• Compression Techniques

  Compressing Apple Pro Res 422 to ?

  Posted by Christopher Marsh on September 20, 2013 at 2:23 pm

  Hi All

  Not new to the site, but new to the community.

  I have a question!

  I have recently completed the edit of a short film (19 mins) on FCP 7. I converted the files from the canon 550d standard file type (i think h.264) to apple pro res 422. Then i exported it to a quicktime movie on these settings:

  dimensions: 1920 x 1080
  codecs: apple prores 422, linear PCM
  Colour profile: HD 1-1-1

  So i now have the final cut of my film, at the above settings and weighing in at a healthy 15.42gb. The film looks fine, no pixelation, no evidence of quality loss. NOW this is where my limited knowledge of converting/compressing comes to a halt. Everytime i try to convert it to something like H.264 (which i m consistently told is the best one to get the size down and lose little quality) i find it does bring the size down, to about 2.5gb, but, seems to have lost a bit of quality. Now maybe thats just life and nothing i can do about it, but seeing as the film is beautiful (not my words) i want to hold onto that non loss of quality as much as possible,

  SO, my question is! does anybody know of something i can do to keep the quality, but drop the file size? maybe i got it wrong from exporting from fcp? maybe i m using the wrong software (i m using iskysoft imedia converter)? any any help would result in a little kiss

  Ivan Myles replied 12 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Ivan Myles

  September 26, 2013 at 3:29 pm

  [Christopher Marsh] “does anybody know of something i can do to keep the quality, but drop the file size?”

  – Are you trying to get a file smaller than 2.5GB, or are you asking for recommendations on how to compress the 15.42GB ProRes file with better quality than your 2.5GB H.264 file?

  – What were your export settings?

  – Do you have specific requirements for the encoded file (resolution, bitrate, media player, etc.)? Where and how will the video be displayed?

  – Please describe the losses of quality observed in the H.264 file. Posting screen captures would be helpful.

  – What media player was used to view the H.264 file? Some of the quality issues might be related to the media player (especially if using QuickTime).

  From the initial post is seems your H.264 file has a data rate of about 18 Mbps. This should produce a good quality 1920×1080 video, but it is about half the rate of Blu-ray. Try increasing the bitrate setting to 30-35 Mbps with Main or High Profile @ Level 4.1 or 5.0. Note: I am not familiar with iMedia Converter and the level of control it provides. If this is a professional project, consider licensing a copy of Apple Compressor for better integration with FCP. Depending on how compressed you need to make the encoded file, it might also be helpful to install the x264 codec.

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