QC Fail when exporting HD to SD sequences

[rlavon]

I have ongoing issues trying to export an 1080 HD sequence to SD using Media Encoder and getting QC fail notices. I have all the settings set for basic SD at 29.97, yet the QC fail notice shows-

"Video Frame Rate is showing as 19.73 frames/second"

"Video Frame Rate is showing as 24.30 frames/second (Frame Rate (Variable / Undetermined) Export using a Constant frame rate."

Is AME dropping frames?...Is the HD to SD conversion not working? I dont see any setting for "Constant Frame Rate vs "Variable Frame Rate"

When I check the exported movies in Premiere, QT Player or Sony Catalyst, they are all showing 29.97, so I was confident I was sending the correct file. I am attaching my AME Encpoding settings.

[Averdahl]

Try to un-check Optimize Stills.

Any reason behind the odd resolution combined with a Pixel Aspect Ratio for 4:3 (0.9) instead of 16:9? Why not 720x480 with a PAR of 1.2121?

[rlavon]

Hi-

That is not the screen shot I attached. Mine had an aspect ratio of 9:10 and a screen size of 720x486

[Averdahl]

Correct, the screen shot was added by me and that´s the dimensions/pixel aspect ratio that SD footage has.

(Still wondering why you use non-standard settings...)

[rlavon]

Again, these are the specs as dictated by the distributor. They do not want 16x9.

[R Neil Haugen]

What is the original media? Perchance, is there a variable frame rate file in the sequence? If there is, that can throw things off like this. Premiere/MediaEncoder don't always handle complete conversion of VFR to CFR, you may need to convert any VFR media to CFR in HandBrake and replace that/those clips in the project.

You also have upper-first on the sequence, lower-first on the deliverable ... hmm.

Neil

[rlavon]

Upper because the source sequence was HD and Lower because I was encoding to SD. The sequence was comprised of XDCAM EX footage (progressive) and stills. The distributor specs were 1080i or 1080p. I gave them a 1080i sequence. Maybe that in combonation with down-converting was the issue.

[rlavon]

So this is an update to my post and it is SOLVED although not in a fashion I would like. To summarize I had 2 HD sequences. One was to be exported as HD and the other SD. They had 2 different AD-ID slates and I resized the GX for SD title safety for the SD version.. I exported one as HD and one as SD. The HD spot passed QC. The SD failed because of a variable frame rate, not constant. 

What I did was instead of using AME to make the HD to SD conversion, I created a SD sequence, dropped the HD version into it, and exported it as "Match Sequence Settings" This time it passed QC.  So I can only surmise there is a quirk in the AME software that creates a variable frame rate when downconverting HD to SD.

[R Neil Haugen]

That's ... bizarre!

Great sleuthing there. Hmmm.

@Kevin-Monahan  ... is this something we should schlepp over to the developers to check out?

Neil

[rlavon]

I am writing down the workflow so the next time (and there will be a next time) I can get it right the first pass. Its important for the 12 people in America still watching SD TV.

[Jeff Bellune]

Any chance the source footage is VFR?