Missing 1 frame (kinda urgent!!)

[Phil Gosselin]

Hi all,

I needed to export my entire project in order to bring it to my grading buy. Of course he works on a Mac and grade the colors through Apple Colors. This might not have been the most efficient way to go about it but in order for things to be compatible I decided to export everything in Quicktime Animation. I brought my clips over to his place yesterday and all was fine.

When we were done he exported all the clips in 2 big one using the same export parameters as I did. I came back to my place yesterday and re-cut the big clips into their original single clips so that I could re-edit the whole thing back together.

This is morning I was about to re-edit everything when I realized that ALL the clips had one missing frame, namely the last one. I checked if my render was missing a frame, so I dropped it on top of the original, it is all OK. I called my colorist so that he could check on his end. He stacked the render he did on top of the ones I brought and it is also fine.

What the heck is going on ???

Thanks,

Phil

ps, Yes I made sure that all projects are set the same ;)

[Edward Troxel]

Why didn't he render out all the individual clips like you gave him? If I gave him 20 clips, I'd expect 20 clips in return!

Is the "missing" frame at the beginning of the "next" clip? If yes, you pressed "S" one frame too soon. If no, it's quite possible that he did not render out the last frame back to you!

[Phil Gosselin]

Thanks Edward

-There was no time yesterday to render 90 clips, it was a mutual decision.

-Nope, the missing frame is the last frame of the clip. Besides, he tried putting his render on top of mine and it came out the same.

...

Phil

[Edward Troxel]

Guess that next time you should make sure you have a header and footer so that you don't have to worry about that.

[Phil Gosselin]

I did !!!

If I put the rendered clip on top of the original one they match.

If he put his rendered clip on top of my rendered one they match.

So logic dictates that with these two tests all should be fine, why then ALL clips are missing one frame. If they all have that in common it is likely that something was automated somehow, but what!!!

I need to figure out what went wrong otherwise I may me bound to repeat it

Phil

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Phil Gosselin

I need to figure out what went wrong otherwise I may me bound to repeat it

That’s what Edward meant by the header and footer: You need to have some extra frames at the beginning of each clip and additional extra frames at the end of each clip. That way even if several frames are missing at each end of the clip, it does not matter. And if they all come back, you just trim them off in your final edit.

[Phil Gosselin]

Oh I see.

Sorry guys but I am SO frustrated I did not mean to take anything out on any of you.

Still though why oh why did this happened, any ideas?

Phil

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Phil Gosselin

Still though why oh why did this happened, any ideas?

Clearly, none of us knows, or we would have told you. We really would!

If I should guess, perhaps (and that is just a guess) some conversion took place, such as between a drop-frame and non-drop-frame rate, e.g., between 24 fps (used in film) and 24/1.001 fps (used in video).

Perhaps if you described the clips, such as their resolution, fps, original file format, plus your project settings (beyond them being “the same”, the same what?), etc, someone might offer more than guesswork.

[Phil Gosselin]

Actually something REALLY stupid just happened, it is if the "have you checked the power cord" sort.

Instead of looking at the problem on a software level I actually looked at the files themselves (which I should've done in the first place, I admit). Selecting all the clip Windows Explorer told me that they totaled 3:07 minute. Now I did the same with the rendered files done yesterday and it totaled 3:04!!!

So there it goes I guess, something must've gone wrong during the rendering process yesterday. It is the perfect explanation because originally I had 87 clips. At 23.976 this puts the total of frames to slightly less than 4 second.

Still though, why would it drop the last frame?

All my project and render settings were ate 1920x1080x23.976 (it was shot with a 7D)

Phil

[Adam Stanislav]

Windows Explorer is not precise enough. What does MediaInfo say?

[Phil Gosselin]

It concurs.

[Edward Troxel]

Did it also lose the last frame of the LAST file?

[Phil Gosselin]

Actually the last frame of the last file is kinda strange, even though the file last for 1:37 when I drop it into Vegas it has a lenght of of +/- 7:00 and all that extra time is composed of the last frame, just like if I were to freeze frame it and stretch it for 7 minutes.

When my colorist drop his own render in FC the length of file is correct.

Are you on to something Edward?

Thanks

Phil

[Edward Troxel]

Not really. Just wondered if it was also one frame short which, if it was, that might lead to some clue.

At this point I think the BIGGEST problem is QuickTime/Mac files on a PC. There are so many odd things that can happen. I think what you're seeing at the end of the file is just another example. Without knowing the format, I wonder if interlacing could have something to do with it as well?

If you gave him your original files to color, I think everything would have been fine. However, it sounds like you gave him trimmed files to color containing only the precise frames you were using with no header or footer as I mentioned earlier. In the future I would either have him do the original files or make sure I had a few extra frames at the beginning and end of each segment to give yourself a buffer. Either way, I'd render each segment back out into individual segments again.

My only advice for your current situation: I can see a couple of options

Shorten each clip by 1 frame and your video is 4 seconds shorter?

Stretch each video by 1 frame (hold down the CTRL key and resize it to fill that missing frame) - you'll still miss that one frame but you'll fill the same length of time.

[Phil Gosselin]

Ok so I tried stretching all clip, unfortunately this brings motion blur on top of motion blur which is not acceptable.

I guess my only choice now is to render everything out again, this time leave a 5 frame at the beginning and end of each clip thus creating a buffer.

This leaves the question as to what to do next time? Surely I am not the first one to have a Vegas/FC workflow. Was rendering each clip to the Animation codec a good choice or is there an alternative that retains the original quality as much as possible?.

Of course I wouldn't have bothered at all if this was a corporate video. This is a music clip so one frame really counts (especially when shot at 24p) otherwise out goes the sync.

Phil