Compression Depression

[Alan Okey]

Without more information it’s hard to determine what’s causing your issues with Compressor. If you’re not already doing so, I would recommend exporting the project form Final Cut Pro as either a self-contained or reference movie, then opening that movie file in Compressor. Never use “send to Compressor” from within FCP.

As a workaround, if you’re not able to get good results by encoding the full project as a whole, you can export the project in segments and compress them separately. Join them together in DVD Studio Pro by placing them back to back in sequence on the Track 1 timeline. The result will play back seamlessly, and your compression will be optimized for each individual segment. This is actually how big budget studio films are compressed for DVD: in segments, with compression optimized for content by scene.

[Antony Boshier]

Thanks for the suggestion! I will trying exporting a self-contained movie.

[Larry Asbell]

Alan,

Thanks for the suggestion. When I have combined encoded segments of a finished program on one DVD Studio Pro track, I’ve done it at dips to black not thinking I could get frame accurate results. Now I will try it a cut points. It would be very handy for dealing with last minute revisions.

Any further tips on doing that? Such as, does one mark out on the same frame as the next segment’s mark in? Any problems with audio continuity from segment to segment? Can you drop a corrected segment of video into a larger segment of audio and video (the equivalent of a video only insert)?

Finally I’m wondering, since DVD Studio Pro can’t author Bluray does that mean we’d need a different app’s timeline to combine mp4 segments into one track before burning to Bluray?

[Alan Okey]

[Larry Asbell] “Any further tips on doing that? Such as, does one mark out on the same frame as the next segment’s mark in? “

The out mark should be one frame prior to the in mark of the next segment in the sequence, otherwise you’ll have a duplicate frame.

[Larry Asbell] “Any problems with audio continuity from segment to segment?”

I haven’t had any issues.

[Larry Asbell] “Can you drop a corrected segment of video into a larger segment of audio and video (the equivalent of a video only insert)? “

No, because theres no way to insert a clip into another clip within DVDSP – the timeline handles sequential segments only. Also, you can’t do a frame-accurate cut on an MPEG-2 encoded asset because it’s already undergone long-GOP compression. The finest granualrity you can have for cut points or chapter markers in DVDSP is every 15 frames. It’s best to manage segment cut points in FCP.

If you anticipate needing to make a lot of changes in a piece, cut your sequence into shorter, more manageable segments so that you won’t have to re-encode the entire piece if a change is made.

[Larry Asbell] “Finally I’m wondering, since DVD Studio Pro can’t author Bluray does that mean we’d need a different app’s timeline to combine mp4 segments into one track before burning to Bluray? “

Yes, you’d need a different app, but I don’t know what that would be. I haven’t done any Blu-Ray work.