Blacks are too black on exporting to Sorenson & ProCoder

[Rafael Amador]

I think that in the article of Ken Stone “QuickTime Pro-QT Movies from FC” you will find the answer. You can download it from the Ken Stone web site.
Cheers,
rafael

[Phillip Van west]

I use Sorenson Squeeze to produce MPEG-2 files for DVD. I always add a “lighten” filter with a setting of 12 which gives me files that match the contrast of my QT movies pretty well. Hope that helps.

pvw

Phil Van West
Terra Nova Productions
Denver, CO
Video Production/Post-Production

G5 DP 2.5GHz / 4.5 GB RAM / OS 10.4.8 / FCP 5.1.2 / QT 7.1.3

[Rafael Amador]

Phil,
Do you get better MPG2 with Squeeze than with Compressor?
Rafael

[Philip Johns]

To be honest I don’t really know – I’ve only noticed how much darker it is than the original edit to notice the quality. I have only just purchased it primarily for encoding FLV files which it doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of as well. A bit disappointing considering that I paid over $1,000AUD for it 🙁

It seems strange that I should have to put a brightness filter before rendering. I can do this, but this is definitely less than ideal. It seems like a quicktime problem more than anything because I run an AVI through ProCoder and it works fine and yet with a quicktime I get the black blacks.

Phil

[Rafael Amador]

I touch the gamma a bit whenever I do something for the web, but the MPG2, as long as i’ve got good monitoring when I correct the color, and they are suposed to be played in TV sets, I do not touch it.
rafael

[Phillip Van west]

rafalaos & pajohns,

I do think Sorenson’s MPEG2s are a little better than Compressor’s. Faster rendering, too, and much better control.

And adding a “lighten” filter is hardly a pain, it’s just what I need to do for DVDs. Other codecs need more or less of it. Others may need something else.
The Squeeze Suite outputs so many formats, you can’t expect any given preset to be perfect. That’s why it’s so adjustable.

Works for me.

pvw

Phil Van West
Terra Nova Productions
Denver, CO
Video Production/Post-Production

G5 DP 2.5GHz / 4.5 GB RAM / OS 10.4.8 / FCP 5.1.2 / QT 7.1.3

[Rafael Amador]

I will give a try to Squeeze. I was thinking to get me BitVicer because some times I don’t like what Compressor does. I tried few times Cleaner, that used to be the standard for MPG2, and I’ve never been happy. long rendering and plainty of artifacts.
Cheers,
rafael

[Phillip Van west]

Another one to try is Main Concept: https://www.mainconcept.com/site/index.php?id=757
You can download a demo and try it out. When I checked it out a few years ago I recall that it was very fast, and it uses the same codec as Sorenson (actually, I think Sorenson uses THEIR codec.)
Much cheaper than Squeeze if you’re just looking for an MPEG-2 encoder. Give it a try.

pvw

Phil Van West
Terra Nova Productions
Denver, CO
Video Production/Post-Production

G5 DP 2.5GHz / 4.5 GB RAM / OS 10.4.8 / FCP 5.1.2 / QT 7.1.3

[Rafael Amador]

One more question Phil, please. In Compressor we got few set-ups for HD DVD. Some based in MPG2 and some based in h.264. but, those HD DVD how are played? By the Mac drivers only? Is just a bit of curiosity because in fact I work and live years away from the HD world, but I like to keep updated.
Cheers,
rafael

[Phillip Van west]

rafalaos,

With a BluRay or HD-DVD recorder, you can burn high def material to a high def DVD (of course, it requires a similar DVD player). Also, a thread here on the Cow (sometime during the last couple of weeks) discusses the fact that if your program is short enough to fit on a standard DVD, you can indeed burn to that. Otherwise, I assume the only way to view high def output is, indeed, on your computer. But then, I also don’t yet work wth HD, so I’m hardly an authority. Does that answer your question?

phil vw

Phil Van West
Terra Nova Productions
Denver, CO
Video Production/Post-Production

G5 DP 2.5GHz / 4.5 GB RAM / OS 10.4.8 / FCP 5.1.2 / QT 7.1.3