Rendering AVCHD produces 'frame is unreadable' error

[Aeropars]

Thanks for the reply.

To summarise, hwere are the troubleshooting steps I have followed.

Initially the render would crash at the same point. The end of a clip at the pont a transition effect should have happened. this transition effect (crossfade) was used already in the project and rendered fine.

I then removed the clip after this crash to rule out a corrupt clip. It crashed again at the same point.

I then added all clips to the timeline, added a 1 second crossfade between clips and rendered this again. This was sucessfull.

I tried the project on both my laptop and desktop computer (desktop is a 3ghz quad core with 4gb ram and a Geforce 8800gt with latest drivers)
Project fails on both of these.

I tried uninstalling the k-lite codec pack and rendering still failed.

What I havent tried is re-creating the project. It took me so long to do that I'm worried i'll create it again and the problem will rear its ugly head again.

Any thoughts? am i likely to get this resolved? My system spec is upto scratch right?

A recent change I have made is to manually control the page file. I set this to 12gb (large i know but Powerdirector errored with not enough system memory errors)

[Black Lab]

Since it happens on 2 different machines we can probably rule out a hardware problem. That leaves the software, and the clips you are using, which I suspect is the problem. That is why I asked if this problem occurs with a project using other clips.

[Aeropars]

But saying that, the clips must be fine as well because I added the same clips to a new project and it rendered OK for that. the only thing I didnt do is overlays, mp3 soundtracks and text.

[Black Lab]

Ok, that eliminates that. Now add the other parts to your project one at a time until you hit the problem again.

the only thing I didnt do is overlays, mp3 soundtracks and text.

This is the first you have informed us you were using MP3s. A while ago you were asked to read the Read This Before Posting thread and it specifically asks for "Properties of your source files, including video, audio, image files (format, file size, where did you get it?)".

All the files in a project are important, not just the video clips, and some types of MP3 have shown to cause problems in VS. You may want to try converting them to WAV files.

[Aeropars]

Thanks for the reply.

Apologies, I must have overlooked the audio part.

I user the same MP3 twice for opening and ending. The opening instance of the mp3 is left uneditied and at standar volume. The exit instance has volume changes and a fade in.

If the video has already rendered the MP3 earlier on in the project, woudl it not be safe to assume the file is ok as it rendered sucessfully at the start?

[Black Lab]

At this point I don't think it is safe to assume anything. Continue to put together the project one part at a time, rendering after each, until you find the culprit.

[Aeropars]

!hat could take me years! the whole project will have around 50 clips and will be about an hour in length so its unreasonable to have to render after every clip, audio or title insertion wouldn't you say?

[Black Lab]

Then do it the way I have done in the past to find a corrupt clip. Let's say your project is called Project A. Open it and delete roughly the second half of the project. Now save that first half as Project B. Render it. Does it work? If not, then you probably have a bad clip in there somewhere. Split that in half and repeat.

If Project B renders ok then move on. Open Project A again and delete the first half. Save as Project C. Render it. Does it work? If not, then you probably have a bad clip in there somewhere. Split that in half and repeat.

It's either that or the burn not finishing. Your choice.

[Aeropars]

When the crash happens the file is left on the hard drive. (im not burning to disk, just creating a file). If i view that file is that not indicative of at what point the problem occurred? By that i mean the crash happens late on in the project. at the point of crash theres something it cant handle. Should I not then check the timeline and see what was being rendered at that point? Or is that a red herring?

[mitchell65]

When the crash happens the file is left on the hard drive.

So you are managing to create a file. Does that play back OK?

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

When the crash happens the file is left on the hard drive. (im not burning to disk, just creating a file). If i view that file is that not indicative of at what point the problem occurred? By that i mean the crash happens late on in the project. at the point of crash theres something it cant handle. Should I not then check the timeline and see what was being rendered at that point? Or is that a red herring?

Yep that seems about right.
You could add the partial file to an empty overlay track, position to the beginning of the project, then view the timeline at the end of this clip.

[Aeropars]

Thanks for the replies guys!

Yes, the rendering process gets to around 98%. I assume that as soon as the render starts VS start writing the file so when it crashes it leaves whatever work it has already processed on the hard drive. This is however, incomplete and has missing audio at the end of the track.

[Black Lab]

This is however, incomplete and has missing audio at the end of the track.

That would leave me to believe the audio was at fault.

[Aeropars]

I'm currently rendering without that clip so i'll report back with the results. I'm pretty sure I removed that clip and rendered again when this problem started occurring and it still crashed but this will be the definitive answer I guess.

Could the problem be caused by my smart proxy files? I've been on the PowerDirector forums and they suggest turning their equivalent off as it can cause some problems. I'm wondering if its worth doing the same in this instance?

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

As far as I know we haven¡¦t had any problems with Smart Proxy.
Turning it off prior to rendering shouldn¡¦t cause any problems.

Give it a go and let us know.

Whats the properies of the suspect audio file?