[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Trashed the prefs, didn’t seem to help. Now I can’t even close the log/capture window without the program freezing. By the way, I’m running OS X 10.4.11…is it time for me to upgrade to Leopard?

Cathy Runge
Mary Productions

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

How do I repair permissions?

Cathy Runge
Mary Productions

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Hi Johnny,

After all the experimenting I did yesterday with converting my HDV project to SD, the picture looked exactly the same whether or not I converted it to an uncompressed QT movie before sending it to Compressor. I finally realized this after comparing both versions side-by-side. My goal was to find out if I could get that pristine, Hollywood look on a DVD…I’ve been spoiled by previewing my footage on a secondary display in HD, so watching it in SD after hours of viewing it in HD can come as a disappointment, even though there’s really nothing wrong with the SD-DVD.

So, my suggestion would be to export your film straight from FCP to Compressor as is, and choose DVD Best Quality 90 minutes. You could also export a quicktime movie and import that straight into DVDSP…but if you want Dolby AC-3 audio, you’ll have to go through Compressor.

Cathy Runge
Mary Productions

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

I think that did it! Looks much, much better. Thank you Chris (and David)!!!

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Perhaps I’m being unrealistic on the quality I can expect to get from downconverting to SD, but…I did exactly as you said and I’m still noticing a lot of digital artifacts in the picture, particularly around my supers. I’m wondering if I should boost my bit rate settings even more. Right now, in Compressor, I’ve set the average bit rate to 7.7 and the max bit rate is 9.0. I’m using “DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes.” I noticed that the Pixel Aspect Ratio is still listed as “HDV 1080i (16:9)” for the QT movie I imported. How can this be, since I exported the sequence as 8-bit uncompressed?

Thanks again,

Cathy

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Thanks, David! One last (I hope) question…in terms of keeping the current settings, do I need to change the sequence setting to an uncompressed format (i.e. 8 or 10-bit) before exporting a QT, or is it good to go as native HDV?

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Hi Arnoud,

Thanks for the feedback. So you are suggesting that I use export Quicktime Movie as 8-bit uncompressed, then export that file into Compressor? Should I delete my HDV render files first?

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

Also, what setting should I choose for the SD sequence — Apple ProRes SD 1440 x 1080 @ 23.98? My media is the following:

HDV 24F and 60i footage (primarily 24F…shot on a Canon XH-G1)

Thx!

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

This is the same problem I’ve been having…so Rafael, in your first response you said to begin by copying the HDV-edited sequence into an SD sequence, but then you went on to say that you convert to ProRes HQ, change the settings to the highest quality and then “export your Master.” I’m confused as to what step should come first. Could you clarify?

Thanks,

Cathy

[Catherine Ceigersmidt]

…so the fix was embarrassingly simple. First off, my sequence was set to 1080i60. That was the problem. As soon as I switched my sequence setting to 1080p30, created a new sequence and did a copy/paste of my project to the new seq, the auto settings in Compressor showed the project as being entirely progressive, b/c the sequence setting is progressive. Thanks for the help!

Cathy Runge
Mary Productions