"Error in writing video MXF" (error-16) help

[samdaman94]

Hi all,

Longtime user of DCP-o-matic, big fan, never had an issue - love it.
However, have had this error twice on a current conversion I'm attempting - any advice gratefully received.
"Error in writing video MXF"
https://ibb.co/mHQjcy1

Please advise

Best,
Sam

[carl]

What drive are you writing to and how is it formatted?

[samdaman94]

NTFS formatted USB 3.0 external hard-drive, same as I ever use without issue

[Carsten]

Are you able to reformat that drive (again to NTFS)?

Usually that error points to either storage/file size restrictions, or a faulty drive/interface.

- Carsten

[samdaman94]

I've tried reformatting it a couple of times, doesn't work.
Interestingly, I can still convert/write short files to the hard-drive absolutely fine. But it's the features that are troublesome. They always get to about 5-6 hours into the conversion and freeze for a short while before cancelling altogether and stating error 16. It's never happened before, so it's rather bizarre. Especially as smaller files convert fine. But I've tried two different features and both have the same issue with conversion.

[Carsten]

Strange - just for a quick test, try to set 'Reels' to 'Custom' and '2GB' under 'DCP', then try once more. If it runs through, there is something strange about the disc formatting. If it hangs again, I would say the disc or interface is having trouble. Which DCP-o-matic version are you using?

- Carsten

[samdaman94]

I'm going to try and convert it straight onto my laptop hard-drive next and then move it over to the USB drive, I've made some space so I should have room for the conversion. Incidentally - and forgive me if this is a stupid question - but is there any way to see a projected file size of a final DCP before converting, so I know how much space I need? (For clarity, that isn't an issue with the external drive which has more than enough space for several feature DCPs)

Regarding the ver., I'm using - 2.14.7 git bf14618d05

[Carsten]

Prior versions of DCP-o-matic offered an estimate - however, it was a very rough estimate, based only on the J2K datarate setting (e.g. 150MBit/s) and run time. As the effective data rate is always content dependent, it was never accurate, only a 'worst case' estimate. I can't say much more than full length features from typical HD sources will typically take something between 100 and 200 Gigabytes at 150-200MBit/s compression rates.

Try it once more with the modified reel setting. It may give an indication at what's going wrong. I had some weird experiences with portable drives when operations work on it over extended periods of time. Sometimes they may go into sleep, or overheat, etc., then disconnect. Usually I prefer writing to internal SATA connected devices and then copy over.

- Carsten

[samdaman94]

I'm doing a run on this laptop but also on my spare laptop, which is a much lower CPU so the estimated completion time is much farther away. Outside of the longer wait, is there any downside to using a slower machine to run this software? While the final product may take 10hrs extra to complete, will it otherwise run just the same as a DCP created at a faster speed on a quicker machine - if that makes any sense at all? I don't mind the longer wait. But I don't want the DCP to be of a lower quality.

[Carsten]

It's really just the duration for encoding (and maybe some delays/sluggishness in the GUI with certain operations), there is no quality penalty for using slower/older hardware.

An antivirus software could be another reason for unexpected hangups. I think we had some very few issues before.

- Carsten