HDV Better Work Flow (Please Help)

[Shane Ross]

Export a ref Quicktime (File>Export>QT Movie…don’t check SELF CONTAINED) and bring that into Compressor and try compressing in there.

Shane

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[David Roth weiss]

[Sean Overbeeke] “I’m not looking to use ProRes or anything else because it will scew up my work flow with the Online Editing House.”

I gotta know how capturing to an i-frame format screws up an online. Can you explain that one Sean? Please!!!

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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[John Anderson]

We’re not recapturing tapes. The offline edit that I’m doing is the online so I don’t want to screw it up by going to a different codec like prores. Correct me if I’m wrong please David. 😉

[David Roth weiss]

[Sean Overbeeke] “We’re not recapturing tapes. The offline edit that I’m doing is the online so I don’t want to screw it up by going to a different codec like prores.”

Sean,

Of course, online/offline is for the birds nowadays. However, since the subject of your thread is “Better Work Flow,” not just “problems with MPEG4 export, that’s why I’m chiming in…

HDV is a wonderful acquisition format, but not so great for editing, so the best way to deal with it, now that a great alternative exists, is to bring it in as Pro Res and get out of the “long GOP” MPEG format. Pro Res has significant advantages, including much shorter renders and far less compression on text and graphics.

If you are well along into this project, it may too late for you now, but if not, you should search for Chris Poisson’s tutorial on capturing HDV as Pro Res via firewire.

Hope this helps…

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Chris Borjis]

Sean, have you tried outputting it directly from fcp via “quicktime conversion” export option?

There you can resize it, I would put the quality just a notch above “medium”.

I do the very same thing for edit approvals to the Outdoor Channel. It works very well (much better than making/sending dvds)

Though we are doing this with DVCPRO-HD codec material, I don’t see why it would not work for you. Sometimes quicktime conversion saves the day. Let me know if it works will ya?

[John Anderson]

I have no Luck with Quick Time Reference Files. I’m afraid that they are a pipe-dream for me. If I could simply export a small file that just had media linking information in it that would be amazing because I could still work while I was converting to mpeg4. BUT, everytime I do a reference file, by unchecking self contained file, I end up getting a really big quick time that wants to render everything.

I did a test capture on the hdv to pro-res this morning. It looked great but I didn’t notice any big difference when going out to a web preview for the network to preview. Looks like I’m stuck with the same work flow. BUMMMER MAN…

Sean

[David Roth weiss]

Sean,

I suspect that when you’re rendering your timeline you do not have “full” checked in the “render all” drop-down menu, so Compressor is rendering the source material while creating your web video file. That is compounded when using HDV, because it is so render intensive.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Chris Borjis]

Try File, export “Quicktime Conversion”, NOT “Quicktime Reference.”

Quicktime conversion is a COMPLETELY different way of exporting and often solves problems that normal exporting does when it crops up.

With the conversion you get access to nearly all the parameters and settings in compressor. With this you can export directly from fcp to H.264 without using compressor.

[John Anderson]

I wish I had know this about a year ago. ALL THOSE WASTED HOURS!!! Thanks you for letting me in on the secret. What does checking off Full actually do? I just rendered successfully my first reference file. I can’t believe I didn’t know this before!!!

[David Roth weiss]

[Sean Overbeeke] “What does checking off Full actually do?”

You’re actually checking it “on.” It does a full render, not a partial. Exactly why its not the default I’ll never know.

[Sean Overbeeke] “I just rendered successfully my first reference file. I can’t believe I didn’t know this before!!!”

Glad to be of service…

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.