FCP gone mad! Does anyone know what's going on?

[Existentialist]

I have an Imac, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo procss, 4GB of memory. I have never had any problems rendering any of my videos, or exporting them to whatever was on my wildest dreams. Until now.

I've been trying to export a 6 minute short film. Initially, I had already exported it "Using QT conversion", H264 for the web, HD. All went well. Then I watched the film and thought I still needed a filter on it.

So I dropped this newly rendered movie on a brand new timeline, and applied a Looks filter on it. Now it won't render. (the reason I didn't apply the filter to the original film is that there are several video tracks one on top of the other, so I thought I'd take a short cut)

What happens now is that I'll set up the in and out points, and export to the same settings as before, and it will even start exporting, for hours. Around the 5th hour or so I get a message saying "can't render this depth". The video even gets done! But when you watch it, all you get are these colorful blobs floating around the screen against a black background. Whaaaat???

Has anyone ever seen this? Is there a solution? What am I doing wrong?

Here's a grab of what I'm talking about:

 

[Tim Joy]

What are your render settings on? Some plugins, (Like nattress for example) only work when rendering in RGB. So if you're on YUV/ high precision it will end up with something similarly crazy. Try switching to RGB (making sure to use a broadcast safe filter if any highlights are above 100%) and render again.

In regards to the h.264 version you want to make. I find the best way to do it, without introducing a gamma shift is to export the movie using current settings first, then use QT pro to export the h264 from that. "Export using QT conversion" always looks washed out when I do that, but if I only need a file real quick I'll use it and add a little contrast on export.

 

[David Saraceno]

You are trying to edit a movie file that has been transcoded to a delivery format.

You edit with an editing codec, and h.264 is not an editing codec.

You export to a delivery codec, and h.264 is a delivery codec.

But you will always issues trying to edit the exported movie which is now in a delivery format - h.264.

Therefore, until you're satisfied with your final product, keep the original sequence intact for further editing.