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RotoPawn
Participating Frequently
March 18, 2017
Question

BUG: Necessary Disc Space not Calculated Properly

  • March 18, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 303 views

I just spent two hours fixing a problem that turned into another because while test-rendering around the first bug, I filled my output disc and neither Premiere nor Media Encoder complained. So I let them render, twenty minutes at a go, and then scratched my head wondering why my final output files were 0 bytes.

I've reported this through the feature request/bug form, but I wanted to put it up on the forums as well -- and I've proposed a more thorough correction here.

Steps to Reproduce Bug:

1. Stage a disc with, let's say ~4Gb's free space remaining.

2. Export an .mp4 through either Media Encoder or Premiere with an estimated file size of, let's say 2.7Gb's.

Results:

Outputted .mp4 will have a file size of 0 bytes, containing nothing.

Reason:

The .mp4 is just the wrapper. Media Encoder/Premiere will first output a distinct .m4v of video-only and .aac of audio-only to the disc at the specified save location. Then it will try to combine their contents into a third file, the .mp4. But because the .m4v and .aac have already consumed 2.7Gb's disc space of the 4Gb's remaining, there's not enough space to duplicate their contents into the final .mp4. The disc space required to create the .mp4 is not the estimated file size, it's double.

Expected Results:

An error should be thrown before attempting export when the disc hasn't enough free space to create the final file. Additionally, if the constituent parts of a media file HAVE been successfully rendered and written to disc, but the wrapper can't be finalized for any reason, those video/audio files should be preserved while the user is prompted to either free up space on the disc or select another location for final output.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Legend
March 18, 2017

1. Stage a disc with, let's say ~4Gb's free space remaining.

Why on earth would any professional do this?

Ann Bens
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 18, 2017

Steps to Reproduce Bug:

1. Stage a disc with, let's say ~4Gb's free space remaining.

2. Export an .mp4 through either Media Encoder or Premiere with an estimated file size of, let's say 2.7Gb's.

Its not a bug. You free space is not enough.

Transcoding means at least twice (maybe 3-4x) the size of the estimate file size in diskspace.

but the wrapper can't be finalized for any reason, those video/audio files should be preserved while the user is prompted to either free up space on the disc or select another location for final output.

It does not do that for you.

On the other hand your disk should not be more then 75% filled to avoid issues.

RotoPawn
RotoPawnAuthor
Participating Frequently
March 18, 2017

It IS a bug.

If you try to render a file and you don't have enough free disc space to accommodate the "estimated file size" of the render in both Premiere and Media Encoder, an error IS thrown and you ARE prompted. The bug here is that the disc space check that's already in place is not accounting for the overhead needed to insert the media into the wrapper. The error traps are already in place... but half of the use cases in which the user is intended to get the error message don't fire.

As to the latter, I know it "does not do that for you." I'm proposing that it should. Another disc check pre-wrapper insertion would create an opportunity - where that check returns false - to save the m4v and aac that have just written to disc, and prompt the user to either save elsewhere or create space and try again.

I'm sure that what I am describing is nothing short of exactly what the software team intends.