Very, very poor quality MPEG2

[Chris Poisson]

How are you viewing the results?

Have a wonderful day.

[David Bogie]

How are hoping to get your HDV to MPEG2 for viewing? Letter box? That’s probably where you’re getting all messed up.
I’d convert the whole mess to a standard def format like plain ol’ DV. I’d also use export the whole thing as self-cntained instead of reference and I’d let DVDSP do the transcode to MPEG2 until you get more experience with Comrpessor.
HDV is not a reasonable editing format so I’m amazed you got as far as you have.

But, yes, the process in FCP is much different than in Avid, whatever that is. (Rhetorical, never used Avid, old M100 guy)
And welcome to the family! If it’s any comfort, converting to FCP from Avid was very difficult for lots of us.

[Brian Semple] “Hello. I’m new here and fairly new to FCP6 coming from Avid and findng it quite confusing. My problem is that I just cannot get a good quality MPEG2 file for making DVD. It’s terrible in fact… washed out, compression artifacts like it’s been done at very low data rate. My workflow is shot in HDV, edited in HDV (but because I’m having a lot of interlacing problems in moving effects, I changed the Timeline settings to ProRes to see if that helped. “

bogiesan

[Ed Dooley]

I’ve been shooting HDV for a couple of years now, and I don’t know why people still make those comments. We edit easily, we create MPEG-2s and DVDs easily, and they look far far better than our Beta-SP videos did. Editing in HDV is so common now, and so easy. If you want to compare the 4:2:0 or 1 to 4:2:2 formats, well that’s a whole other thing. 🙂
Ed (also an old M100 guy)

[david bogie] “HDV is not a reasonable editing format so I’m amazed you got as far as you have. “

[David Roth weiss]

[Brian Semple] “because I’m having a lot of interlacing problems in moving effects, I changed the Timeline settings to ProRes to see if that helped.”

Brian,

Please be very precise and explain exactly what you did when you “changed the timeline settings to ProRes. This is important for several reasons and can potentially be a source of major headaches for you if you did it improperly.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Bogie]

[Ed Dooley] “I’ve been shooting HDV for a couple of years now, and I don’t know why people still make those comments. We edit easily, we create MPEG-2s and DVDs easily, and they look far far better than our Beta-SP videos did. Editing in HDV is so common now, and so easy. If you want to compare the 4:2:0 or 1 to 4:2:2 formats, well that’s a whole other thing. 🙂
Ed (also an old M100 guy) “

Not having been forced to shoot MEPG2 as an origination format myself, Ed, you’re right, I should not generalize with those old aphorisms. I’ll try to watch that knee-jerk response trigger of mine.

bogiesan

[Ed Dooley]

Knee-jerk responses are what keeps this forum interesting (and sometimes combative), so don’t stifle yours too much. 🙂
Ed

[Brian Semple]

Hi. Now morning in Australia and thanks for all your answers.I am viewing it both on Dell HD computer monitors and a Sony Trinitron monitor. On both the results look terrible.

[Brian Semple]

Ansers to your questions….
1. no, not letter box. 16:9.
2. how would you do the conversion? I tried self contained & looked the same and have tried DVDSP and same result.

The quality monitoring from the timeline is fine (apart from also trying to sort the interlacing affects on movement), but making a MPEG2 from it looks terrible. That’s why I’m trying to find out if being HDV format causes it OR do I have to convert all to ProRes. Also would the Quicktime version affect it. With Avid had no problem making MPEG2’s from HDV or DNxHD.

Thanks for the welcome and I hope I don’t get too frustrated using FCP after the ease of Avid. But there a lot of things that can be done in FCP once I can get my head around it.

[Brian Semple]

Thanks David. Basically all I did was make the Compressor ProRes 422, and the Render Control codec ProRes 422 as well so I thought at least the effects are being rendered in ProRes. I have been looking at other posts with no luck and some people say to cahnge all the timeline shots to ProRes you need to render it all, but no one said how you do that. I find FCP has so many variables and settings that sometimes I don’t know where I am and get so confused.

[David Roth weiss]

[Brian Semple] “cally all I did was make the Compressor ProRes 422”

That’s right, all that’s all, the render control codec is not necessary.

[Brian Semple] “I find FCP has so many variables and settings that sometimes I don’t know where I am and get so confused.”

I often liken it to a craps table in a casino, lot’s of things to choose, but very few good bets. The bottom line is, once you know the few you really need, you avoid the rest, and you realize it’s very easy.

The proper steps for you are simply:

1. Change the compressor to ProRes (as you’ve done) and re-render.
2. Export to a self-contained QT at current settings from Export>>Quicktime Movie
3. Import the QT into Compressor, choose the Best Quality DVD preset that most closely matches your running time, and encode without changing a thing.
4. Drag the M2V file and the AC3 audio file and drop onto the little green monitor (Track 1) in Graphical tab in DVDSP.
5. Right click on the little Track 1 monitor and set it as first play.
6. Select the little blue monitor “Menu 1” and delete it.
7. Hit the yellow and black burn button and put a high quality blank DVD in the burner tray and kick back.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.