Desparate – Two problems using FCP to Compressor to DVDSP

[Timothy Anderson]

Hi Jeremey,

Sorry if the post was confusing. The titles were created in Illustrator at the 1280×1080 DVCproHD film setting yes. Each title card was then exported as a .PNG with transparency into Motion. In Motion, the titles were positioned and a black background was added and then each title card was exported as a QT. I tried both 1280×1080 DVCPRO-HD and ProRes 4444 1920×1080 QTs out of Motion and in both instances, the MPEG-2 done in Compressor yields the same, poor quality results. Two pass VBR Best, Two Pass VBR, CBR, One Pass VBR – they all were unable to compress the titles well. All in all these are to be brought into FCP to a DVCPRO-HD 1280×1080 sequence to ultimately go to DVDSP to burn to SD DVD. Hope that is more clear.

I also tried creating 720×480 SD title QTs out of Motion thinking maybe it was just the resize scaledown that was the problem, but those QTs also suffer greatly in MPEG-2 compression using Compressor. I have tried all sorts of things…I am starting to think it is out of Compressor’s ability to yield a good result with these titles in MPEG-2…

Tim

[Timothy Anderson]

Hi Michael –

Yeah no way anything is going through DV – I tried a couple tests with the titles bounced out of Motion at 720×480 QT just to see if that would solve the scale problems in Compressor and it didn’t help – I had the same problem at SD native titles as the HD titles….

In your opinion is a 6.5 CBR better than a 6.6/7.8 Two/One PASS VBR (not the VBR best setting – that’s where we get the pulsing)? Wouldn’t the capability of going up to 7.8 greatly benefit a feature film during camera moves, etc. that forcing those at a 6.5? I guess I don’t know what’s the better trade-off, everything at 6.5 or the ability to go to 7.8 for certain parts of the show that could greatly use the extra 1.3…

[Kris Merkel]

As I continued reading further down the thread I started thinking to myself this has got to be a joke. We’ve all had our learning curves regarding compression. And especially compressing TXT. For anyone who remembers compressing with Cleaner and spending loads of time massaging clips to get an MPEG1 file to look like the original video, this has to be somewhat amusing. Now days the compression algorithms are, for the most part, decent. And if you throw good video into a compression utility you will get good video out.

I couldn’t believe that the OP was having such a difficult time with this so I decided I would quickly attempt to recreate his problem.

I started with his first step. Titles created in Illustrator.

Now from the get go his dimensions of 1280×1080 did not make sense. I know that the DVCProHD 30p is 1280×1080 but needs to be viewed anamorphic. I have never delivered anything with this frame size.

OK, I opened Illustrator and created a new document and attempted to find the 1280×1080 DVCPro HD setting. I found out that it’s not there.

Back to the steps in a second. Now in FCP the HD 1280×1080 sequence frame size exists but needs to be set to anamorphic in order to be viewed correctly.

What I would do is:

1.create a new 1920×1080 AI file, Cut and Past your content from the 1280×1080 and adjust accordingly and save to your PNG

2. create a new Motion Project with 1920×1080 settings 10 sec long. Place your PNG file in the comp and adjust accordingly.

3. Export your motion file with the Animation codec set to RGB+Alpha

4. Use this file to test your compressor settings. When you get something that looks great (and you will)make a preset.

5. Import the animation file into FCP, Render and Export with same a seq settings.

6.Compress a small section of this file with video and GFX using your preset. Adjust your preset as necessary to obtain optimal quality. Keeping in mind your bitrate limitations for your entire program.

You should have positive results. As far as the pulsing goes, you said this was on a static shot with moving foliage. This locked down shot is probably one of the most difficult for compressor to squeeze because of the foliage. My guess is that in 2pass VBR this info is overloading the Codec.

Take what you are doing in small steps and you will find the suite spots in your compression pass.

You can also check in the Compression Techniques forum for more help

Finally I agree with Michael. BitVice is a very good at what it does and you should try out a demo.

[Timothy Anderson]

Hi Kris –

Thank you very much for the response and very clear method instructions. I will try it – I know the Illustrator film file was DVCPRO-HD 1080 but I am not sure if it was done natively at 1080×1920 or if the aspect ratio was customized to ‘match’ the DVCPRO-HD codec of 1280×1080. I will give it a go and test further…

As for the compression pulsing – your info was helpful – I did not know about the difficulties this long shot presented to VBR two pass – I will def. demo BitVice after this whole thing….

Tim

[Ken Jones]

Okay. I will ask again.

Timothy, are you using a single-layer (4.7 GB) or dual-layer (8.5 GB) DVD-R?

Use a dual-layer DVD-R, set Compressor “Quality” to “One Pass CBR” at “7.8 Mbps”, set the “Resize Filter” to “Best” and be done with it.

[Timothy Anderson]

Hi Kris –

I used both 1920×1080 Motion QTs in Animation and ProRes. codecs – which look fantastic in the QT, but terrible when compressed to MPEG-2. It has to be the MPEG-2 compression.

[Timothy Anderson]

Single-layer, but I figured out the pulsing last night – the titles are what I am trying to figure out how to preserve in MPEG-2 –

[Timothy Anderson]

Hey Kris –

If I got a sample of one of the title cards to you as a 4 sec. QT (it’s 7.5MB or so), would you be willing to see what results you could get in compressing it into MPEG-2 using Compressor? So I know I am not a complete idiot? Keeping in mind ultimately the title cards have to go into a DVCPRO HD sequence in FCP as part of a feature-length project.

I am racking my brains here and at this point maybe I’m to blame – I am sure I have entertained and annoyed enough people in this thread…

Tim

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I’ve responded to this thread with my own theories too. But I’m curious as I’ve heard of this issue but never had a troublesome sample. If you don’t mind can you please send me the sample 4 sec animation as well as the m2v that you made with all the suggestions yo’uve got in this thread?

I have my own set of settings for MPEG2 particularly as most of the stuff I get is 24 fps HD and goes out as 29.97 fps NTSC so I deal with this often.

You can do a yousendit or mail me at
neilsadwelkar -At- gmail -dot- com
Just replace the -At- and -dot- with the symbol and period.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Timothy Anderson]

Hi Neil,

Thank you so much – will do!

Tim