Need help exporting from FCP to Compressor

[David Roth weiss]

Mark,

Whoa nelly!!! Hold your horses… And, in keeping with the horse mataphor, you’re putting the cart before the horse here, and meanwhile compressing your video too many times.

First, how long is the finished project?

Next… MPEG2 is already a very lossy and highly compressed format — taking that another step and compressing it again with the Real Encoder will yield horrific results that will nullify all the time and thought you put into the project. Do yourself and the client a favor and deliver a lossless QT file. I’ll gladly help you figure out exactly what codec and settings to use…

DRW

[Mark Suszko]

It’s an hour and seven minutes, but we’re wanting to export from the timeline in smaller chapter-like segments, the longest may be 30 minutes, most are 15-20.

It’s going to be on broadband, mpeg 1 will not cut it for quality. The only thing the guys in charge of the streaming can/will do is the standard Realnetworks realvideo Helix.

To refresh this old story: their encoding station only takes composite video input.

I was handing them a DVC Pro25 tape, they were playing that out analog, re-digitizng it in the Osprey card and making that into the realvideo stream. The added D/A/D conversions play havoc with the image detail.

So, I am trying to keep it digital all the way thru. The edit room is not on their network, and probably never will be. I have to compress the video into some compatible file format and sneakernet it over on CD-Roms or DVD. As I said, we tested the mpeg2 before, and this really worked lovely for quality, the Realnetworks Helix sucked it in and spat out beautiful output, twice as nice as the test AVI file we used. HOWEVER, In my youthful enthusiam at having stumbled thru Compressor for the first time without a manual, I forgot about Dre… I mean, I forgot about the audio portion… and that’s why I have a problem now.

AVI works to bring in the audio and vieo as one stream the Helix can convert and output. MPEG2 the way I’m doing it gives me separate streams of audio and video and the PC controlled Realnetworks Helix can encode either, but not both together..

And I don’t know for sure, but am skeptical their PC can handle a QT file of any stripe for this application… but I am oh so willing to be schooled. Anything you can offer is gladly considered.

[David Roth weiss]

Mark,

No need to make it so complicated… Its simply the multiple compression hits that I think you should try to avoid if possible.

If you can possibly sneaker-net them QT files on an external Firewire drive you could have the very best of all possible worlds. If you are limited to sneaker-netting on CDs or DVDs you’re gonna have to compromise. So, do you have an external Firewire drive?

DRW

[Mark Suszko]

No portable Firewire drive. CDR or DVD only options. Have archived the program via AJA IO’s SDI connection onto another DVCpro 25 tape, but the encoder guys don’t have anything that takes SDI input, only SD NTSC composite.

Got your Gene Krantz white vest on?;-)

[David Roth weiss]

Well Mark, without an external firewrie drive you’re gonna have to compromise after all. If your shortest clips are 30-mins, then you are gonna have to transport compressed files after all. In that case, you might try compressing to QT using the Sorenson 3 codec, it yields small, yet high-quality QT files, but I’m even those files may be too big for transport on DVD at 30-mins. runnig time. Windows Media 9 would be a good bet in your case, but since you’re working on FCP, you’d need something like Flip4Mac Pro to do that…

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Mark Suszko] “No portable Firewire drive.”

Well, do “the guys” have one?

Can you go BUY one?

They are very inexpensive and very useful.

[Mark Suszko]

“They are very inexpensive and very useful. ”

So am I;-)

No dice, I must dance with the date what brung me. No purchases, no outside help, no other gear available, no money, I work a government job. From the previous post, I now wonder what specific sorenson/QT settings would I want to try? Keeping in mind you have to be patient with me, this is only my third week ever using FCP and my first meaningful encounter with Compressor. Or should I export using FCP’s own dialogs? What recipe of settings?

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Mark Suszko] “No purchases, no outside help, no other gear available, no money, I work a government job.”

GET

OUT

NOW!

[Jeremy Garchow]

Are you using compressor 2? if so, you can make mpeg2 transport streams with muxed audio (an mpeg2 with audio and video together in 1 glorious file).

What you need to do is export reference movie from fcp, then open up compressor and drag the movie in there (or export directly from fcp to compressor, your choice). Add your favorite MPEG2 VIDEO ONLY preset and double click the setting. The inspector should now pop up (if it wasn’t open already) and you should click on the second button from the top. It’s the “encoder” button. YOu will see four tabs. Click on the ‘extras’; tab and then you will see three tickboxes. Check the box that says “Multiplexed MPEG-1/Layer 2 Audio”. Hit submit and sit back and watch compressor do it’s handy work, or better yet get your favorite libation and clear your head. At the end of the compressing you will have a file that has a .mts extension. This is your file with Mpeg2 Video and Mpeg1Layer2 Audio.

Good luck and happy transport streaming.

———–
G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 5.02 <> Kona 2

ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 1.25 TB 4105 Fibre

[Mark Suszko]

I have Compressor 1.2.1. brand new here, and only took 2 years to order and arrive.
Anything I can do with THAT version? Or is an upgrade my only hope?