Why producing a generated asset again is not a fix
A notice burnt into a rendered frame cannot be lifted off. The route offered is usually to change a setting and produce the video again, and for generated material that is not the same as repairing it. As of 2026-09-12.
| Remedy | What comes out |
|---|---|
| Re-export with a different setting | The same content, if the tool allows it |
| Generate again with a flag cleared | A new asset, not guaranteed to match |
| Edit the frame afterwards | A visible repair, and a changed picture |
| Nothing | The file as delivered |
Inclusion rule. Remedies available once a file has been produced with an unwanted mark. Order. From least disruptive to most.
1Generated output is not deterministic in the way an export is
Re-exporting a timeline produces the same picture with different settings. Re-running a generation produces something new, and on any nontrivial prompt it will differ from the approved cut.
Which turns a settings question into an approvals question. Somebody has to look at the new asset and accept it, and that is a different conversation from the one that started the fix.
2Where the cost lands on a series
One file is an afternoon. Forty episodes is a schedule, and it is a schedule somebody has to fund after the work was already signed off. Late decisions about marking are the expensive kind.
Which argues for deciding early rather than for any particular answer. What a production wants is the decision made once, before volume, and written down where the next person will find it.
3Some causes are not reached by the obvious remedy
Where a mark was applied because of a mode set in code rather than a plan, changing the plan does nothing for the file that exists. The remedy has to address the actual cause, and the cause may not be visible anywhere.
This is the argument for recording request parameters at delivery, stated as concretely as it gets: without them, the cause of a mark on a finished file can be unidentifiable.
4Editing the frame is a real option and has its own cost
A notice can be painted out, cropped away or covered. Each of those changes the picture, and on material that was approved as delivered that is a modification somebody has to accept.
It also leaves a file whose history is harder to describe than either the original or a clean re-render. For anybody keeping records, the tidiest outcome is the one that never needed a remedy.
Background on mechanism and practice. Nothing here is attributed to a product, and nothing here is a reading of any instrument. The sourced material is on the generator table. Related: Limits of a register, Comparing unlike evidence.