• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Exporting from FCP

  Posted by Laura Cowen on May 2, 2009 at 9:45 pm

  Hi,
  I need to clarify my understanding of High Definition video. I am currently editing few 5-minute sequences that are hig def. These videos are for a client’s website and the client thinks they are getting HD (I’mnot sure they know what it is though) My questions are:

  #1. If it’s for the web, these videos will lose their “high definition” quality and become SD, no? This is what I understand.

  #2. If there is a way to export these videos (ie. through Compressor) and maintain its HD quality, how do I do that and what are the settings? Is it possible to put HD video on a website for anyone to watch or do you need a special software for that? I do not have HD DVD’s or HD burner.

  #3. When you export HD, the quality will be superior to SD nonetheless, right?

  Thank You,
  Laura

  Laura Cowen replied 17 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Michael Sacci

  May 3, 2009 at 12:44 am

  HD is a frame size, 1280×720 or 1920×1080, you can post/view the 720 favor on the web, it does take a fast server/connection to stream 720 content. If you look at movie trailers you will find a lot of them are even 1080.

  Quality depends on how well you shoot, edit and color correct. Well shot SD will look better on the web then poorly shot HD.

  For H.264 is the codec of choice for most video for the web.

  Take a look at what is on the web, download them, look at their size, bitrates and codec in QT Player, try to do the same, using Compressor or buying higher end encoders if you need higher quality. But once again, your footage has to be high quality to start with if you want high quality on the web. And yes quality always goes down as you enter into highly compressed codecs for the web but the game is to get the best quality possible (not the same quality as the original) at the smallest size and lowest bitrate required.
• 

  Laura Cowen

  May 3, 2009 at 8:14 pm

  Thank you, Mike.
  Also, what’s the difference between using Compressor and just exporting directly (with H.264 codec) from FCP? It takes more time to export as a self-contained file from FCP and then encode in COmpressor than it is to just export it once and be it final. Is compressor used generally if you want multiple formats?

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