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Rendering for Apple display
I have to render some files for display in qlab on an apple mac for some show work.
I have done some research, and reckon that I have a choice of rendering to an MS-native format live wmv and then letting flip4mac play it on the mac, or render to a native mac format – Quicktime/.mov?
Would anybody have any experience/suggestions as to whether one mechanism would be more efficient/applicable than the other. Does using flip mean that there is some internal ‘on-the-fly’ conversion to QT going on as the wmv file is streamed? Should I stick to native Apple formats in redering?
For example, when I render to quicktime, I see the default quality setting is 50%. Should I change this?
I have no experience with Apple formats and so would welcome any comments/suggestions to
I am rendering a number of samples in both formats, and will do my own investigations, but just looking to benefit from anybody who has tread the path already…
Environment: Vegas projects – VMS 10 / Win XP2. Show output all SD 800 x 600 to projectors – Qlab running on Macbook Pro 17/i7/500Gb 7200RPM
Thanks,
Stewart Bourke
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5 Replies
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I would ask the people running the show what format Qlab supports best. It would be nice to give them a Quicktime file that they can just use, but you may have to give them something that they will have to re-render to the format they need. I can’t imagine that transcoding on the fly will give as good a result as supplying them with the correct format to begin with.
If they can accept MP4 files (which Quicktime plays on a PC) you can use the Sony AVC render type to make an AVC/H.264 file. It really depends on what they can accept.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
John,
Thanks for the reply. I have logged a question with qlab as well to ask them. From the Vegas perspective I am interested in any ‘gotcha’ other people might have encountered in rendering for qlab (or apple in general). I was trying out quicktime rendering in Vegas and the size of the generated file is huge..
The video I am rendering is about 4 mins long – one stereo track and three video tracks – a mixture of still images (jpg and png), some moving (wmv) and some particle-illusion effects I created in PI and then imported – all rendered in SD.
The resultant .mov was just shy of 4GB – whilst the .wmv is approx 35Mb
I left all the rendering options at their default values…
Is this normal?
Thanks
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[Stewart Bourke] ” From the Vegas perspective I am interested in any ‘gotcha’ other people might have encountered in rendering for qlab (or apple in general).”
It’s good that you asked because there is a BIG gotcha when rendering to Quicktime for the PC. There is a gamma shift that you must compensate for. You need to place the Sony Color Corrector on the master video bus with the preset Studio RGB to Computer RGB. Quicktime expects computer RGB so you need to perform this last step to keep your blacks black and your whites white.
Also Quicktime doesn’t handle non-square pixels well so you should render with a pixel aspect ratio of 1.0. I assume you are rendering 800×600. Just make sure the aspect is 1.0 when you do this. Create a new Quicktime template starting from the Default Teamplate and adjusting for your render dimensions, and using the codec that the Qlab folks tell you they desire.
[Stewart Bourke] “I left all the rendering options at their default values…”
The default was probably uncompressed which is why the file is so large. Never use the defaults. Always select a template or create a new template from the default template.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
John,
Thanks for all the advice.
I have spent the evening experimenting with all the various options in custom and have come down to the Sony AVC, mp4, 4mbs progressive scan, pixel aspect ratio 1.0000 and the colour fx you mention and the output looks and sounds superb in QT on both the apple and the PC and in qlab as well.
Very satisfied
Thank you.
Stewart Bourke
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Awesome! You’re welcome… Glad you got it rendered to your liking.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com
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