[Brian Alexander]

[Chris Blair] “Compressor is sort of a swiss army knife of compression…doing a lot of things moderately well, but none really well. “

Chris, how can you make a statement like that if you don’t use Compressor? What about the optical flow technology that is built into Compressor but can only be activated if you know what buttons to push? That’s like me saying that PC’s are kind of like the swiss army knife of computing…doing a lot of things moderately well, but none really well; while this may or may not be true, I’m sure someone would disagree.

Back to business…

Matt, remember that DVD is basically 1 resolution no matter what your source material is: 720 x 480. (We could argue that 720 x 480 16:9 is Anamorphic and the alternative is to lay the material down at letterboxed 720 x 404 but we’ll leave this for discussion at a later time.) The point is that your 1920 x 1080 material is being resized.

For a better looking product, I would suggest resizing your footage before creating your MPEG2 file. Your best bet is to use ProRes as your intermediate codec. It will assure a fast (but large file size) workflow.

Drop your Job (source) in your batch window ->
Apply a ProRes for Interlaced material Preset on to your Job (search in the text box if you can’t see it) ->
Highlight your Job Settings in the Batch Window (if it’s not already highlighted) ->
Select the Frame Controls Pane in your Inspector Window (3rd button from the left) ->
Turn Frame controls on if it’s not on already (if everything is greyed out you need to click the button to the right of the Frame Controls drop-down box and select “On” when the drop-down becomes active) ->
Select the Geometry Pane in your Inspector Window (5th button from the left) ->
Set your frame size to 720 x 480 and make sure that the Pixel Aspect is set to NTSC CCIR 601/DV ->

Now the new correctly sized ProRes file that you’re about to create should be the source for your DVD encoding.

If you want to get really fancy then just apply a couple more steps: bear with me here…

Make sure that your Job Settings are highlighted in your Batch Window ->
Click Job on the Menu at the top of your screen ->
Select New Job with Target Output ->

This will create a new Chained job based on the output from your last job! You should be seeing a chain link in your preview and as your icon for the new job, right?

Now find your DVD Best Settings folder and drag the folder to the new Chained Job ->
Before submitting you can change the name of your new DVD output files; I would suggest you erase the settings name applied for the audio and video files. When creating your DVD the Audio and Video name need to exactly match such as: MyMovie.ac3 and MyMove.m2v

Click SUBMIT!

This should get you on your way. If you’ve made it through these steps you’re halfway to becoming a Compressor Expert.

Let us know how this turns out.
Thanks.

[Brian Alexander]

I have a feeling that this has something to do with Perian decoding the file for viewing but the quicktime encoding engine does not know what the heck is going on.

This could also be an issue by encoding to Apple’s AIC. The Apple AIC was developed for transcoding HDV material before HDV was easy to use with Final Cut. It could be that the GOP sequence between AIC and FRAPS are very different. I recommend using Apple Pro Res as your intermediate format; besides, I would bet that FRAPS is using a standard square pixel and of course the AIC is based on rectangle pixels. You’ll be doing a disservice to the quality of your image with this workflow.

I would suggest trying an export directly from Quicktime. Just a short test to help figure out whether this issue is coming from Compressor or the Quicktime encoding engine.

If that doesn’t work, try a different format like h.264 or prores (just for testing/troubleshooting purposes).

If that doesn’t work (you’re still getting the white screen) try the transcode with MPEG Streamclip. As long as it opens the file you may have better luck. Again, just use a short test clip.

If that doesn’t work, I would look at transcoding to a high quality I-frame based format with the PC before bringing it over to the Mac.

Let us know what you find.
Thanks.

[Brian Alexander]

Wow, thanks for the insight Craig!

I looked at the calculator that Ed linked to and it’s OK but it’s missing a very valuable piece the bit rate/file size puzzle: FRAME SIZE! Now we could go into infinite detail about this and Dan, if you want that level of geek speak you’ll get it but I’ll keep this light.

When you encode your h.264 file, limit it to 500 Kbps. A 320 x 180, 500 Kbps movie at 2 hrs. will leave you with a 450 MB file. Be sure to be conservative when choosing your audio codec; the audio encoded at 256 Kbps sounds great but will not leave you any head-room for your video. I would not encode audio over 128 Kbps.

Be sure to leave Frame Reordering checked and Automatic Keyframes enabled if you are using any flavor of the QuickTime encoder.

This should do it for you.

[Brian Alexander]

Working with a specific file size is easy. If you need your file to be 10 MB then you have to find your balance between frame size, bit rate, length and quality. This is easy enough but you have to understand these relationships to hit a target file size.

How long is your movie?
What frame size are your creating your movie at?
Where can you comprimise – Bit rate, frame size, or length?
What kind of quality are you going for.

[Brian Alexander]

Hi Jeff,

An h.264 conversion, if done properly, should look exactly the same as your source media. If you could post a sample clip of your media or at least some before and after screenshots, it would be easier to diagnose the problem.

Using h.264 or Motion JPEG is a big and varied decision, one which solely depends on the intended output of your media. Are your creating this for web distribution, a specific playback device, or for editing with other software. Creating an h.264 version should be the very last step in your workflow (if you’re creating a distribution version).

Troublshooting questions:

1. Are you capturing HD or SD?
2. Does your captured media have these same banding issues?
3. Are there an frame rate conversions happening?
4. What is your captured frame rate?
5. What settings are you using to create your h.264?

—
Let us know when you’ve solved your issue.

[Brian Alexander]

Hi guys,
I know this is elementary but just so Arthur is aware of how to calculate bit rates into storage space I’m including my math breakdown.

147 Mbps = 18.375 MBps
18.375 MBps = 1,102.5 MB per minute or 1.07 GBpm
1.07 GBpm = 64.2 GB per hour
64.2 GBph * 50 hrs = 3210 GB
3210 GB = 3.13 TB

You can also skip the mumbo jumbo and just download this calculator: https://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty2.pl/product=10730&cat=17&platform=osx&method=sa/BitratePro.dmg.zip

[Shane Ross] ” 60GB/hour (1080i29.97). ProRes 1080i? 75GB/hour”

Shane, one question I have for you: How do you figure that you end up with different file sizes for 1080i and 1080p? How are you calculating this? 1080i @ 59.94, 1080p @ 29.97 & 720p @ 59.94 are all the same in terms of storage space and bit rate. ProRes Standard Quality for these resolutions is 147 Mbps (although depending on complexity of the footage I’ve seen this fluctuate from 135 to 152 Mbps).

Just wondering. Thanks.

[Brian Alexander]

Sounds obvious but there is a load of wonderful information in the FCP user manual. You can get through all 2000 pages of it a lot quick in pdf form than you can in print.

I would suggest opening it up in Preview and bookmarking it. This way you can access it without opening up Final Cut. You can locate the manual under the help menu in Final Cut Pro.

[Brian Alexander]

I agree with Craig that this question needs to go the the Project Manager or Video Engineer that will be running the event. Asking for a QuickTime Movie is like asking for a sandwich. Asking for specifics will go a long way.

This really depends on the playback device they are using. If they are using Digital Cinema Servers based on the DCI specs then you’ll be wanting to encode your .MOV with JPG2000 but this is a very specific workflow. You’re 20 minute movie will not fit on a 4.7 Gig DVD.

Here are 2 examples of file size for your 20 minute movie:
ProRes – 22.05 GB
ProRes HQ – 33 GB
H.264 @ 8Mbps – 1.2 GB

I regularly use Macs as playback devices at conferences and film festivals. I have my clients encode their video with h.264 limiting their 1920 x 1080 movies @ 30fps at 8Mbps. When there workflow is done correctly the h.264 looks exactly the same as their uncompressed and ProRes video.

Let us know what equipment they’ll be using if you need any help deciphering encoding specs.

[Brian Alexander]

[David Benassi] “It is 16×9 in Final Cut when I preview it, but is vertically compressed into a 4×3 image when I preview it in Compressor. Why is that? DVC Pro HD 720p”

Hi David. DVCPro HD subsamples 720P horizontal resolution from 1280 to 960 to minimize data rate. The actual resolution of the image is 960 x 720 with a PAR (pixel aspect ratio) of 1.33. Compressor lists this PAR as .75 but it still means that the DVCPro HD pixel is not square.

I suspect that the reason you’re seeing a 4:3 frame instead of 16:9 is your “Correct for Pixel Aspect Ratio” option is not checked. You can find this in the pull down menu at the top of your Preview Pane.

[David Benassi] “I’ve compressed this same exact project before with no problem, I don’t know what setting is changed.”

No telling what has turned this option off. Hopefully this has helped solved your query.

btw, when you resize for you tube, you will want to make sure your pixels are square. Proving any PAR but square will give you less than desirable results.

—
Let us know when you have solved your issue.

[Brian Alexander]

For a Mac Based, Final Cut workflow I use Apple ProRes; it really is the next best thing to uncompressed media. Files are a fraction of the size compared to uncompressed video but the quality is visually lossless. I’m currently collecting up to 2,000 minutes a week of HD material.

ProRes, when used with HD material, is easy to calculate: Standard Quality = 1 GB per minute; High Quality 1.5 GB per minute. Standard def files are much smaller.

I use the AJA IOHD because it is the only product in the industry (that I’m aware of) that support hardware acceleration for ProRes.

There is a lot to learn when it comes to digital video. Creative Cow is an excellent resource for your education.

Brian.