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Need to export Final Cut Pro footage for Sony Vegas user
Client gave footage that we shot to a TV station somewhere far, far away and they are having issues with it as they use Sony Vegas and either can’t or won’t convert the footage into something they can use and want us to do it.
Having never worked with Sony Vegas or exported any footage for it, I’m not sure the best way to do so using Compressor, since what they are asking for…seems…counter productive on several levels, and beyond the footage’s capabilities on another.
The footage was shot and exported as DV/DVCPRO-NTSC, SD 720X480 Anamorphic (a large part of the problem is that they are wanting it to be HD, but as the client didn’t want to pay for HD…).
It is currently 29.97fps, data rate is 3.8MB/Sec, pixel aspect NTSC-CCIR 601.
They want (and I quote) “the footage rendered out using any of the following codecs:
H.264
MP4
MJPEG (Motion JPEG)In either case, 29.97fps, use a high bit rate, at least 5 – 7 Meg. (you shouldn’t need a data rate like 20 meg+)
Audio: AAC or Big Indian will do.”
I tried poking around Compressor and changing settings to match their needs but frankly…the end result is smaller file size and lower quality. It seems, based on their ‘wants’ that they are wanting the footage unconverted to HD.
Anybody who has experience with both Final Cut Suite and Sony Vegas and can guide me in what settings I should use in Compressor to give them what they want/can use, I’d really appreciate it.
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8 Replies
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I don’t know anything about FCP but QuickTime on the PC supports DV/DVCPRO-NTSC, SD 720X480 so they should be able to open the footage that was shot. Did they try and it didn’t work? You could also use Motion-JPEG or Photo-JPEG at 873×480 with a pixel aspect ratio of 1.0.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
They tried it…and between you and me I think it’s a case of ‘the footage isn’t HD and we can’t wrap our heads around that’. They are claiming that it looks poorly rendered (which it hasn’t as that’s not how FCP works…it was exported uncompressed and unprocessed for optimal quality)
So it sounds like there’s nothing that I can do that would make it more….Vegas friendly? That it should work fine as is?
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Well… Most stock footage delivered as QuickTime for the PC uses Photo-JPEG so give them that and see what they think. it should be really good quality.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks for the heads up – I exported it using the JPEG 100 NTSC settings so hopefully…(not sure how it can be better quality than the original…or why this isn’t something they could do on their end…but ours is not to reason why…:)
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I just exported a video from FCP, as Quicktime movie, and one using Quicktime conversion, and the Quicktime conversion clip works fine in Vegas.
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[Jonathan Frank] “not sure how it can be better quality than the original…”
I have seen problems with DV/DVCPRO-NTSC quality on the PC. I think it’s the PC version of the codec but it definitely looks worse than the DV AVI we are use to. So it may be a codec issue with the PC version of QuickTime.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
That makes perfect sense and is good to know (the joys of cross-platform…especially when combined with the glory that is a gazillion codec possibilities lately!).
Out of curiosity…I exported the footage as a photoJpeg setting as you suggested – hopefully it works. Is that the best setting for your ease of use in Vegas? If not, what is (wondering what/how the footage would be delivered to you in an ideal world…or in an ‘every day’ world situation)
Thanks for all your help.
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what settings did you use for Quicktime conversion? I just did it and it made a file 1/10th the file size with specs suitable only for web use…)
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