Unable to Render to QuickTime Movie format

[Kracken3D]

iMac Pro (2017), Catalina 10.15.3, 2.3 GHz 18-Core Intel Xeon W, 64GB RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 64X 16GB Graphics Card, Lightwave 2018.0.7

I am teaching myself to animate. I have been trying to render a scene to the Quicktime Movie format. I get a message saying,“ Error - Could not initialize writable movie file. The file may be in use.” After I click “OK”, it looks like Lightwave is going to the rendering process. But no render is created.

From what I can gather from this forum there is no solution to this issue. Is that correct? If so, what are my best options to render an animated video?

[Tim Parsons]

You should always render individual frames and then compile them in your post app of choice. Reason being that if your PC crashes or the power gets interrupted you lose all the rendering so far.

[shrox]

You should always render individual frames and then compile them in your post app of choice. Reason being that if your PC crashes or the power gets interrupted you lose all the rendering so far.

Here is free and low cost stuff if you don't already have something.

[Rayek]

I hope you don't mind me amending your list a bit. Some important ones were missing, and Affinity Photo, while a RAW processor, lacks any DAM functionality, which means it's not a true alternative to Lightroom.

[prometheus]

As I know of, you should be able to render to quicktime, I use it anyway for previews, setting quicktime codec to animation uncompressed or H.264...then go for a break.
But as mentioned, for final movies to put on youtube or other ...save to image format and compile in Free davinci resolve for instance, or add extra effects in free fusion.

sounds weird that it shouldn´t work on a Mac given the format from apple.

Maybe something with your quicktime installation? make sure that installed properly in the first place.

[jwiede]

I hope you don't mind me amending your list a bit. Some important ones were missing, and Affinity Photo, while a RAW processor, lacks any DAM functionality, which means it's not a true alternative to Lightroom.

Also, Photoline was missing from the Ps list. Photoline is inexpensive, single-purchase, and quite possibly the closest to the breadth and depth of Ps itself in capabilities.

[Markc]

Have just done a test, works fine in High Sierra LW2019

[Rayek]

Also, Photoline was missing from the Ps list. Photoline is inexpensive, single-purchase, and quite possibly the closest to the breadth and depth of Ps itself in capabilities.

Yep, I noticed that - which is why I added it to the top of the list ;-).

To be fair though, others that are missing:

Corel products (PS, Illustrator)
Xara Designer (Illustrator)
Moho Pro (Animate)

And many others for Dreamweaver, Premiere, and Audition.

[shrox]

Also, Photoline was missing from the Ps list. Photoline is inexpensive, single-purchase, and quite possibly the closest to the breadth and depth of Ps itself in capabilities.

Just one reference I found on a quick search.

[Sensei]

If so, what are my best options to render an animated video?

Render to image sequence.

Then you can use any free or commercial app for joining frames together to any file format that you want.

You can even use QuickTime Player:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/guid...p315cce984/mac

[Ma3rk]

iMac Pro (2017), Catalina 10.15.3, 2.3 GHz 18-Core Intel Xeon W, 64GB RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 64X 16GB Graphics Card, Lightwave 2018.0.7

I am teaching myself to animate. I have been trying to render a scene to the Quicktime Movie format. I get a message saying,“ Error - Could not initialize writable movie file. The file may be in use.” After I click “OK”, it looks like Lightwave is going to the rendering process. But no render is created.

From what I can gather from this forum there is no solution to this issue. Is that correct? If so, what are my best options to render an animated video?

Out of curiosity, did you install the Quicktime Player on that system? That's where the codec would come from.

[Markc]

QuickTime player comes as standard on a Mac, but it could be a different version in the latest OS.

My system has been updated over the years, so any older versions are still there.....

Edit: just did some research, and Apple dropped support for QT in Mojave and above.
So it seems you cannot use it in Catalina. I assume the version that comes with the OS is just a player.

[Tim Parsons]

Also if you don't have access to other software to compile your individual frames you can always load them into LW and it can render out an .avi or Quicktime. Just always be sure to render to frames first for safety reasons.