Rendering an MOV file for Mac Playback

[Stewart Bourke]

Terry,

I regularly use SVP to render for Mac, as the shows are run in Qlab. The videos are typically being projected onto several 8 x 6 ‘ screens around/behind the stage – sometimes using a matrix triple-head for separate images, sometimes using Arkos for edge-blending to get a bigger image… (projector budgets!!)

In SVP, I use the Quicktime render, 800×600 progressive, 3Mbps, square pixels and the results look good. It does tend to depend on the size of projection, and the quality of source material, but I would recommend you start with these settings, and then experiment – then save your custom template…

Hope this helps

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Terry,
I don’t work with Vegas, so I don’t know which options you have on exporting, but your best option for playing on a Mac would be an H264 QT movie (.mov or.mp4).
If you are working with HD stuff, you need to export to 1280×720 or 1920×1080 Square Pixels.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[John Rofrano]

I would render as H.264 but unfortunately, Vegas can’t do this. You will have to purchase QuickTime Pro ($29), render out of Vegas in a high quality format like Avid DNxHD and then encode it to H.264 in QuickTime Pro. (you’ll have to download and install the Avid DNxHD codec but it’s free)

Alternately you could render a QuickTime file out of Vegas using the Motion-JPEG B codec or Photo-JPEG codec which should give very high quality output that all Mac’s should be able to play.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Terry Hogan]

Thanks for all the advice.

Last night right after my original post, I tried rendering Canon 7D 1080 24p MOV files that I had edited in SVP 10c with these settings:

The “Save as type” QuickTime 7 (*.mov) Custom settings were: Video Format: Avid DNxHD codec , Compressed depth: 32 bpp color, Pixel aspect: 1.000, Audio 48,000 Hz, 16 bit, Stereo, PCM, Frame rate: 23.076 (IVTC Film), Frame Size: 1920×1080 Progressive

Project Properties: Pixel Format: 32 bit floating point full range rather than the default 8 bit and Full resolution rendering quality: Best

The resulting 19.2 GB MOV file looked great on a 24″ monitor when played with Quick Time on my PC. I don’t know how it would play on a Mac. Do any of you see a problem with these settngs? I will have to experiment and compare with all the suggestions you all have given. The screen size in the theaters used for the film festivals is probably around 40 feet so I am thinking I will need all the quality I can get in the render settings.

[John Rofrano]

[Terry Hogan] “I don’t know how it would play on a Mac. Do any of you see a problem with these settngs?”

Just understand that they will also have to download the Avid DNxHD codec to whatever Mac they are displaying this from. I would deliver the Mac version with your MOV file just in case.

Alternately, Photo-JPEG is how most stock footage companies deliver their HD content in QuickTime. That is guaranteed to play on any Mac.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Rafael Amador]

[John Rofrano] “Alternately, Photo-JPEG is how most stock footage companies deliver their HD content in QuickTime.”
Probably this is the simplest option to go to a Mac.
PhotoJPEG from 75% up is a high quality codec.
At 100% is lossless or virtually lossless.
This codec only supports 8b in QT Pro.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Terry Hogan]

I have tried various ways of rendering the same 15.5 minutes of edited Canon 7D MOV 1080 24p files in SVP 10c. Here are the results using QuickTime Pro to playback the SVP rendered MOV or MP4 file on my Gateway FX6800 with Core i7 2.67 GHz CPU and 6 GB or RAM:

I first rendered a WMV file 1080 24p version which looked great played on Windows Media Player and the audio was in sync with the action.

Sony AVC 1920×1080 24p – Result: 1.53 GB mp4 file. Image quality looked good but rapid hand movements by actors did not play smoothly in QuickTime. Audio had lost sync and was slightly ahead of the action by a little less than one second, which was very evident in shots where I had left in the slate being clapped.

SVP Quick Time Movie Custom settings: Video Format: Avid DNxHD codec , Compressed depth: 32 bpp color, Pixel aspect: 1.000, Audio 48,000 Hz, 16 bit, Stereo, PCM, Frame rate: 23.076 (IVTC Film), Frame Size: 1920×1080 Progressive, Project Properties: Pixel Format: 32 bit floating point full range rather than the default 8 bit, Full resolution rendering quality: Best
Result: 19.2 GB MOV file. Image quality was great, fast action was smooth, but audio had lost sync and was ahead of the action by about the same amount as the Sony AVC mp4 video.

I then used QuickTime Pro to do an H.264 render of the above 19.2 GB Avid DNxHD MOV file using the highest quality 1080 24p settings. Result: a 6.35 GB MOV file that looked as good as the Avid DNxHD MOV file it was rendered from but which still had the audio out of sync and ahead of the action in the movie.

SVP QuickTime Movie Custom settings: same as above except I used Photo JPG instead of DNxHD. I rendered one version at 100% quality which resulted in a 12.5 GB file and an 80% quality version that resulted in a 9.07 GB file. Both files looked great and played smoothly in Quick Time. However, the same serious problem occurred with the audio losing sync and being slightly ahead of the video.

The sound tracks were all the original Canon 7D internal microphone recorded tracks. I had made no adjustments to the synchronization of the sound and video in SVP. I also tried rendering a SVP QuickTime movie Photo JPG 80% with the audio setting at 44,100Hz. However, the audio was still out of synch and ahead of the action by a little less than one second when I played the video in QuickTime Pro. Does anybody have a solution for this audio sync problem?

[Ken Mitchell]

Just remember that if you are creating an H264 in quicktime pro to compare the gamma levels of the original to the gamma levels of the H264 of the file you created.. Quicktime .mov does have some issues in raising the gamma of the H264 .mov files..