brief description of Quicktime/QuickTime Conversion in FCP

[Matt Lyon]

Might be good to start a new thread for your question, Shane.

If you post some screenshots of the zebra issue, you might get more useful advice.

I don’t generally do “mpeg4 with h264” outputs, so I don’t have much experience with this, but I think what you want is to make an h264 with an “m4v” container?

In Compressor, you can set the “File Format” to “H.264 for Apple Devices.” Maybe that is what you are looking for?
Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Rafael Amador]

[Shane Trowbridge] ” Quicktime conversion seems to be the only way I can export an MPEG4 with H264 compression. “
You are missing your best option: MPGStreamclip.

[Shane Trowbridge] “I am now needing to deliver MPEG4 videos with H264 compression and I’m finding that there is a slight quality issue. Almost a “zebra” effect with the video. “
What I’m seeing is that QT7 and QTX are displaying H264 on Snow Leopard with a banding that didn’t happens on Leopard.

About the differences QT/QT Conversion, what refrains me of using QT Conversion, is the lack of control on any process (Bit-depth, scaling, de-interlacing,..). You really never know what’s going on inside.
Another difference to remark : With QT Conversion there is ALWAYS RECOMPRESSION.
No way of exporting without reprocessing all the audio and video.
This obviously is not an issue working with H264, but it is when using production codecs (?).
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Matt Lyon]

[Rafael Amador] “About the differences QT/QT Conversion, what refrains me of using QT Conversion, is the lack of control on any process (Bit-depth, scaling, de-interlacing,..). You really never know what’s going on inside.”

True enough Rafael … but a flip side of that argument is that you always know what’s going on inside : not very much! 🙂

It’s true that it is always recompressing your video, but my understanding is that everything is rendered on demand, in a 4:4:4 image buffer, so the processing precision is theoretically very high. (If I’m mistaken here, someone please correct me). At the very minimum, the processing precision is equivalent to your timeline settings.

I think it is a matter of knowing when it is appropriate to use this tool. I use it all the time for certain kinds of h264 encodes, AIFF files for sound mixers, still images, plates for VFX artists (when a format conversion is needed), etc…

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Shane Trowbridge]

Thanks Matt, I will start a new thread.

I will also try your compressor suggestion and see what it yields. I am just not that familar with MPEG4 so I don’t know if what I am doing is even right.

I am working with a video platform designed by web guys with no video experience so I am not even sure they have it set up optimally.

Thanks for the time!

Shane