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HDV – SD Final Cut Pro Compression
Dear Cow,
I have been pulling my hair out for the last three weeks trying to sort out an annoying compression issue. I have searched Creative Cow for hours trying different suggestions suggested by other posts but none have helped.
I have shot and edited a 65 minute video with a Sony z1 in HDV 1080i50, ‘log and captured’ using Apple ProRes 422 at 1440 x 1080, field dominance Upper (odd) at 25 fps.
I have now edited and ready to compress my HDV footage to SD DVD using DVD Studio Pro. I have done hundreds of different variations here but the quality isn’t quite good enough. My best attempt has been:-
Sequence settings – field domainace upper, compressor Apple Intermediate Codec
Compressor – I have been using DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes.What is most odd is that I have filmed and edited hundreds of times with the same camera and been perfectly happy with the results. The only difference previously is that I believe I ‘log and captured’ using:-
format: all settings, and HDV 1080i50
I am using Final Cut studio 2
10.5.8
2.66 GHz
4 gb MemoryThank you in advance.
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3 Replies
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So you captured HDV and converted to ProRes 422 during capture. Therefore your sequence settings should be ProRes422 not AIC which is a horrible lossy old legacy codec.
Make sure your sequence settings match the captured codec sttings exactly and then export a self contained quicktime movie (not conversion) using current settings. take that into Compressor, select the DVD 90 minute best preset. In the inspector tab to frame controls. Turn frame controls on. Select ‘best’ for resize and make your m2v file for DVDSP. Import and make the DVD.
This formula is also in the FAQ, linked at the top of this forum page.
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Thank you for your response.
I have already tried that method and the quality is still reduced. Am I just expecting a result lots better than I am receiving? Also is there a way of finding out what capture settings were used to capture footage after it has been captured?
Thank you again. Your help is much appreciated.
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Chris- I have a Z-1 also and shoot and edit in HDV and render in ProRes. It may not be the issue that you have….. but I’ve learned that the camera does a knock-out job in well lit, bright situations. However, I’ve also learned that I need to be very careful in marginal lighting situations. It just doesn’t have the latitude and depth of image that you might get from a more expensive camera recording in a more robust codec.
This diminished image quality becomes even more dramatic if the video needs to be transcoded from HD to SD. I know on a number of shows where I was stuck with available light situations I needed to do some basic color correction before I went out to mpeg2. I found the best way to deal with it was to complete the show then go back and color correct the scenes that needed help. Once I’d dialed in the corrections then I copied and pasted the settings to other clips that needed to be tweaked. When I went out to mpeg2 I had confidence that I had done the best with what I had.
I not sure if this relates at all with your situation but if it does I hope this helps.
Jerry
MacPro 2.93 Quad
FCP7
Sony Z-1
GV-HD700
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