Computer freezes between compressions

I am a new user of Episode. So far I am very impressed with it for many of the same reasons that Walter recites in his review. But in the past two days I have had a problem:

I have two one-hour 1080i docs that I exported from Final Cut Pro (6.0.4) as non self-contained movies. I dragged them into Episode and applied the template setting for QT h.264, 1280x720. Turn it on and go to bed.

The next morning I wake up to find the screen saver's waving bands of color have become a freeze frame. I have to force quit with the power button. After re-start I learn that the first movie compressed beautifully but the second compression failed. And the computer froze for some reason I'm then able to compress the second movie successfully.

Then I decide to try again. Everything is the same except that I change the compression setting to a smaller size --960x540. And I go to bed again. Exact same thing happens. The compression attempt on the second movie created a QT icon in the target folder but it held zero data. And the computer froze.

This is a very clean machine, dedicated exclusively to production and I keep things updated pretty well. Has anyone got a clue where I might start trying to figure out what is going wrong?

I'm running Episode 5.1.1 -- not Pro -- on an Octocore, OS 10.5.5

Hi Robert,

I certainly considered compressing from a self-contained movie. Perhaps that would solve the problem and, if so, I'll go with that. But it's definitely a time-waster, particularly with two hour-long 1080i pieces, and considering that non self-contained movies are supposed to be fine with Episode.

I don't have the option of using another computer that's anywhere near the power of my Octocore and, anyway, I only have Episode licensed for one computer.

I can try the new user account. I wouldn't have thought of that. Why do you think that might make a difference?

I do appreciate your paying attention to my question and offering suggestions. I wish I could determine what the underlying cause of the failure is so that I could address it directly. If any of your suggestions work, do you have in mind what underlying problems that might point to?

Thanks Robert. I'll give these things a try. I'm tied up getting other work done right now and might not have time to do it immediately. But it's important so you will hear back from me at some point.

Cheers,

Ron