Encoding service?

[Craig Seeman]

Do you know anyone with High Sierra or might you be willing to partition a drive?
The current version of Apple Compressor and encode to ProRes MXF, AVC Intra MXF, XDCAM HD MXF.
Compressor is $50 and the OS is free of course.

[David Taylor]

Hmm… that’s worth a shot.

I assume you can use Compressor as a stand alone program?

How robust is the new closed caption feature? He just bought MacCaption to do that.

Thanks.

DT Motion Pictures
https://www.davetaylormp.com

[Craig Seeman]

[David Taylor] “I assume you can use Compressor as a stand alone program?”

Absolutely. You can export a ProRes file from FCP6 and move that file over to Compressor (on High Sierra).

[David Taylor] “How robust is the new closed caption feature?”
In Compressor? I haven’t tried it yet.

[David Taylor] “He just bought MacCaption to do that.”

Telestream has Flip but that’s a monthly service. If you can buy it just for one month that might be a solution and it should work with Mac Caption generated captions.

[David Taylor]

Here are the specs that Fox wants.

It appears Apple Compressor cannot encode at 59.94 only 29.97.

We tried Telestream’s Switch, could not do drop frame.

Any other ideas?

DT Motion Pictures
https://www.davetaylormp.com

[Craig Seeman]

I’m not sure what you’re looking at but Compressor absolutely supports interlaced video.
Don’t confuse Frames with Fields. The only time 59.94 frames is used in broadcast is for 720p (as in progressive only)
Otherwise all broadcast is 1080i59.94 which is 29.97 frames per second.

[David Taylor]

I don’t think interlacing is the issue. We are just trying to get a file that will pass the auto QC test by the Fox system computer. The video we encoded using Switch passed every item in the specs EXCEPT drop frame. Which seems odd to me since I thought just being 59.94 fps qualified as drop frame, but I’m not an engineer.

DT Motion Pictures
https://www.davetaylormp.com

[Craig Seeman]

[David Taylor] “I thought just being 59.94 fps qualified as drop frame”

Drop Frame is a form of time code. 59.94 can be either Drop or Non Drop time code.

[David Taylor]

We’re just trying to get a file that will pass the system check with these specs:

MXF (OP-1a)

# Audio Channels
>= 8

Resolution
1280x720

Drop Frame
Yes

Bit Rate
>= 50 Mbps

Frame Rate
59.940 fps

DT Motion Pictures
https://www.davetaylormp.com

[Craig Seeman]

That could be XDCAM HD 1280x720p59.94
You might try the Apple Compressor XDCAM HD 422 1080i29.97 and modify it.

[David Taylor]

Just an update on this to mark it SOLVED.

My friend was able to finally able to get a file to pass the system check that he compressed with Apple Compressor. According to him, you need to set the timecode, then you have an option to check the box for “drop frame.”

Craig, thanks for your help with this.

DT Motion Pictures
https://www.davetaylormp.com