[Alan Okey]

[Mark Hammett] “Thanks, so is there an easy way to transcode video source clips that use intraframe codecs to ones that are interframe codecs? Or is it easiest to just put them in FCP and render them?”

If you have a lot of clips that need to be transcoded, Compressor is a great tool for this. If it’s only the odd clip or two, then you can probably get by OK just by rendering in FCP unless the clips are very long.

[Mark Hammett] “If so, will having more RAM make it quicker? “

A good rule of thumb for RAM usage in Compressor is to have 2GB per CPU core. Any more than that is overkill. Rendering speed is largely dependent on CPU clock speed. RAM is only an issue if you don’t have enough of it and the system is swapping to disk (virtual memory, page file, etc.) to compensate.

[Alan Okey]

[Rob Grauert] “Removing advanced pulldown from the 24pA footage can be done in Final Cut, but I believe standard pull-down must be removed in Cinema Tools when working with 24p “

Exactly. The main difference is that removing pulldown from 24p (shot over 29.97i) is more labor intensive, which is a nicer way of saying that it’s more of a pain in the ass.

Ultimately both sources will end up as true 24p, but removing pulldown in Cinema Tools is a process that needs human intervention and guidance, unlike the automatic pulldown removal from 24pA by Final Cut.

The upside of this is that when you’re done, you’ll be much more familiar with the process and you’ll have a newfound appreciation of 24pA. And think of it this way: you’ll be far ahead of all of the other people who can’t begin to understand what pulldown is or how it works and routinely put out stuttering, crappy video due to ignorance.

[Alan Okey]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It works for cross and down conversion for me. I’ll post something on Monday to show you.”

No need, I discovered the problem – my own idiocy. One of my custom saved profiles didn’t have the proper Output Fields setting – it was set to “same as source.” Boy do I feel dumb.

Sorry for wasting everyone’s time!

[Alan Okey]

I uninstalled/reinstalled Compressor, and I think I discovered what the issue is.

Compressor can add pulldown when you convert files of the same dimensions, but not correctly in the same job when you upscale or downscale the source clip. I think it has to do with the order of operations in Compressor.

Pulldown appears to be added prior to scaling, so if you try to downconvert a 720p24 file to NTSC 29.97i or to 1080i60, you end up with a stuttering duplicate frame on every 5th frame. The workaround is to perform scaling and pulldown as separate, sequential jobs, meaning that you must first downscale or upscale the source clip (keeping it 24p), then reimport the upscaled or downscaled clip into Compressor and convert it from 24p to 60i. Two separate tasks, two separate jobs in Compressor.

Whether or not this could be considered a bug or merely the way Compressor works is debatable. I would prefer Compressor to be smart enough to do both up/downscaling and properly add pulldown in the same job, but perhaps this isn’t possible with Compressor’s current architecture. For now, it simply means that if you want to scale a 24p clip up or down and add pulldown, you have to perform both tasks as separate, sequential jobs.

Thoughts?

[Alan Okey]

[Jeremy Garchow] “make sure deinterlace is set to fast as well. “

Indeed it is.

I suspect the issue is either A) a Snow Leopard glitch, or B) I need to bite the bullet and do a complete deinstall/reinstall of FCS2. *sigh*

Thanks again.

[Alan Okey]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s been able to do it since FCS2. “

Hmmm, hasn’t been working for me this week. My output ended up with four frames followed by a duplicate 4th frame in a repeating pattern. I’m using FCS2 on Snow Leopard.

My workflow:

– import 24p footage to Compressor
– apply Quicktime encoding profile (usually ProRes 422 or Uncompressed)
– in Encoder tab of inspector, click Settings button and under Motion, change frame rate to 29.97
– in Frame Controls tab of inspector, turn frame controls ON, set output fields to lower, select “Fast (Nearest Frame)” for rate conversion, duration is 100% of source
– render

Any mistakes in that list?

Funny that you should mention that Compressor can add 3:2 pulldown since FCS2 – I could have sworn that this was the case, but it didn’t work when I tried it earlier this week. Might be related to upgrading to Snow Leopard…

I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard by doing a fresh install on a new drive and using the Migration Wizard to pull my data and apps over from the Leopard drive. Perhaps something got screwed up in the process? I had to reinstall my MPEG-2 playback component manually, as it didn’t work after the upgrade. I suppose I could always remove and reinstall FCS on the new Snow Leopard drive, but I honestly couldn’t recall if I actually was successfully able to add pulldown in Compressor in the past or if I was remembering that incorrectly.

Thanks for the response.

[Alan Okey]

Final Cut Pro is a native Quicktime application. Any media brought into Final Cut projects should first be converted to an appropriate Quicktime format for editing. This includes .avi, .wmv, .mp3, .mpg, .mp4, and other file types.

There are frequently posts on this forum asking why Final Cut won’t edit files compressed with delivery codecs like h.264.

It’s important to realize the difference between delivery codecs and editing codecs. Delivery codecs are very efficient, using intraframe compression schemes to keep file sizes small, but they make editing difficult. Editing codecs use interframe compression schemes to allow easy single-frame editing accuracy, but they are less efficient for delivery to the web or other low-bandwidth media due to their larger file size.

For the smoothest editing experience in Final Cut, video source clips that use intraframe codecs like MPEG-2 or h.264 should first be transcoded to an interframe codec like ProRes, Uncompressed 8 or 10-bit, DV/DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, motion JPEG, etc.

[Alan Okey]

[Michael Borgen] “The only benefit of 60fps is the ability to have cool slow motion w/ slight overcranking, right? “

The benefit of 60p vs. 30p is a higher temporal resolution, i.e. more of a “live” look. 720p essentially has the same “look” as interlaced NTSC SD – that is, the image is updated 60 times per second as opposed to 30. The difference is that in 720p60, the entire image is refreshed 60 times per second, whereas in NTSC, every other scan line is updated 60 times per second.

The quality of motion in 30p is similar to that of 24p, i.e. a more detached, romantic quality of motion that is associated with dramatic content. 720p60 is well-suited to sports and other fast-motion content where image clarity is critical.

[Alan Okey]

Two possible scenarios:

If this split screen presentation format is done live, I doubt that this is commercially available off-the-shelf software. More likely, it’s a special in-house presentation app that Apple wrote for its live events. It’s probably just a software front end for a hardware video and RGB switcher. Apple has a history of using custom hardware and software for its live keynotes, including iPhones with special video boards in them that allow the screen to be output to a projector, and software that composites the iPhone screen output into a rendering of an iPhone on the projected image.

The application now sold as Keynote was used originally used by Jobs for his presentations before it was released as a commercially available application.

If the split screen effect is not done live, only for the post-produced streaming file, it could be created using any number of off-the-shelf apps, including Motion. Apple stopped doing live streams of their events some time ago.

[Alan Okey]

[walter biscardi] “And you’re right about the casual viewer, most folks who come here can’t even see the reverse interlace issue when HD is dropped into an SD timeline…. “

Hardly surprising. Have you seen how bad most HD looks on digital cable services? The compression artifacts are horrendous, especially with sports programming.

Every time I walk into a bar and there’s a big plasma TV hanging there with a basketball game on, I cringe – it looks like the Red Lego team vs. the Yellow Lego team.