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Compressor Poor Quality DVD
I have been trying to get an acceptable standard definition DVD from compressor after spending long amounts of time color correcting in final cut studio 5.1.4 with the colorista plugin (the final cut 3 way color corrector is is also very dissapointing).
After encoding to DVD 90 min best, the color shifts in a redish orange direction and the gamma or contrast changes making the blacks darker and mids brighter. To put it simply, encoding results from compressor look amateurish at best. I am a little frustrated with FCP Studio right now and I am wondering why I haven’t found more people talking about this.
I am on a mac pro quad 2.66 with the ATI x1900 XT video card and 3 gigs of ram. My project is standard DV anamorphic 16:9. I have tried re-compressing the project using media manager to uncompressed 10 bit 422 and re-encoding with the same results (it looks great in the FCP timeline and in quicktime player as an exported qt movie, but crappy as a M2V file viewed in quicktime and FCP viewer or on any TV through any DVD player. I compare the the before and after video by opening them both in side by side quicktime players and also side by side FCP viewer windows.
I am getting better results with compressor than anything else I have tried, but it seems nothing yields professional looking results. I have tried Sqeeze 4.5, Cleaner 6.5, Episode Pro 4.3, and in Parellels Win XP, CCE, and TMPGenc. Compressor and Episode yield almost identical results. Where the PC apps get closer to color but with horrible artifacts.
The project clip I am working with is 20 min.
I am monitoring using a Sony Trinitron color video monitor (PVM-2950Q) that was manufactured in 1995 but unused up until about 6 months ago when I purchased it. It is connected via the apple DVI to S-video adapter (it treats the monitor as a second computer monitor unless FCP is open with digital cinema desktop preview activated for that monitor). When I connected it, I calibrated it through the system prefs menu in OSX, for contrast and brightness and then using FCPs NTSC bars and tone in the monitors Blue Only mode.
After some testing I performed today, I am suspecting a monitoring issue. Does FCP do some weird color sweetening voodu to video for monitoring in desktop preview? I hope not. If so how do I get it to stop. I need to see What the video actually looks like for color correcting.
I need my DVD to look professional, or at least good, as it is the final delivery format for this project. If anyone has any suggestions for a solution or would just like to come to apple’s defense, I am all ears. I am ready to set my FCP Studio installers on fire and dance around the flames.
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5 Replies
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Good idea, rendering your DV project in an uncompressed timeline. The color correction should hold up better. Make sure you are staying within legal boundaries…dont oversaturate or crush the blacks too much.
If your project is only 20 minutes, set Compressor to encode at a bitrate of 6.5 CBR (thats one pass constant bit rate). Encode your audio to AC3, not AIFF. That should yield good results. Do not use the “Best Quality” VBR settings. VBR is best for longer projects where you can save space on the disc using a lower bit rate in low complexity areas of the program, while using a higher bit rate for the more difficult to encode areas. This is unnecessary for a short program…just use a higher bit rate for the whole thing….but be careful…do not crank up the bitrate to the maximum. Recordable DVD’s cannot handle it. If you encode with too high a bit rate, the DVD player may exhibit artifacts…skip…or freeze.
You are basically saying you are getting poor results with every piece of software out there and you are surprised that nobody else is complaining.
The reason for this is simple… the software generally works well for most people. You just haven’t really learned how to use it yet. Nothing wrong with that.
[Shiloh] “It is connected via the apple DVI to S-video adapter (it treats the monitor as a second computer monitor unless FCP is open with digital cinema desktop preview activated for that monitor). When I connected it, I calibrated it through the system prefs menu in OSX, for contrast and brightness and then using FCPs NTSC bars and tone in the monitors Blue Only mode.”
This is not a good way to monitor your image. Computers use a different color space than regular video equipment. You will not be able to fix that just by “calibrating” your monitor. Connect your video monitor to a DV camcorder (connected to your mac via firewire) or DV to analog adaptor. The proper way to set up your system is in the manuals.
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Shiloh,
This sounds like a setup issue, somewhere in your post process. There are a number of great articles on this, I have one in rich text format, I’ll be happy to send it to you if you email me, my contact info is in my profile.
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[Shiloh] “It is connected via the apple DVI to S-video adapter (it treats the monitor as a second computer monitor unless FCP is open with digital cinema desktop preview activated for that monitor).”
This has nothing to do with Apple and nothing to do with the quality of Compressor — the DVI outputs on your computer are from a low end ATI stock computer video card made for outputting video to computer monitors, not to TVs and not to broadcast monitors. The fact that you are able trick it into displaying on a broadcast video monitor doesn’t mean its displaying a signal even remotely similar to a standard broadcast video signal, and as such, you can color correct your video all day long based on that signal and get nothing resembling your original video or matching your expectations.
Although I’m recommending it, using the configuration you have now, you would probably be closer to proper rendition by color correcting with a cheap computer monitor.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
[David Roth Weiss] “Although I’m recommending it, using the configuration you have now, you would probably be closer to proper rendition by color correcting with a cheap computer monitor.”
That was supposed to have read, “Although I’m not recommending it…”
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
I wanted to say thanks to all of you (John Pale, Chris Poisson and David Roth Weiss) for responding to my cry for help. Thanks especialy for your tips on monitor setup. I am now running my output through firewire to my XH-A1 and out the composit video (the componet out gives an uneven color cast from left to right, but only through this configuration and not in camera mode). After re-color correcting and re-encoding the results are much closer to what I am looking for.
After all of this I am now considering a more professional monitoring solution. I am interested in the new JVC DT-V24L1DU LCD Broadcast Monitor which has SDI, HD-SDI and a DVI input. I am wondering if the DVI input is meant for displaying RGB computer signals or if it converts it to broadcast colorspace or both. Depending on the fore-mentioned, I may be looking into a AJA Kona 3, Kona LHe or IO HD. If the JVC DT-V24L1DU has the built in hardware to do the broadcast signal conversion from DVI. I would wait for a while before buying the video interface. If not I would buy the interface and try to suck some more life out of my sony monitor.
Any thoughts about the difference between the AJA products? From what I can tell the Kona 3 is the solution for capturing uncompressed dual link HD and 2k. The only way I see myself working with these formats in the near future would be in Pro Res or if some dream came true Red Code Raw. Im thinking the K3 may be overkill for me unless Im missing some other advantages it has over the LHe besides audio IOs.
My thoughts on the IO-HD:
Lots of every kind of IO, Nice!
Built in Pro Res hardware? (Doesn’t the CPU have to do the same amount of work to send and receive the signal over FW800?). Could the hardware in the K3 and LHe do the same in the future with new drivers?
No PCI card obsolescence. Nice! (Black Magic had the right idea with interchangeable PCI cards, too bad about their poor customer satisfaction and reliability ratings).
Firewire Bandwidth Hog. Not Nice! (Could this be solved by the addition of a 2nd firewire card?)
Any thoughts or suggestions on any of these topics would be greatly appreciated.
I have a Mac Pro 2.66 w/ 3 Gig Ram, ATI X1900 XT.
My current monitor is a 29″ Sony CRT with Component, Composite and S-Video inputs. It has Blue Only for calibration and adjustable white point.
I will be working mostly with 1080 HDV and DV from the Canon XH-A1 and Sony FX1 for now.Thanks again in advance.
Shiloh
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