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From inal cut to Youtube
I did a bit a searching and am still very confused when it comes to these formats. Footage was shot with a 1D and given to me. I uploaded it to FinalCutPro on a macbook(standard model is all I have available to me). Forgot about the converting files thing to make it easier to work with but finished the project anyway with stock h.264 footage from camera. Now that I am done I can’t figure out how to export/compress the project properly so the quality is still good but under 2gb so I can post it on Youtube.
Asked my professor about it and he recommend using file -> Send to -> Compressor and then just using the youtube setting. Worked great for another project that I worked on using the campus computers but it keeps failing or getting hunging up around the first few minutes of transcoding.
Project is already late now because of this minor hangup and they won’t take it unless the image quality is crisp. Any help would be appreciated!
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11 Replies
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??? You edited the H.264 natively? Are you sure?
Most would coming from a DSLR would transcode to Apple ProRes.File size is primarily dependent on data rate and duration.
kbits/seconds times duration in seconds equals total file size. You then convert to MBytes or GBytes.Generally you might want 5000kbps to upload 720p or maybe closer to 10,000kbps for 1080p.
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If sending from FCP to compressor is freezing, then try doing it in two steps.
Export your timeline from FCP using quicktime, the prores codec, and whatever frame size you shot in (there should be a preset).
Import the exported video into compressor, and now apply the Youtube preset.
Hopefully splitting it into two steps will not put as much strain on your processor, and it won’t hang.
Also, if you really did edit with the native h.264 footage, and your sequence settings are set to match the video (h.264), then your exports should be significantly smaller (and basically Youtube ready). Something doesn’t seem right.
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1920 × 1080
H.264, Linear PCM
(1-1-6)
00:50
2
45,292This is the info I pulled from one of my shots. Taken directly from the camera(Canon 1D) to the work machine. I had to render every time I moved something around but learned my lesson from that. I’m currently trying out the second recommendation now but in the meantime will show you the vid to give you an idea of what I mean.
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The videos max size is 480 but if you were to see the other video on my page its is able to get up to 1080. Also, I’ve read that since the video will be converted to a flash video once on the site that converting it to flash myself would help keep some of the quality. Was just wondering what your thoughts were on this method.
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[Chidi Onyejurwa] “Also, I’ve read that since the video will be converted to a flash video once on the site that converting it to flash myself would help keep some of the quality.”
This is arguable. As far as I know, Youtube will always re-encode your video regardless of what you upload. I would love to know a way around this.
Second, Youtube only uses flv compression for low resolution video. Anything larger (640×360 and up I believe), is encoded as mp4 files with h.264 video and AAC audio.
Can you post the specs on the exported (2 gig) video?
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No matter what you do, YouTube is going to compress it again so compressing to Flash isn’t going to help (or hurt much). Key is that you give them a good quality file.
If you compress to 1280×720 at 5000kbps it should look good on YouTube.
Since you’re shooting in 16:9 HD you should not be getting the letterbox with the image squished.On Mac, always transcode HDSLR video to AppleProRes. Edit in ProRes. Export to 1280×720 at 5000kbps H.264 MOV.
While I haven’t edit hip hop I have shot “political” hip hop and this is what it should look like on YouTube. I apologize in advance for the large frame as some browser won’t like it.
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Everytime i try to render the file over here the wait time just gets higher and higher. I think I’m doing a pretty simple error and have to go back and resize all the footage because I set the sequence to the wrong aspect. I’ll let you guys know how things turn out and let you see the final…when I eventually get to it.
And by the way I don’t have access to the original file I uploaded to youtube on this machine.
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Ok, so after going over the entire project again with one of my classmates I’ve found out that I started the sequence in the wrong aspect ratio causing some of the clips to be different sizes than others (Which is why the black bars appeared in the final version even though it is widescreen footage).
Started a new sequence and copy pasted the project there. After that I went through and scaled up each individual shot to fit properly on screen. After rendering(which took about 15 mins) I am now exporting to proresHQ 1920×1080 (thanks for the advice there Olin) to split the workload on this poor machine.
Currently waiting for the prores conversion to finish then off to compressor and then hopefully Youtube. This was my first time working with FCP and this rookie move cost me a lot of time and energy. I’ll let you guys know how it goes!
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It’s not clear at all that you have an understanding of the workflow.
You should NOT be editing in H.264. DSLR workflow generally means going to ProRes. Final Cut Pro will offer the proper sequence settings when you drop in the first clip. If the easy way is better than the hard way, it’s best to choose the easy way. Even if you get the project fixed, you need to learn the best way to do it and I’m not sure that you have.
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I appreciate your comment but like I mentioned in the prior post this was my first project, and as you mentioned, I had absolutely no understanding of workflow. I knew how to use the program, but had no idea formats played such a major role in the final output, let alone the effect on “workflow” as you put it. Just posting my experience with the program here for others to see if they ever come across the same problem being as the learning curve for non-linear video editing isn’t very forgiving(in my experience anyway).
I left the video running in compression last night on my buddies computer so when I get over there I’ll see how it came out. Otherwise I’ll just bring it home and use Adobe Media Encoder (which I recently learned is a better compression tool anyway) to get it YouTube ready.
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Just making sure you’ve learned the importance of workflow. Someone reading this thread might not get that editing H.264 is not the way to go. Even NLEs that support it, struggle with it.
[Chidi Onyejuruwa] “Adobe Media Encoder (which I recently learned is a better compression tool anyway)”
A key advantage is the AME uses MainConcept H.264 which is much better than Apple’s H.264.
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