Compressor VS. Quicktime Pro

[Tom Brooks]

Use the Geometry tab in the H.264 preset of choice. There you can crop the source or pad the output dimension. In the drop-down for Source Inset (cropping) there’s a choice for “Letterbox area of source.”
Note that I’m on Compressor 3. Earlier versions may differ.

[Lisa Rolley]

Hello

I have the latest version of compressor – so i guess my remaining question is: when i bring a 1920×1080 qt file down to 720×486 all i have to do is ltrbx check to preserve aspect ratio – if i want to EXACTLY match that ltrbxing how would i do so in Compressor?

Thank you

Lisa

[Tom Brooks]

You would set up a custom H.264 preset, using one of the provided ones as a starting point. You’d set the output size (encoded pixels) to 720×486. Use the menu choice I mentioned (Letterbox area of source). This will letterbox the HD material by making its width 720 and leaving black bars at top and bottom to fill out the 486. Experiment with this to see if it gives you the same result.

[Lisa Rolley]

I followed your instructions and it made 720×486 but did not ltrbx it…

if you have any other help or if someone else has any idea what i am doing wrong please advise

thank you Lisa

[Rafael Amador]

[Lisa Rolley] “I noticed recently on an agency’s spec sheet how in compressor when making h.264’s you can preserve color space which qt pro is not able to do – “
Hi Lisa,
Would you mind to post those specs?
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

(and here some clips for the friends: https://www.vimeo.com/2694745 )

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[Lisa Rolley]

•Video Compression Type/Codec: H264
•Video Bitrate: 7500 kbits/sec
•Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
•Size: 720×486 (If source material is 720×486)
720×480 (If source material is 720×480)
•Audio Codec: AAC (aka MPEG-4)
•Audio Sample Rate: 48kHz
•Audio Bitrate: 192 kbits/sec

The source qt file i have is 1920×1080 full resolution / quality and normally i would just use qt pro to do the ltrbx and h.264 conversions but i would really like to try out the option in compressor which allows for preserving the color space…its a very noticeable color switch when its converted in qt pro.

Thanks for your help i look forward to getting your advice on how to make this happen properly in Compressor – again i want to match the specs and ltrbxing that qt pro does but while preserving color.

Best

Lisa

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Lisa,
The problem of QT is that you have little control on any process.
In Compressor you know that any process will be done in 32b Floating point as long as you set “Frame Control: ON”. Also you can decide the quality of the filters.
In QT you have nothing like that. The pipe-line is quite little transparent.
With QT Player you have no way to control any of those processes. You need to do it through FC (that in the end is just a QT interface).
If you set FC properly, will do the same job than Compressor and faster.
Do the downscaling in a 10b time-line. Set “Renderall YUV in High Precission” and “Render Motion Effects: BEST”. Export a high quality .mov and the send it to Compressor just for the transcoding to H264.
About the specs that you send, I think that the data rate (7.500 Kbps) is huge for an SD movie.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

(and here some clips for the friends: https://www.vimeo.com/2694745 )

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[Lisa Rolley]

wait i dont understand how to do the ltrbxing process to match what qt pro does…

The specs are what the client is requesting so i have to follow it/

thanks

lisa

[Rafael Amador]

Just drop your HD clip in and 4×3 sequence and you will get it letterboxed.
Compressor is great but not the best application for geometry changes.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

(and here some clips for the friends: https://www.vimeo.com/2694745 )

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[Tom Brooks]

Using Compressor, the geometry window would be as shown. Not sure it will do exactly what you need, but it will letterbox 1080 into 720×486. Why is your end-user requesting video in NTSC CCIR-601 format in the H.264 codec? What’s the final outlet medium for the file? Just curious.