compressor long encode times

[Don Greening]

[Rafael Amador] “Happy to heard that the picture looks much better. I think will be mi choice. CinemaCraft is a bunch of money. “

Cinema Craft is probably the best software encoder on the market. They make a plugin for Compressor, too. But you’re right in that it’s expensive.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cinema_craft_encoder.html

BitVice is working on an HD version of their encoder now and they’ll be calling it BitVice Pro. The current version is now 2.3 but it just does SD to MPEG2. The current version is Intel only but they’re reporting encoding speeds faster than real time. Good to hear. I should upgrade now but I was waiting for the HD version to come out.

– Don

[Chris Gorman]

When I used to go from a dv project to compressor, encode times were not long. But now, I’m taking hdv footage, captured & edited ProRes 8-bit and then to sdDVD. I suspect that has at least something to do with the increased compression times.

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Chris,
To go from DV to SD MPG-2 you don’t even need to set the Frame Control ON, so the process is quite fast.
To go to HDV to MPG-2 is a must to set the the Frame control ON otherwise the downscaling can be poor. So longer processing time. And as you say, although the data-rate is the same than DV, you are dealing with much more pixels, so much more calculations to be Done.
Actually I’m doing the downscaling in FC (High precision rendering, Motion rendering “Best” and exporting in 10b Unc or Prores) and I’m cutting drastically the process time. The quality as good as with Compressor.

Don,
If I compress my MPG-2 with Compressor, BitVice or CinemaCraft, probably my clients won’t see the difference. If I’m thinking to to improve the quality in a way is for my own satisfaction and for trying to offer the best product in this country. But to spend 700 bucks in CinemaCraft would make me feel guilty when the people here lives with some three dollars a day. Off course if any client demand it and pay for it I’ll be very pleased to buy it.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Chris Gorman]

Re: Frame Controls: The setting I chose in compressor defaults to frame controls automatically selected…(fast)nearest frame,Resize:linear filter,De-Interlace Filter: Fast (line averaging)….Aspect ration: Automatic 16:9

Is there anything you’d suggest changing for best quality without creating a ton more compression time?

It took 2.5 hours, but now I see one transition I have to fix in editing so have to do it again.

[Rafael Amador]

[chris gorman] “It took 2.5 hours, but now I see one transition I have to fix in editing so have to do it again”
This is why I prefer make the downscaling in FC.
If apart of the problem with transition you are happy with the picture, don’t change any setting.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Chris Gorman]

Not sure what you mean by “downscaling in fcp”I’m not sure about all the detailed settings in fcp when going to whatever would be the best downscale to sd 16.9. I was going to try using a Stibs de-interlace filter in fcp until i saw the progress bar….”7 hours”…and bailed out and just went QT to compressor.

I misspoke about cpu usage in activity monitor. That was the setting that said “user” The % for system is 11 – 31 and “idle” % ranges 7 – 15. Is “user” the same as cpu?

Thanks for your help. The DVD looks good enough, but I don’t have a monitor that would be comparable to a client’s hdtv to assess what they’ll see. I use apple hd cinema display mostly for the resolution, and simulataneously monitor on my old ntsc 4:3 production monitor (via mxo box), just for color/contrast.

[Rafael Amador]

[chris gorman] ” I was going to try using a Stibs de-interlace filter in fcp “
You don’t need to de-interlace unless you want a progressive movie. You just need to “shift fields” if you want your MPG-2 to have a different field order than your footage. Are you making a NTSC DVD?

[chris gorman] “e in activity monitor.”
Normally I only look at the CPU column. That give you the CPU % you are using.

[chris gorman] “Not sure what you mean by “downscaling in fcp”I’m not sure about all the detailed settings in fcp when going to whatever would be the best downscale to sd 16.9”
Just open a NTSC SD Prores sequence and drop your HDV on it. FC will add the “Shift Fields” filter.
Then in “Sequence Setting”> Video Processing check “Render all YUV material in High Precision YUV”.
In Motion Filter Quality set BEST.
The dow-sizing will take longer than with the standard setting, but much less than if you do it in Compressor while making your MPG-2.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com