Charles Simonson
Forum Replies Created
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I’d go with Director. And don’t be too daunted by it. If you are fluent in FCP or any editor that uses multiple layers on its timeline, then the learning curve shouldn’t be that deep.
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QT can do batching with Mac OS X 10.4 and Automator. First, download an Automator plugin called QT Batch (or something like that, do a search on google). Then, use Automator to source your clips, and then apply the export command for the QT plugin and let the process run. This will open each source movie in QT and export it using the last settings you used in QT. It works very well.
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I don’t know what your camera is doing on to create a difference in the quality of the 60i vs 24p, but if all things were equal from that end, then I would suggest to shoot 24p. Since you are going to iPod, web, and DVD, for two of those formats progressive encoding is the only choice, and generally for MPEG-2, progressive sources encode much better than interlaced sources. By shooting at 24p, you will be able to provide more bits per frame than you will at 60i or 30p during encoding. For iPod encoding, I would also suggest trying a different encoder. I have become infatuated with the x264 codec implementation in a very affordable app called VisualHub. Give it a try and I think you will be very satisfied.
As far as the MPEG-2, Apple’s encoder is doing the right thing by assigning the same number of bits per second to each encode, and because one format is 24p, you should be getting better results.
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While Rich is correct that MPEG-1 is the one-and-only for true compatibility, Flash has been gaining a lot of ground as well. A standard, non-Flash 8, FLV encode will be playable by a great deal many of clients. Probably more so than Windows Media or Quicktime. And the good news is that Episode does a pretty good job of encoding to Flash FLV (and an excellent job of encoding to Flash 8).
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If you are doing MPEG-4 Part 2, don’t use Compressor. Apple’s MPEG-4 Part 2 encoder is not that good, especially compared to the one in Episode. If doing MPEG-4 Part 10 (H264), then your exact issue would be more difficult as I find Apple’s encoder as of QT 7.1.3 to be very good. But again, you may want to try Episode as it has far superior preprocessing tools and will undoubtedly give you better quality with scaling.
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ffmpegX
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If you need to make a QT .mov, just take the .mp4 output and open it in QT Pro, then do a Save As. This will write the movie as a .mov with no transcoding.
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On a mac, the fastest encoder is the one available in Episode. Episode’s encoder is much faster than the Flip4Mac Studio products (yes, although both products are now owned by the same company, the two products use completely different code). However, if you really concerned with encoding Windows Media in the shortest amount of time, then you will need a PC as it will be fastest by far under Windows XP.
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How so?
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You are correct about this being an issue with QT. QT only supports the baseline and main profiles of the H.264 codec. To view High profile or 4:2:2 encodes, you need a PC and a decoder like the one available from MainConcept. VLC can semi play back high profile H.264 encodes on the mac though.