• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Multichannel export FCP7 with H.264

  Posted by Maria Maria on January 15, 2015 at 7:05 pm

  Hi there!

  First, just to warn I’m no super-expert, so excuse me if the question is actually simple.

  I have been exporting some “master” versions of certain edits, containing 4 audio channels. I have been doing so exporting as QT movie with the Apple ProRes 422 HQ conversion. And everything worked fine.

  Now I need to export the same edits but for someone who works with Avid, and they require a H.264 file. And also the four separate channels.

  So I send my edit to Compressor, and there, I choose QT Movie, set it to the quality and size I need (highest quality, 1440×1080) and in the Audio slot, I click “Pass through” in order to get the four channels.

  The problem is, I do get my four channels correctly exported, but the image is streched and the size is smaller.

  I am guessing the solution must be easy, but I have tried to my best knowledge (which is limited…) and couldn’t manage to get the same quality as when exporting the ProRes HQ Quicktime movie.

  Any help will be much appreciated!!

  Thanks 😉

  Maria Maria replied 11 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Shane Ross

  January 16, 2015 at 9:09 pm

  1440X1080 is squeezed…anamorphic. Don’t use that size. Use 1920×1080. ProRes isn’t 1440×1080 either, it’s only full raster 1920×1080. So make your H.264 files the same dimensions as ProRes.

  BTW, Avid works with ProRes…has for years. But many many people use older versions of the software that can’t import ProRes, so I see why they want H.264…I guess. That’s highly compressed. If I were them, I’d ask for DNxHD. If you download the Avid codecs (free) you could convert to that no problem.

  Shane
  Little Frog Post
  Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
• 

  Maria Maria

  January 20, 2015 at 10:04 am

  Hi Shane,

  Many thanks for the quick reply and please excuse that I couldn’t replied earlier myself.

  You’re right, ProRes is not 1440×1080, but I was told to set it like that when exporting and, to be honest, I’m not sure what use it is, as it’s exported anyway as 1920×1080 (will ask my colleague about it as soon as I get the chance). Somehow, it looks fine like that.

  Thank you for the DNxHD tip, I will definitely pass it on.

  Turns out the solution was as easy as changing the geometry settings in Compressor to the mentioned 1440×1080, and it was fine. Although next time, I will try leaving both ProRes and the H.264 conversion to 1920×1080 to see how it looks like.

  Again, thank you very much!

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