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Pixelation from FCP, Compressor or DVDSP?
Hello all from frigid Chicagoland!
I’ve run in to a snag with a one-hour video I just finished up editing and I’m not sure if it’s an FCP thing, Compressor thing or DVDSP thing, so I thought I’d post this in all three forums.
I am getting intermittent pixilation in several spots when checking back this DVD. Sometimes, it happens during a transition and sometimes it happens it the middle of a shot with not much action going on. I do have 3-way color correction going on everything, sometimes extremly high video level adjustment (a lot of the Beta-SP footage was dark, captured at 10-bit uncompressed), but all video in the canvas has a green check-mark with no yellow caution triangles and my external waveform monitor and vectorscope is happy with the levels, too.
I have tried going to Compressor both ways – Export-Quicktime from the timeline (with Chapter Markers and no dependencies) before going into Compressor AND going straight to Compressor from FCP. I am applying the 90-minute DVD Best Quality settings in Compressor, and that’s where the fun begins.
What is interesting is that the Quicktime file that is created from FCP on the desktop does not have any pixilation in it – it looks just as good as it does on the FCP timeline. This would lead me to believe that the pixilation is occurring either in Compressor or the Build (mux) process in DVDSP?
Has anyone seen this? Does anyone know of a workaround for it? Before you ask, I am still on QuickTime 7.3.1 – so, at least it’s not a snag with 7.4!
Thanks very much in advance!
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Sony DSR-40 DVCam ~
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4 Replies
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where are you viewing the pixelation from?
A DVD, or the .m2v file directly in quicktime perhaps?
Is it random?
A bad dvd blank can cause that. I’ve had a few bad Verbatim 16x discs recently.
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Hi Chris and thanks for your quick response,
I’m viewing the pixelation on the DVD (I’ve burned four of them in two sets – two original edited and two revised edited) and in DVD Player right from the Video TS folder.
The DVD-R stock is Memorex 16X.
When looking at the Quicktime movie Exported from FCP in Quicktime Player before it goes in to Compressor, there there appear to be no pixelation problems.
It appears to be in the same place twice on both sets of DVD burns, but I just spot-checked it – I didn’t check the entire DVDs.
It wouldn’t be something like a trash the Compressor and/or DVDSP prefs, would it? It doesn’t seem to be given that both programs appear to be working properly.
Thanks again in advance,
-PatG5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio 2 ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~
Sony DSR-40 DVCam ~
2.33ghz MacBook Pro 17″ (with FCS2) ~~~P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs and Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671 -
It almost sound like you need to raise the maximum
bit rate.If its not a very long project (less than an hour) I’d set the average for 6.5mbps and the maximum for 7.5mbps.
I would also shorten the GOP to the lowest number possible (7 i think in compressor)
I have had some clients report glitches with Memorex dvd media often.
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Hi Chris!
Thanks for your help with this!
The total edited length ended up being 1 hour, 2 minutes and 24 seconds. I was just using the Best Quality 90-minute setting in Compressor but I will definitely try the numbers you listed.
Thanks again,
-PatG5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio 2 ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~
Sony DSR-40 DVCam ~
2.33ghz MacBook Pro 17″ (with FCS2) ~~~P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs and Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671
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