David Heidelberger
Forum Replies Created
-
To add to what Jeremy said, I think you mentioned somewhere that it was rendered from Motion in the native format of the timeline, which would make it DVCPRO-HD, right? And even more than that, it gets heavily stretched from 1280 to the full 1080. That means that no matter how you render your timeline from then on (for example nested in a ProRes timeline), the graphics will not benefit because it’s baked in as DVPRO-HD. Can you see if you can get the titles re-rendered from Motion as ProRes 4:4:4:4, 1920×1080? That way, you’ll have them at very high quality no matter what format you render the timeline and might see better results from a ProRes timeline or using Send to Compressor. Are the titles red, by any chance? I’ve found DVCPRO-HD gets very blocky when dealing with reds.
– David
-
Hi Wayne,
There is also a third option. You can use my free Audio Track Batcher or Video Toolshed’s free QTChange to instantly batch delete the extra audio tracks. You just want to do it early, right after capture, because sometimes Final Cut can get cranky if audio tracks go missing once you’ve started editing with them.
– David
-
Hi Fredy,
We ran into the exact same problem about a year ago, shortly after upgrading to Snow Leopard and the original FCP 7. For the life of me, I can’t remember why it happened or how we solved it. But if I remember right, it either had something to do with interlacing or frame size. What are the dimensions and field settings for your sequence and render?
– David
-
Sorry, I should have been clearer. This specific problem wasn’t an issue in 6. It was introduced in FCP 7 and then fixed in 7.0.1. Whatever you’re seeing is something else, I guess.
– David
-
There were some Compressor downconversion issues when FCP 7 first came out having to do with aliasing. Here’s an example. This is 720p24 ProRes footage downconverted to SD 24p, obviously using the exact same settings in Compressor 3.0.5 (FCP 6.0.6) and Compressor 3.5 (FCP 7). Although I haven’t done side-by-side comparisons, I believe I read in a release note that this issue was fixed in FCP 7.0.1/Compressor 3.5.1, although I can’t seem to find the release notes for that version right now. Are you using the latest version of Final Cut and Compressor?
-
I have a program on my website, the XML Analyzer that can do it, although it requires a bit of prep work. I think XML2Text can do it, too, but I’m not sure about that.
– David
-
You’re absolutely right. I believe this will only happen if you’re working in HD, and only with non-square pixels (HDV, DVCPRO-HD). And only if you’re scaling it to a size smaller than the actual width of your sequence. So, for example, with HDV, your sequence settings are 1440×1080. If your final output in Compressor is anything smaller than 1440×810 (which is a square pixel, 16:9 size), you’ll get this stretching. Furthermore, it’s not just text or Title 3D text. It will be any generator. Believe it or not, this has been a bug since at least Final Cut 6.0 and they still haven’t fixed it.
You have two solutions. You can move your footage into a square pixel sequence (the ProRes 422 (HQ) 1920×1080 60i 48kHz preset, for example) and send that to Compressor. Be sure to check everything first and make sure Final Cut hasn’t distorted anything in a weird way.
The only other solution (and probably easier) is to export a Quicktime movie and bring it into Compressor.
Finally, if this annoys you enough, you should send Apple feedback.
Even more effective, I think, you can register for a free Apple Developer Connection membership and use their bug-reporting tool. I have nothing to base this on, but I think they pay more attention to these official bug reports than they do to user feedback.
Good luck,
– David -
After years of calculating roll speeds that were an even number of pixels per frame and still having the credits look jittery on both crossconverts (720p to 1080i) and downconverts, I’ve finally started taking my credit rolls (usually tall TIFF files) and animating them in After Effects with motion blur. Looks much better, I don’t need to think about the speed of the animation, and it renders a lot faster, too.
– David
-
Hi Nate.
There’s a thread on this from September, which I largely ignored until it happened to us. We had an editor complaining of exactly the same thing, also on a project that originated in 6 (on a fresh install of Snow Leopard, for what it’s worth). For logistical (unrelated to the bug) reasons, we had to take the project back into 6 with XML. I’ve been out of town all week so I’m not sure if that resolved anything.
We’ve been unable to resolve the sequence and clip renaming issue, but if you right click on the sequence in the browser window and say “Make Sequence Clips Independent,” that does seem to resolve the match-frame issue.
Also, this is just a thought, but you could try exporting the project as an XML, try different versions (5, 4, and 3, maybe) and then re-import the XML into a new project. See if you lose any of your metadata (hopefully not, although I don’t know what the version history is for the XMLs and what features are lost each version you go back) and whether that fixes the problem.
There are a couple annoying bugs in the otherwise very nice FCP 7, this being high on that list. Hopefully there’s a 7.0.1 not too far away.
– David
-
Scott,
What version of Final Cut are you using? I recently noticed really bad aliasing in Compressor 3.5 (which ships with FCP 7) when downconverting, which wasn’t present in the previous version.
There are a few threads on this over on the Apple forums. I’m surprised that nothing has shown up about it here yet. Anyway, here’s what I’m seeing. Progressive 720p23.98 source material downconverted to 23.98 MPEG-2, using the DVD best settings, additionally I had Frame Controls enabled and resize set to best. Changing the anti-aliasing doesn’t seem to do anything. Clean install, by the way.
Mike’s suggestion above to downconvert first and then export to DVD sounds like a good one to me. You could try using the “Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) NTSC 48kHz Anamorphic” sequence preset and then just be sure to change the sequence frame rate to 23.98. Then drop your exported clip into that, re-export, and bring that into Compressor.
– David