Retaining Compression and Edit Markers in Compressor

[Jeff Greenberg]

I think I got compressor to do this exactly the way you wanted – I did it with 4.0, but it should work with 3.5.

Create a QuickTime SD setting as your ‘first step’ from your original. I’d suggest animation codec or ProRes, to create minimal damage. This is the down convert step you’re doing right now.

Then select the entry and choose Job>New Job with target output.

This should create a chain icon (called linking.)

Step 1 does the down convert. Step 2 does whatever you want with the down converted file, which should retain the chapter markers.

It did in the test I did.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
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[Brad Wright]

I wrote on how to use compression markers in this article. This should solve your problems.

https://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_hdvideo_to_dvd.html

Brad Wright is software engineer, so it may be difficult to understand what he is saying. He is always happy to explain his greater detail.

[Melissa Goldman]

Hi Brad. Thanks for the article. I tried the method you suggested over the weekend, but actually the SD MOV created through the method you described looks significantly worse (grainier, less crisp) than the SD MOV that I created with Compressor from the HD MOV using the frame control settings. I tried making my DVD stream from that QT and it looks _extremely_degraded, although it’s good that the method you suggested retains the compression and edit markers.

Do you know of a way I could get better results doing the downsizing straight from FCP? Or another way I could retain or import the compression markers in Compressor after downsizing?

Thanks very much.
Melissa

[Melissa Goldman]

Hi Jeff. Thanks for the step-by-step instructions. I hadn’t seen that linking technique before. I went through as you suggested, but it’s not retaining the compression and edit markers. The Chapter markers are still coming through, but I can check the intermediate file that’s created in the process, and I see when I bring it back into Compressor that there are no additional markers. Do you think they’re still being used, but just not showing up in the intermediate file for some reason? Did this technique work for you in the past for compression markers? I tried Compressor 4, still nothing.

(Or do you know another way to export/import them?)

By far the nicest downconversion result I’ve gotten has been with Compressor’s frame controls for MOVs (these same controls seem to have very different effects when done on M2Vs, actually), so I’m really bummed that I can’t find a way to keep the markers through this extra step.

Thanks very much.
Melissa

[Jeff Greenberg]

Technically, when compressor uses any type of VBR compression, it’ll automatically analyze the file; ‘cuts’ will automatically be detected and an iframe will be put there.

I don’t know how low of the final bitrate of your finished work; most of the time, compression markers (as I’m sure you’re aware) only really to be used to force iframes when compressing – something that I’ve only really needed when I want to squeeze the last little bit of the bitrate out of a file. Often I’m using tools other than compressor (especially for mpeg2 files) because apple’s encoder is decent, but not the quality of say, MainConcepts.

FCP’s scaling algorithm is ‘okay’ when you tweak the motion tab to ‘best’ quality; compressor’s is better. And FCPs frame controls leave quite a bit to be desired.

M2Vs as a source are a different beast; as far as I can tell, compressor makes some assumptions when it’s a ‘source” file.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
New! FCPX DSLR workflows; What’s new in Media Comopser 6; Full Media Composer 6 basics from macProVideo.com
Come see me speak at the Government Video Expo Nov 30 – Dec 1; Seminar link here
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Brad Wright]

Are you comparing the video on an external calibrated television connect to Final Cut Pro? This is the most important step for checking your video.

Because you are going from 1080i to 480i, you want to preview your footage in SD before you send it to Compressor. This is where you want to check your SD footage for problems. Try resizing your footage from 1080i to 480i to ProRes in Compressor and compare the two sets of footage side by side. They should look identical. The reason for creating an SD master of you footage is that you can fix the problems in it by using Compression markers or through blurring.

Brad Wright is software engineer, so it may be difficult to understand what he is saying. He is always happy to explain his greater detail.

[Melissa Goldman]

Hey Jeff. Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate it. I have not encoded a lot of DVDs, so it’s useful information. I am not sure how well the compression function works when Compressor is dealing with a file with no edit or compression markers. Maybe it’s not even something I should worry about. I’m using an average bit rate of 4.5. Is that low enough that it will make a difference?

I wasn’t using m2v as a source file, just noting that the options are different in Compressor for compressing to qt and m2v, and that the same frame control options seem to produce _drastically_ different effects in each, which I’m not sure I understand.

Thanks!
Melissa

[Melissa Goldman]

I always thought that it looking good on the computer was necessary but not sufficient for it to look good on a television. I definitely don’t want it to play back ugly on a computer, even if the final output is DVD. My plan was to check it on the NTSC monitor once it looked ok on the computer. Am I thinking about this backwards?

[Brad Wright]

The computer monitor is designed for displaying colors in RGB while the television is calibrated for decoding Ycbcr video. They are different color spaces. Because you are working with interlaced video, you can’t see it on a computer monitor which is progressive. This becomes really important when dealing with field order problems.

Brad Wright is software engineer, so it may be difficult to understand what he is saying. He is always happy to explain his greater detail.

[Melissa Goldman]

I fully appreciate why you need to check color on a calibrated monitor, what I don’t understand is why it would ever be acceptable for it to look bad on a computer. The situation I’m dealing with is that it already looks bad on my computer monitor.

If the video already looks bad on the progressive computer monitor, that seems like reason enough to look for problems in the workflow, no? Even if it looked OK on a TV, I wouldn’t be satisfied if playback looked bad on a computer. I haven’t heard of a scenario where the progressive monitor looked bad but the interlaced TV looked good. Again, let me know if there’s a problem with my logic or workflow. Thanks very much.