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Final Cut to Compressor Yields Mush!
Good morning all,
I’ve run into a bit of a pickle with Final Cut Pro 6.01 & Compressor. As is often this case with these things it is a very simple but frustrating issue.
If I take a 30 second NTSC video clip YUV 422 10 bit uncompressed QT (pristine quality from DigiBeta via telecine) and place it in a Final Cut sequence then export via Compressor and encode to MPEG-2 the results are unusable. Best described as soft and jaggy.
Take the same file with the same Compressor settings and export the file asset from Final Cut (not the sequence) to Compressor and the results slightly better.
Now take the same file straight into Compressor (no Final Cut involved) encode with the same settings and surprise surprise an MPEG-2 output of much superior quality.Please note that there are not filters applied to this clip with in Final Cut what so ever and results don’t improve not matter how the Final Cut sequence settings are tweaked or the codec of the original file.
All thoughts most appreciated.
Cheers,
J
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6 Replies
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We always export a self-contained or Ref clip to a hard drive first, then import that clip into compressor for encoding….have never done it any other way and have never had your issues.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
Hi Rich,
Thank you for your reply.
Why that extra render…..why not go straight to Compressor from the FC timeline?
Other than my issues obviously.Cheers,
J
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First, because of your issues. But second, because usually we also have to make a WMV file or other encode besides a DVD, and having a self contained clip of a final program is useful down the road if we have to make a quick DVCAM output etc. We just bring in the clip and off it goes.
Lots of very useful reasons to have either a self-contained clip or at least a ref clip.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
[jay lee] “Why that extra render…..why not go straight to Compressor from the FC timeline?”
Exporting a self contained QT first enables background encoding in Compressor, thus avoiding tying up FCP. Plus, its much quicker–exporting a QT using “current settings” is very fast even on large projects, and encoding from a single QT file is much faster than encoding from the timeline as well, so you save time in two areas.
BTW, if Compressor is messing-up your telecined film something is wrong. While its not absolutely the best MPEG-2 encoder on tghe market, it always does a very respectable job unless something is set incorrectly.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY
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But there isn’t an extra render. You’re using 10bit Uncompressed video.
If what you mean is “why the extra step?” Rich and David have answered.
If you search the posts you’ll find some discussion about the relative
advantages of exporting a self-contained or reference video or exporting
directly from FCP to Compressor (either pre-rendered or not). Other than
tying up FCP it has mainly to do with how key frames are rendered and compressed.
Ed[jay lee] “Hi Rich,
Thank you for your reply.
Why that extra render…..why not go straight to Compressor from the FC timeline?
Other than my issues obviously.
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Thank you gentlemen for your replies. Perhaps I got ‘caught up’ in the Apple marketing machine which touts FC / Compressor integration as a type of sliced bread concept.
Regardless Compressor unfortunately simply not up to spectacular MPEG II encoding. Have gone back to the Cinema Craft Encoder on the PC which produces amazing results. Side by side with the CCE files heads and shoulders beyond Compressors output.Cheers,
J
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