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FCP Export Quality Problem
Howdy – Or should I say “Moo”?
Short-time reader, first-time poster – You’ve heard it all before, and I’ve enjoyed learning what I can here. I came from the Dark Side, the “other ‘A'”
First project in FCP, cutting down a wedding for a friend – A mix of bad Hi-8 and dvd-based footage (the latter ripped by Handbrake), enhanced by many professional photos of the event using Stagetools.
Decided on NTSC DV – Hi8 was captured with an Aja IO (sd)
Things look as good as they could on my monitors – Until I exported them.
Exported the Sequence using Export->QT Movie->Current Settings->Reference.
The problem is that no matter what I try, the QT comes out at much less quality as the original. Yes, I check the HQ setting in QT (Thanks to reading posts here)- Burned with both Idvd and DSP and they both look bad, on computers and TV.
I’ve copied parts into new sequences trying all sorts of different codecs – Such as 8bit UC, again as I read here – No luck. It seems like whatever I do, I am destined to getting a QT movie that is Ugly.
I usually try to figure things out myself, but I’ve been spending every waking moment for the past 24 hours trying to get this right, but to no avail.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.
TomLatest Version FCPS, Early-2008 17″ HD MBP, 4gigs RAM, Lacie 7200rpm Drive via Firewire 800, Aja IO, and a general crankiness these past 24 hours…..
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4 Replies
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are you trying to end with a dvd? if so would export to compressor. his will work like an avid refrence to squeeze. I haven’t had much luck making qicktime refrence files, and discovered if i needed the file that making a self contained video with same settings worked perfectly. i would ignore the refrence part if you just need a file, and if making a DVD export to compressor.
hope this helps
Thompson
(reformed Avid user) -
[Thomas Thornton] “Decided on NTSC DV – Hi8 was captured with an Aja IO (sd) “
Hi Thomas,
If you have used NTSC DV to capture your Hi8 and to convert the DVDs you won’t ever get nothing that will make you happy. capture and convert, at least, to DV50. Better if you can in 8b Unc, and much better if you can to Proress. Put all together with the stills in a Proress sequence and things will look much better.
I don’t know how “Handbrake” works, but MPGStreamclip (free) is the application more widely used to convert MPG-2 to QT movies.
Cheers,
rafael -
Do not use Handbrake for this. As Rafael says use MPEG Streamclip. Handbrake is designed for ripping to iPod and the web using MPEG-4 based encoding. You need an application that can rip to .mov. Bearing in mind that the original media is poor quality and heavily compressed like MPEG-2 on DVD there is not much you can do to salvage it. GIGO.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop” -
Thanks for the posts, folks.
I got MPEG Streamclip and LOVE IT! Great tip there – Better and Faster than Handbrake.
I’ll try everything in 8Buc and see what happens.
Tom
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