Compressor HELP!!

[Ernie Santella]

First off, most of us do ‘all-nighters’ to get projects finished on-time. Welcome to the club. haha! Four 90 min programs is a lot of work!

Question, are you exporting directly from FCP or exporting as a Reference file and then importing that into Compressor? Exporting as Reference is faster (Not sure why?) 5 Hours for a 90 min show seems a tad long, but maybe not with only 2GB RAM. What compressor does is do the one part first, for example audio then video, that’s why it starts off fast, then slows down.

My suggestion is to Export and go buy some RAM today. Good luck.

[Derek Nagle]

hey i am exporting direct from FCP, How do u mean a refrence file???? i read that the bezt quality is direct from FCP

[David Roth weiss]

[derek nagle] “i read that the bezt quality is direct from FCP”

Maybe, maybe not… That all depends on the original video material. If you had Vittorio Storaro shooting your project and it is perfectly exposed, beautifully color corrected, etc., etc. etc., then worry about what you may have read. Otherwise, forget about it… Compressor makes very good quality DVDs from reference files for 99% of the projects out there.

BTW, if yiu don’t know what a reference file is, click on “Help,” open the online manual, and read about it. Its very basic stuff that anyone editing 90-min projects better know.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Bret Williams]

[David Roth Weiss] “Compressor makes very good quality DVDs from reference files for 99% of the projects out there.
“

Reference file or from FCP, Compressor is refrencing the exact same media.

It’s pretty well known that doing anything directly within FCP takes 5-10 times longer. No joke. Examaples – rendering LiveType or Motion projects within FCP or exporting to compressor. Not to mention if you render LT or Motion within their apps, you can edit in FCP in the meantime, plus they won’t become “unrendered” when you move them around the timeline. Same with compressor. Export as a reference movie (Export > Quicktime) with current settings and make self contained checked and recompress all frames unchecked. Then run that resulting file through compressor while you continue to edit. I think you’ll find it takes closer to real time for the encoding.

[Derek Nagle]

THANKS ALL FOR YOUR HELP!! 😉

NOW ONTO MY NEW WORRY!!!

ITS BEING COMPRESSING FOR 7;15;45
PERCENT 98
REMANING TIME 10MINS (ITS BEING ON TEN MINS FOR LIKE 12MINS NOW)

HAS IT FROZEN?????

HELP!!!!!

PLEASE

I NEED THIS DONE FOR MONDAY 3 MORE 2 FOLLOW

[Lynne Margulies]

Hi Derek; I feel your pain! I just started using compressor about a month ago. If you are using any of the filters within compressor that will slow it down also. My projects are usually around 90 min. and take about 3 hours to encode through compressor, I’m using an intel macbook pro. When I add filters, such as the color correction, it sometimes takes 10 hours! I would say that it’s a good suggestion to first export the movie as a self-contained file to the desktop, then run through compressor. Also, compressor can sit there for quite awhile showing one time and then suddenly move on, so don’t panic. If I were you, I’d just let it run, and go outside and enjoy that nice weather. That’s what I’m doing today while compressor busily encodes….

Lynne Desjardins

[Derek Nagle]

WHOOO!!!!!!!!!!! ONE OUT OF 4 IS DONE ONE LITTLE PROB THO!!

WHEN I VIEW THE FILE ON THE COMPUTER, THERE IS LINE FLICKING (INTERCED??) WHEN I WATCH ON TV IT IS OK!

I AM CONFUSED?? AGAIN!

[Michael Sacci]

Dude, unLOCK the caps key, it is cyber yelling.

[derek nagle] “THERE IS LINE FLICKING (INTERCED??) WHEN I WATCH ON TV IT IS OK! “
Do you want a line flicking? Hard to see that from here.

Now about your encode times. If you are just fitting 90 mins of video on a DVD use a CBR at 6 Mbps and make the audio ac3 at .192 Mbps. (If you are really at or below 90 minutes you can push the video to 6.5 Mbps. This will really decrease the encode time over a VBR and not that bitrate it will probably even look better.

I’m a “send from FCP to Compressor” but when I’m under a tight deadline I do the ref movie thing.

[Tom Brooks]

It’s likely RENDERING that is slowing you down. When you export direct from FCP all effects that require render are rendered again and transcoded to the target codec.

When you export a reference movie (leave “make self-contained” UNchecked) or a self-contained movie (check it) FCP renders only as needed. If everything is already rendered, it will zip right through in a very short time.