[Brian Alexander]

Daniel, I think I must be trying too hard with F4M because no matter what I do, I just can seem to get good results. The only way I get good looking material is to do a Single Pass VBR w/Q set at 100. This is great but it gives me HUGE files.

I’ve tried presets; I’ve tried custom settings; I’ve tried holding my breath and standing on one foot; nothing seems to work for me.

Do you use F4M?

[Brian Alexander]

Thanks Craig for enlightening me. I had no idea. I have downloaded episode and am discovering a whole new set of tools that I need.

btw, I found the Compressor Trial on a mac.softpedia.com site.

[Brian Alexander]

I had to use XDCAM Transfer to get XDCam clips into a FCP sequence. Next, I ‘Export Quicktime Movie’ ‘All Settings’ ‘Self Contained’ and that gave me my XDCam footage in a QuickTime wrapper.

There’s probably a more efficient workflow but I was in a hurry and this is the only way I could figure out how to do this without transcoding.

[Brian Alexander]

[Raj Swahali] “checkbox simply titled “Interlaced” “

This box is just for metadata purposes. It doesn’t change anything in the actual footage.

[Raj Swahali] “Also there is an additional checkbox setting to “Deinterlace Source Video” “

If your intended output will be progressive I would suggest de-interlacing before you start your editing. It will be a much quicker de-interlace if you use ProRes as your de-interlaced codec.

[Brian Alexander]

Thanks for the reply. I’ve been told that the Flip4Mac uses the same processing engine as Windows Media Encoder. I’m guess that by the tone of your post such may not be the case. I’m finding that the cleanest WMV’s with no audio/video sync issues are done with a single pass vbr but that gives me pretty massive files.

What’s your workflow to get the files to PC?

FCP -> ProRes -> Windows Media Encoder -> Good WMV

Something like that?

[Brian Alexander]

What codec are you using for your FCP sequence?

Is this SD or HD material?

Interlaced or progressive footage?

I’m not sure which application is best but there are a few to choose from that will allow you to read OS X drives with XP. There are a few here. You might also be able to format a drive on a Mac with the NTFS 3G format and read the drive on windows.

You could also set up a Mac/PC network and transfer the files that way – it will probably be slow but it should work.

[Brian Alexander]

[Keith Rivers] “(shot on the RED, the files were ranging from 2k-3k)”

Are you referring to the frame size or bit rate?

[Keith Rivers] “H264 compression in FCP”

Did you do this with compressor or QuickTime Compression? If you did use Compressor, how did you get your project exported and ready for encoding?

[Keith Rivers] “but it gave me massive film grain issues”

When done right, you should not be able to tell the difference between your original file and the h.264 encode. Sounds like you may have to do a gamma correction (1.2) in compressor but that’s just a guess since we don’t know the rest of your workflow.

[Keith Rivers] “Can anyone recommend any other type of encode and compression technique?”

Honestly don’t know why you would want to use anything other than h.264; it is the most advanced codec for offering quality vs file size and it’s 2-3 times more efficient than the other MPEG codecs.

Of course any codec talk should be based on your intended output. What is the purpose or intended output for this encoded video?

[Brian Alexander]

It would help if you could throw a 5 second clip online so we can take a look at what you’re seeing.

Also, I apologize if I missed it somewhere but I still didn’t see a solid answer here:

Where did this original animation come from? Was it ingested from a tape source or do you have the original files?
and
What’s the frame rate of the original animation? 29.97, 30, 59.94 or 60?

Is it possible that someone has created a progressive frame without properly de-interlacing the material? Correct me if I’m wrong but you would never be able to de-interlace the video if this were a progressive video frame displaying interlaced media.

Good luck.

[Brian Alexander]

Whoever is contracted to run the film festival will most likely have an image processor such as a Barco (Folsom) Image Pro or a Screen Pro II upstream of the projector for a few reasons:

1) it’s a constant feed to the projector so the projector doesn’t have to re-aquire the signal with each new source;
2) it’s set to match the projector resolution – these processors have a $5,000 internal scaler vs the $50 off-the-shelf scalers that most high end and consumer products use;
3) the processors can store a logo so in between films we have something to put on-screen while we’re cueing up the next clip.

DVCAM will allow an SDSDI or Component connection to the switcher whereas a DVD will allow Component at best. Plus DVCAM is higher quality – 25 Mbps vs 6-9 Mbps from a DVD.

I would contact the AV team to find out what they’re providing as far as equipment goes. Personally, I would render my video out w/h.264 at a full 720p frame size and use my Mac to play it. You’ll get the best quality/least scaling if you set your output resolution to the projectors native resolution. If the AV guys know what they’re doing you should get pristine quality going this route. Of course this may be obtrusive so you’ll most likely be rendering a file to support whatever equipment is on show-site.

[Brian Alexander]

Setting higher bit rates can cause problems with some DVD players. I’d have to know a little more about your project to give you detailed recommendations for what your intended output will be so I’ll just direct you to one of my video heroes: Larry Jordan.

Larry has a good article about this here: https://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_bit_rate.html