older FCP and newer Compressor

[Michael Sacci]

that is more of a QT question, is QT up to the required specs of Comp3 if it is I don’t see why not.

But, how does one get Comp3 legally without FCS2?????

[Paul Dickin]

[Michael Sacci] “how does one get Comp3 legally without FCS2?”
Hi
With Logic Studio 8.

[Tom Wolsky]

Export a QuickTime Movie, reference if you want, and take it to Compressor.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Dennis Couzin]

Jeff Warmouth, writing in https://www.kenstone.net back in 2004, pointed out the advantage of exporting directly from the FCP timeline to Compressor: “transitions, effects, titles, and other ‘renderable’ footage will be sent directly to the Compressor without rendering into DV or other codec. This will greatly improve the quality of the footage.” Is this no longer true?

[Tom Wolsky]

The advantages, if any, are so negligible in relation to the substantial increase in render time that I think most users do not find direct export to be beneficial.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Dennis Couzin]

Tom,
Golly, expert #1 says it “will greatly improve the quality” and expert #2 says “advantages, if any, are so negligible in relation to the substantial increase in render time.” What is a non-expert to think?

(It’s possible that FCP has taken on parts of Compressor’s “frame controls” since 2004, so there’s no longer the great improvement in quality mentioned by Warmouth, but then there’s no longer the big difference in render time mentioned by you.)

Frankly, what scares me most is the “if any” in your answer. If we really knew how FCP worked, if FCP weren’t such a black box (with bugs crawling out) and poorly documented, there could be no doubt whether there is quality improvement or there isn’t. I’m not implying that Warmouth knows how FCP works and you don’t. Not at all. Warmouth could think he knows and be mistaken. Was Warmouth’s statement a deduction or was it based on experience?

I don’t think we should generalize about what’s too much time for a render process. It varies from no time as when a client is literally breathing down your back, to oceans of time as when an artist seeks the last ounce of quality and tries renders taking 50 or 100 times the video duration.

[Alexander Kallas]

Ther is a definate advantage in exporting from FCP via Compressor.
Read this:-
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/beyond_dv_nattress.html

Cheers
Alexander

[Dennis Couzin]

Alexander, thanks for chiming in, but I don’t see how the Nattress article you cite supports the point. The question is this: if we have a project in FCP and export a straight QuickTime file which we then drop into Compressor to do this-or-that, would we get better results going straight from FCP to Compressor to do this-or-that? I should have linked the Warmouth article that I quoted from: warmouth

[Alexander Kallas]

[Dennis Couzin] “but I don’t see how the Nattress article you cite supports the point.”

Look at the diagram flow chart. FCP sends out uncompressed files to Compressor for one-time only transcoding to the required output.

Cheers
Alexander

[Dennis Couzin]

Alexander, I partly agree. The Nattress flow chart shows what can happen when FCP renders its own effects. The native footage is first uncompressed, then effected, then compressed to native codec. This recompression usually adds artifacts. Using the “Export QuickTime Movie” command can make such a recompressed file. So feeding that QuickTime file to Compressor is less good than exporting straight from the FCP timeline to Compressor.

The “Export QuickTime Movie” command has an option “Recompress All Frames.” When this option is deselected, (I think) only the frames involved in effects — the ones that needed to be uncompressed from native — will get compressed to native. So these are the frames that are disadvantaged. They might be the whole film, or just a few frames.

When I use the “Export QuickTime Movie” command, I first change my sequence settings to an uncompressed codec. Then the exported QuickTime file has not seen recompression, or just a tad. The original question remains: is feeding that QuickTime file to Compressor less good than exporting straight from the FCP timeline to Compressor?