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Compressor wrong on MPEG 1
Hey guys, can anyone shed some light on this?
I’m trying to do MPEG1 files with Compressor from PAL 720 x 576 files. Compressor tells me in its summary box that my files will be 25 frames and 352 x 288 which is EXACTLY what I want. Yet when I submit the job, the resulting file is at 320 x 240.I donwloaded a demo of Compression Master (those ads flashing on the side got to me) and tried the same thing with it. The file came out at 352 x 288 just like it promised me.
Is this simply yet another stupid oversight in Compressor?
Thanks.
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4 Replies
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What setup did you use in compressor? It’s obviously NTSC biased. 320×240 is roughly 1/2 of 720×486 (NTSC) and adjusted for square pixels to view on a computer monitor. What’s the square pixel equivalent of 720×576? Divide that by half and enter that number into compressors compression thingys.
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The only thing in the MPEG1 encoding box that seems to imply PAL or NTSC is the Frame Rate. Obviously I had that set to 25. The bit that’s obviously a bug is that in the summary window of Compressor where it tells you what all the settings are, it says that I’m going to get a 352 x 288 outcome, but then doesn’t give it to me.
The only thing I don’t have an answer to is that it says (in this summary window) that the pixel aspect ratio is 0.917. I assume the ratio of the MPEG1 at the end is 1. So, does this scaling account for anything?
Either way, it’s telling me I’m getting one thing, and then delivers something else.
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I know not the ins and outs of the program of which you speak, but the math does hold up here – at least on one side of it. You say your pixel aspect ratio is 0.917. 0.917 x 350 = (roughly) 323, which is close to the 320 that you’re getting, so perhaps the ratio should be set to one. (Unfortunately the math doesn’t hold up for the 288 side of the equation, so I’m really shooting in the dark here.)
Nick
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Thanks for the try Nick.
What’s interesting is that knowing I’ve got to get a paying job done, I downloaded demos of two expensive compression programs to see how they handle it. One of them also spat out a 320 x 240 file, but thankfully Compression Master gave me the file size I wanted.I’m just a little worried about paying $499 for this power (even though it does so many other cool things). If its MPEG2 powers were much better than Compressor’s, then I’d buy it in a second, but all reports I’ve read don’t rate it particularly better at all.
Aside from solving my MPEG1 problem, does anyone have anything positive to say about Compression Master? Those flashing ads to the left of every Cow screen get a little hypnotic!!
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