I've been working for a while on a wedding project and my clients are expecting it tomorrow. However after sitting around forever waiting for my Mac Pro to convert my finished project into a Quicktime Movie, my computer flashes the "Error: Out Of Memory" message.

I don't understand how this can be so. I bought my computer with what I needed specifically for this, and it's not working? It's an 8-Core 2.26GHz Mac Pro with 8GB of RAM. I have 2 hard drives, my 640GB drive is my system drive which is running FCS 2 (FCP 6), and I also have a 1TB Drive that I store all my projects on.

Does this make sense to anybody? Could it be because I'm rendering out to a Quicktime File that it isn't completing? I can't afford to miss this deadline so any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Simplest things first.
How large a file are you trying to output, and how much free space do you have left on your drive?

Andrew,

This error message almost always comes up when there's a problem with the software environment, not hardware. Chances are either your sequence/project file is corrupt or the OS needs to be cleaned out and refreshed.

Try these steps:

- Download and run all the cleaning and maintenance routines in Onyx for Mac (free app)
- Download and run FCP Rescue and see if your project file needs repair

Also how are you exporting your project? Are you going straight from the timeline to a QT file export? Have you tried using Compressor instead to create your finished file?

Try these suggestions and let us know what happens.

Hey Andrew

Also make sure you have no CMYK images in that timeline, FCP will not like that one bit and an "Error: Out of Memory" message is the likely result. If you do find a CMYK formatted image in there then convert it to RGB and see if that helps.

Best
Andy

Never knew that about CMYK images, thanks.

The only time I ever get that message is when a drive fills up. Standard DV takes about 12gBs per hour, HD ProRes422 HQ about 100gBs per hour, standard HD ProRes about 66gBs. Uncompressed HD a whole lot more. A 1tB drive can fill up quick.

Many years ago a bad RAM chip brought up a similar message but not in FCP. Only when I did something that needed a lot of RAM would this happen. It was fixed by replacing the bad chip.

Hey guys, thanks for your replies thus far. I'm going try what you've suggested. My project is about an hour long... and I'm utilizing footage from both my Sony EX1 (720/24p) and my Canon HV30 (1080/60i).

How would I know if any clips are CMYK instead of RGB? How would I convert them to RGB once I find out?

I'm not very familiar with Compressor, I tried to export through it a couple times but I don't get very far.

Clips can't be CMYK, he was referring to graphic files.

First check how much free disk space you have. Second, send us the particulars of your edit sequence namely what codec it's in. You might have a corrupted video file.

Andrew,

One way to check would be using Photoshop or other still image editor.

When you open an image in PS, the title bar will have the name of the image followed by the bit depth (should be 8) and either RGB or CMYK. If your image is in fact CMYK, convert it to RGB. You may have to re-connect your media in FC, but that's pretty straight forward.

If you have LOTS of images and you have a more recent copy of PS, CS2-CS4, there is a program called Bridge that you can view a folder of images, and Bridge give you info such as file size, color mode (RGB or CMYK) among other things.

Jonathan

I get the Error:Out of Memory all the time and I've got 9GB of RAM. But it's an easy "fix". I just save my project, Quit FCP and relaunch it. In almost every case that fixes it. If that doesn't work I restart the computer and that always works.

Sorry this isn't a long term "solution" to prevent the problem from happening again, but I've been working around it for a while now with out any issues.

I've been working for a while on a wedding project and my clients are expecting it tomorrow. However after sitting around forever waiting for my Mac Pro to convert my finished project into a Quicktime Movie, my computer flashes the "Error: Out Of Memory" message.

I don't understand how this can be so. I bought my computer with what I needed specifically for this, and it's not working? It's an 8-Core 2.26GHz Mac Pro with 8GB of RAM. I have 2 hard drives, my 640GB drive is my system drive which is running FCS 2 (FCP 6), and I also have a 1TB Drive that I store all my projects on.

Does this make sense to anybody? Could it be because I'm rendering out to a Quicktime File that it isn't completing? I can't afford to miss this deadline so any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

It's the space on your HDD. As you have different projects and you overwrite old files it will write files in different locations on your HDD. So rule #1 is never capture and edit using the drive with your OS/apps.

It's easy to check how much space you have left on the drive your scratch disc is pointed to. Why not post that info? (1TB isn't that big for a second drive, but I'm guessing he's not running out of storage space......could be wrong though) :)