Here's how to do it:

1. Open up the destination movie.

2. Go to File > Import > Metadata. Browse for the camera original source file.

3. Select the metadata items you'd like to import or just import all metadata from the source file.

4. Save the destination file.

Being able to choose the metadata that is imported allows you to copy metadata fields between files even if the source file isn't the camera original version. Metadata can be added, removed or edited after import.

Pro Media Tools helps studios, production companies and freelancers alike forge new workflows every day. To find out more view the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free trial.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 14 2013 to Tutorials, Software, Video Editing
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How to locate corrupt clips in your timeline

Does your editing application crash when you scrub to a particular point in the timeline? Does it crash or fail at the same point each time you export or render? It's likely that you have a corrupt clip or render file in your timeline.

Corrupt render files are easy to resolve. Most NLEs offer a way to clear out render files, so it's best to try this first to see if it fixes the problem.

If that fails, you'll need to figure out the exact clip that is corrupt. The manual method is to divide and conquer - split the timeline in half, then half again, and so on until you narrow down the offending clip. This can be very time consuming so an easier way is to use Corrupt Clip Finder to scan the project and test each file it finds.

It will scan the project files from most NLEs (FCP 7, FCPX, Adobe Premiere and other apps) but you can scan an entire media directory for applications not supported. In fact, for large projects it can be quicker to scan the media directory than the project file.

Not every file it flags up will be corrupt, as it will also flag up files that could potentially cause problems, such as CMYK image files or video larger than 4K in FCP 7. You can see the reason it flagged up a file by hovering over the filename in the list.

Once the files are identified, you can choose to quarantine them by moving them to another folder, delete them or attempt a repair. You can also color code them in Finder, which can be useful for highlighting files that appear to work fine but may potentially cause an issue for future reference.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Aug 19 2013 to Software, Tutorials, DR News
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Bugs of the Week - 6-30-13

Here's another installment of critical, useful or bizarre bugs in your NLE that you should know about.

Adobe Premiere

Multicam edits switch angles when relaunching a project in Premiere CC (probably best to do multicam edits in CS6 for now)

More multicam quirks

Update 7-1-13: Adobe has posted a candid response to the multicam bugs.

Match frame may not match to the correct clip

New NVIDIA Quadro driver can improve Lumetri effects processing (Windows)

Keyboard Shortcut panel is blank

Audio dropouts, possibly due to image sequences

Pressing M twice in the source panel adds a second marker instead of editing the first

Visual corruption when playing XDCAM media

Several reports of Effects Panel lag

Premiere CC still losing render files

Timecode is not preserved when sending to SpeedGrade

Labels can disappear in CS6

Importing media files first and then importing an XML can prevent freezes for large XML files

Bugs of the Week - 6-22-13

After a bit of a hiatus, Bugs of the Week is back again.

Premiere

Like any major software update, Premiere Pro CC has several new and exciting bugs.

Fix for CC applications crashing immediately

Adjustment Layers may not affect nested multicam sequences

Color Curve Tool clips luma at 100%

Matrox Mini is not yet supported in Premiere CC

Changing the compatibility mode to Vista could fix situations where Premiere won't load (Windows)

Trick for installing Adobe apps in multiple languages

Audio gets cut off at the end of a clip

Audio waveform sync doesn't work with one camera angle and multiple audio files. Here's a workaround.

The CC installer doesn't not contain Functional Content

Adobe Encore is not part of Creative Cloud but here's how to get it if you don't have a perpetual license of CS6

Fix for Cineform clips being the wrong duration (Windows)

Premiere may not boot for some Windows users with old graphics drivers

Premiere CC no longer creates a new sequence with a new project (this is probably a good thing but it's causing some confusion)

Cannot sort clips by creation date

Clip Mixer levels can reset when stopping playback

Avid

Media Composer 6.5.3 released with lots of fixes

Media Composer 6.0.4 released. Among the usual bug fixes, it also includes a new XML export option for markers.

Workaround for failure rotation stabilizer failure in the 3DWarp effect

Repeated frames on QuickTime imports

Performing a mixdown instead of transcoding can sometimes prevent gamma shifts

Dongle Manager may not launch if permissions are incorrect

OS X

Apple finally fixed a bug we reported a year ago that prevented certain apps from opening QuickTime movies that did not have a chapter marker on the first frame. We've been working around it but it is now fixed in OS X 10.8.4 so we recommend updating.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 23 2013 to Bugs of the Week, Video Editing, Software
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5 things Apple should change in OS X 10.9

OS X is a mature operating system so it's probably largely meeting most people's needs already, however here's a list of five things we'd like to see in OS X 10.9.

1. AV Foundation improvements

The QuickTime API is horrible and I'd love to ditch it completely, but AV Foundation has some catching up to do before that can happen.

It needs support for third-party codecs like DNxHD, support for reference movies and the ability to update a file in-place (like QT Edit does) without having to re-encode the entire movie just to make a small modification.

2. Native support for containers other than QuickTime

It'd be great if OS X could natively deal with MXFs, AVIs, MKVs, etc as if they were QuickTime movies.

3. Encrypted folders

Ability to encrypt and password protect a single folder on your hard disk, instead of the entire drive or the entire home folder.

4. Finder improvements

It looks like Apple may already be bringing tabs to Finder (great) but we'd also like to see an editable location bar like Windows has, bring back Cmd-clicking on the title bar to open another folder in a new window, and a solution to the scroll bar temporarily obscuring the last item in a list.

5. Second screen support

An API for low-latency visual output to an iOS device would be great for status windows, scopes, etc.

Things Apple definitely shouldn't change:

1. Don't kill QuickTime yet.

2. Don't make it so we can't run 32-bit apps anymore.

3. Don't force all apps to be sandboxed.

4. Allow untrusted apps to run if the user desires.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 5 2013 to Analysis, Apple, Software
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