horrible experience with nested items
by Luis Artigas
on
Aug 24, 2008 at 12:30:37 am
Okay
So I believe that I have been close to getting fired this month twice due to a horrible experience with nested sequences.
Christ! I'm still getting shivers I swear I was about to faint.
So this is what happened less than 20 minutes ago.
We are doing the Olympics, live at dawn and recaps at late afternoon, dusk. The live feed has many interruptions due to various events being covered simultaneously, but the recaps must go without interruptions so our department, that usually deals only with 30 second promos of our regular programs, is dealing with entire matches, baseball, football, soccer, basketball, athletics, swimming, etc.
So usually we only make a few cuts and then print to tape.
I'm a big nest items user, and print to video as well, my promos might have many layers, some I don't even use, I just have beds where I can play with different edits, so when I finally finish editing, I nest my sequence just to tidy things up.
anyway sorry for the rant
So I made some edits in a baseball game a week ago, nested the whole thing and printed to tape.
of course all of this in a big hurry,
when the tape got to master, the technicians called saying that everything lost synchrony. I wasn't there, but I got the story the day later.
TODAY
I was piecing together the Argentina Nigeria men's football final and everything was going dandy, I had nested the sequence as I almost always do, and I checked the beginning while I printed to tape, I did some other things and when the first half was coming to a close I checked again and the sync of the action with the commentary was perfect.
I ate a late lunch
and then the dreaded call from master
horrible horrible synchrony, and this was 20 minutes before the air time.
so we sent the original cassettes with the original feed, to replace what I had edited.
Our boss didn't hassle me much, but other colleagues have gotten fired for less than this.
I hope to God nothing horrible happens.
anyway long story short
Nested Items seem really keen on slipping synchrony on longer lengths
this doesn't seem to be a problem with shorter lenghts.
and even worst, while monitoring when laying to tape, everything fine, check the tape itself and you might be in for a horrible surprise.
This seems to be a problem specially when using the cmd+m function, print to video, because when only reproducing from the timeline, there are no worries, but when you make a print to video, it seems the render previous to the recording screws everything up.
really scary
I am never using nested sequences or print to tape ever again, never, never, never.
maybe only by exporting a self contained quick time in a timeline with no edits.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by David Roth Weiss on Aug 24, 2008 at 1:16:20 am
Luis,
Other than "tidying things up," I can't figure out why you are nesting. If it's not essential, don't do it... But, I guess I need't tell you that now...
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by walter biscardi on Aug 24, 2008 at 1:30:32 am
[Luis Artigas]"I'm a big nest items user, and print to video as well, my promos might have many layers, some I don't even use, I just have beds where I can play with different edits, so when I finally finish editing, I nest my sequence just to tidy things up"
Absolutely ZERO reason to do this.
The only reason you use a Nest is when you are going to affect all the layers in one shot, such as taking 10 layers, creating a Nest and adding a single dissolve to the nest. Or for creating a lower third that has multiple elements so you can bring in the entire nest at once.
Nests are NOT for tidying up anything and nests never cause any sort of sync issues that I've ever seen. I use nests on a constant basis and love them, but I don't quite understand what you have to tidy up and why.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Luis Artigas on Aug 24, 2008 at 6:53:50 am
Thanks for getting back to me
The reason I used a nested sequence was because I wanted to affect several clips. Specifically the audio. The audio I digitized was all panned left, so with the nested sequence selected, I press enter and in the audio on the viewer centered panned everything.
I could have done this pasting attributes but, thought it would be faster this other way.
the timeline warned of no render, but when I cmd+m (print to tape) it effectively rendered something that screwed up my audio. The worst part was I monitored the beginning and end and things were fine...
When I checked my timeline after getting called by master, effectively the nested sequence had lost synchrony, but, this is the really irritating part, when i double clicked on the nested sequence to reveal the items in it...... everything was fine. So I feel it was a render that print to tape executed before recording that screwed things up
I used to really enjoy nesting and printing to tape but I'm terribly afraid of keeping this habit.
also I can remember one other instance when I saw this anomaly, a friend was printing to tape a concert, and suddenly it lost synchrony, again like 20 minutes before air time....
My main concern now that I'm adopting a no nesting no printing lifestyle is that I believe timeline playback is lower quality compared to print to tape playback,
If I put the timeline display in high quality all frames, would this be the same quality as printing to tape???
Just a side note, none of my colleagues use print to tape or nested sequences, so I look like the biggest fool. Everyone manually puts their vtrs to record and plays the timeline, and I thought they where the fools.
silly me
Thanks for everything
Luis Artigas
Caracas, Venezuela
FCS2 macpro quad 3.0 5 gigs ram, Tiger
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Shane Ross on Aug 24, 2008 at 10:27:27 am
[Luis Artigas]"I believe timeline playback is lower quality compared to print to tape playback,"
That would be an incorrect belief. The quality would be exactly the same. Just make sure you are FULLY rendered...no green whatsoever. Fully purple or grey.
BTW, I think it is REALLY COOL to be talking to an editor of the Olympics.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by walter biscardi on Aug 24, 2008 at 12:58:43 pm
[Luis Artigas]"I could have done this pasting attributes but, thought it would be faster this other way. "
Select All > Pan to Center. You don't need to Nest to Pan Audio.
[Luis Artigas]"Just a side note, none of my colleagues use print to tape or nested sequences, so I look like the biggest fool. Everyone manually puts their vtrs to record and plays the timeline, and I thought they where the fools. "
I never use Print to Tape, I only use Edit to Tape. The only time I manually roll the VTR is when I'm laying off a re-use tape.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Rafael Amador on Aug 24, 2008 at 3:07:04 am
[Luis Artigas]"This seems to be a problem specially when using the cmd+m function, print to video, because when only reproducing from the timeline, there are no worries, but when you make a print to video, it seems the render previous to the recording screws everything up. " Hi Luis.
This sounds to me like some monitoring issue.
You are editing out of sync, but this is compensated while playing from the time-line. When you print to video, the offset shows up.
Have a look the "Frame offset" in the Playback Control (System setting).
rafael
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Paul Dickin on Aug 24, 2008 at 9:17:52 am
Hi
Probably you did this, but in a deadline rush its even more important...
Mixdown all the audio in the Timeline.
Especially make sure the contents of the nest(s) is/are completely Mix(e)down,
then Mixdown the output Sequence.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by walter biscardi on Aug 24, 2008 at 7:20:42 pm
[Rick Dolishny]"are you going to also tell me changing speed of timeline clips throws your show out of sync? "
Of course it does, Apple has never fixed this. If you change the speed of a clip in the timeline it will move everything else in the timeline relative to what you've done.
Completely stupid way of working but a lot of folks on here seem to like the way Apple does speed changes. I hate it so we create our speed changes in a separate timeline.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Paul Bertham on Aug 24, 2008 at 8:40:05 pm
the way of making speedchanges in FCP leads to the most idiotic workflows that i've ever seen in my life working with professional NLEs.
A way to keep sync in timeline is to use the source clip rather than the original media file and to overwrite the desired edit.
However, the other unfavorable suprise whenever you do speedchanges is the quality of the rendered file. the algorythm is simply inacceptable, even for reverse playback of clips.
I often have to use third party plugins or even leaving the speed-changed clip(s) unrendered when exporting for much better results.
As for the nesting problems described and the solving answers from professionals in here: it makes no sense in any way. somebody suggested the frame offset in the settings, others talk about audio mixdown, others ETT rather than PTT... what the Heck?
Anyone considered Soft- or Hardware Problems?
Anyone considered Final Cu Pro - or lets better say Apple?
AjA, for example, have released now (after a long period) their new Software (v6) for their Videocards.
There have been known issues of a/v-sync problems (and many more) since ages (in an editors term).
Using the word "Professionality" in relation to "Complexity" is far wrong.
why?
Many camera manufacturers - in this case, Sony, Panasonic - are fooling the people with new technologies (CF, SxS, P2) and there is no workflow without flaws, but product manager still lie in our faces how easy everything works.
How many new Codecs and Video formats do we need?
Anyone asking for poor video quality in FCP when working with rectangular pixels instead of square pixels in compositing software?
Anyone thinking about problems with poor graphic-files unless you know about the mass why these problems are caused?
Anyone talking about messed up Quicktime releases?
The more people are accepting those flaws and bugs, the more Hard- and Software manufacturers will never change their minds.
They better should Betatest on their own and not on our Back. We're the paying consumer/user. We are the customers, and customer is king, not a fool.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by walter biscardi on Aug 24, 2008 at 10:06:00 pm
[Paul Bertham]"somebody suggested the frame offset in the settings, others talk about audio mixdown, others ETT rather than PTT... what the Heck? "
It's not a frame offset, it's a Playback Offset. This has nothing to do with actual audio sync, it has to do with the playback offset of keeping your Canvas and external monitor in sync. FCP's default is 4 frames because of the way that format works, there is a delay in the video hitting the external monitor so the audio is delayed by four frames to make it appear in sync as you edit.
If you have a video card such as the AJA Kona, you set that offset to 0.
Or in the case of 1080i HD to my Panny Pro Plasma I have to set that delay to 2 due to the inherrent delay on the plasma screen.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the audio sync during layback to tape, just to make sure the audio is visually in sync while you're editing. Playback offset is actually a really nice feature.
[Paul Bertham]"AjA, for example, have released now (after a long period) their new Software (v6) for their Videocards.
There have been known issues of a/v-sync problems (and many more) since ages (in an editors term). "
Not with the AJA video cards. We've been using them for almost four years now, they're rock solid. Where there HAVE been issues is sync and audio issues brought about by Apple's Quicktime updates.
[Paul Bertham]"I often have to use third party plugins or even leaving the speed-changed clip(s) unrendered when exporting for much better results. "
Have you used Optical Flow in Motion? That's included with FCP and does a far superior job with Slo Mo as has been stated on this forum many times.
[Paul Bertham]"Many camera manufacturers - in this case, Sony, Panasonic - are fooling the people with new technologies (CF, SxS, P2) and there is no workflow without flaws, but product manager still lie in our faces how easy everything works. "
What problems are you having? P2 is a piece of cake. XDCAM is very simple too. What specific issues are you having?
[Paul Bertham]"Anyone asking for poor video quality in FCP when working with rectangular pixels instead of square pixels in compositing software? "
What issues are you having? We use After Effects on a daily basis with FCP. Just curious what issues you're having.
[Paul Bertham]"Anyone thinking about problems with poor graphic-files unless you know about the mass why these problems are caused? "
Again, what issues are you having? We also use Photoshop on a daily basis with FCP.
[Paul Bertham]"Anyone talking about messed up Quicktime releases? "
Yep, everytime they're released we generally find many things broken in FCP due to Quicktime "fixes." They're always noted on this forum, just do a search on Quicktime and you'll probably find hundreds of posts through the years regarding Quicktime breaking FCP.
[Paul Bertham]"They better should Betatest on their own and not on our Back. We're the paying consumer/user. We are the customers, and customer is king, not a fool. "
Last I heard Apple had less beta testers than you have fingers on your hands. This is COMPLETELY unacceptable and I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Apple tends to break things more than they fix them because they only have a few beta testers using only a few system configs. So when the software gets released to the 1,000,000+ registered users running probably 50,000 configurations, well things break.
But on the other hand, limitations and all, we're delivering broadcast masters on a weekly basis both in SD and HD and have been since 2001. The software needs tweaking, but for the most part, it does work well.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Ben Holmes on Aug 25, 2008 at 12:49:32 am
Wow. This thread reminds me why I NEVER use nests (unless I really really have to). I used to get errors and crashes caused by them too, especially whilst laying gfx over the top (a few fcp versions ago) - I also just don't like not seeing where everything is... Usually nesting=lazy editing, except in the instances Walter mentions.
BTW Shane, as someone who spent a month in Athens in 2004 editing at the Olympics, and spends his life working on big sporting events (just getting my kit flightcased to go to Kentucky next month for the Ryder Cup) I can tell you those big long events are just one long slog. Seeing it on the TV is always more fun...
Night night.
Ben
Edit Out Ltd
----------------------------
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer
Re: horrible experience with nested items by walter biscardi on Aug 25, 2008 at 11:18:14 am
[Ben Holmes]" (just getting my kit flightcased to go to Kentucky next month for the Ryder Cup)"
Hey Ben! Kentucky is not all that far from Atlanta. If you have any time to stop by, we're about 45 minutes north of Atlanta. Unfortunately we're off I-85 and you'll be up the I-75 corridor towards Kentucky but you never know. We can compare notes on BluRay. :-)
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Ben Holmes on Sep 26, 2008 at 1:29:59 am
Walter
Just checked a few old threads and saw your reply - only got back a couple of days ago. I had no idea you were so close, but I'd never have fitted it into out insane schedule (ie. 34 hours on air in 3 days). Be great to meet at NAB or IBC one of these days - you never know...
Ben
Edit Out Ltd
----------------------------
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Paul Bertham on Aug 25, 2008 at 8:40:18 am
Hi Walter,
Thank you for reply and sharing your thoughts and opinion with us.
i cannot reply to everything you have replied coz im busy to but here just a few things.
About Quicktime Player and Aperture Interpretation:
It seems that it does not make any sense to discuss about, but just for information - Quicktime player fools us around because of misinterpretation of the aperture. You have Four Modes: Classic, Clean, Production, Encoded Pixels.
Depending on how your Footage is interpreted by QT, quality changes. you mostly can see this in an vertical resolution loss (dirty edges, steps in greenscreen footage, etc.)
Thats why i wrote that you mostly have to work with square pixels in compositing software ans ALWAYS taking care of the interpretation of your footage you're working on.
For example P2 Workflow 720p50.
FCP Logged P2 Footage is interpreted in quicktime with Aperture "Clean" and with an Pixel Aspect Ratio of 1248x702
Same P2 Footage that has been logged via "Raylight" shows no change in Aperture and a Pixel Aspect of 1280x720
these two differences are emerging drastically whe you work with Hi-res footage. You'll see the difference if you test it.
Same BS with the correct or better say incorrect gamma interpretation in quicktime.
this in Absolutely inacceptable because my whole work relies to the architecture of quicktime.
As for P2 workflow: maybe in your NTSC world there'll be less problems with that issue, but over here - if you do not use "Raylight" for transferring your P2 Footage - you're merely F...ed
XDCAM-Files make troubles too.
Workflows (especially P2) are just complicated - and is frustrating lots of people who have started working with.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by walter biscardi on Aug 25, 2008 at 11:20:13 am
[Paul Bertham]"It seems that it does not make any sense to discuss about, but just for information - Quicktime player fools us around because of misinterpretation of the aperture. You have Four Modes: Classic, Clean, Production, Encoded Pixels. "
I don't follow where Quicktime Player has anything to do with FCP. Quicktime Player can have issues with none standard frame sizes such as anamorphic and whatnot, but what does that have to do with playback in FCP?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Paul Bertham on Aug 25, 2008 at 12:13:11 pm
it´s mostly about quality degradation.
if you work in AE and you don´t re-interpret your footage, the quality of your exported footage will change drastically (low).
and
of course Quicktime can screw up your complete Final Cut Suite and as you´ve already said, other Apps too.
Because quicktime is deeply implemented into the OS so it can even screw up your whole system.
I remember that one of the QT releases for exsmple caused Life Type Templates dissappearing magically - everything went f...ed up.
Try screwing around QT system libraries - by accident or not - and wonder if your mac will not boot anymore.
It remebers my somehow on IE and windows. you can´t get rid of it, otherwise throw your system into the trash.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by walter biscardi on Aug 25, 2008 at 12:32:23 pm
[Paul Bertham]"it´s mostly about quality degradation.
if you work in AE and you don´t re-interpret your footage, the quality of your exported footage will change drastically (low). "
Of course you have to interpolate your footage correctly. AE does not do this automatically every time. Especially when it comes to interlacing, sometimes it will correctly interpolate the footage in the correct field order, sometimes it won't.
If you don't start with the correct pixel aspect ration and format, then you will absolutely get image degradation in your resulting comps, but this is a responsibility of the artist, not the software. I've been using AE since about 1996 and it's always been that way.
[Paul Bertham]"of course Quicktime can screw up your complete Final Cut Suite and as you´ve already said, other Apps too.
Because quicktime is deeply implemented into the OS so it can even screw up your whole system. "
Just about anything Apple releases can screw up the ProApps because, again, the beta team for Final Cut Studio is incredibly small so they can barely test every scenario. Which is precisely why on this very forum we never recommend anyone allow their system to run in the automatic update mode. You should always wait at least two weeks before installing any updates available and check on this forum and with all the manufacturer forums before you update.
This is not just true for Studio, but any ProApps on a Mac from including Avid and Premiere.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: horrible experience with nested items by Paul Bertham on Aug 26, 2008 at 7:25:12 pm
Thank you Walter again for competent relpy!
as you wrote about the small amount of "Beta Tester" @ Apple we will never find a logic conclusion inbetween the "50k configurations".
for my opinion: as long APPLE does support those "curlywhirly" format kitchen from developers and, and as long IF THEY (Developers and Manufacturers) are willed to face the truth about confusion about formats, we�ll never agree in this term.
Fact is - there is confusion. AND: it�s all about money.
No, we do not talk about murphys law...
There are just a few small little things to confess about truth and lies!
