[Jeff Greenberg]

I doubt this will work to your advantage.

Even if segmenting occurs on the cluster, you don’t have the elgato hardware on the different clusters. Yeah, it’s likely that the turbo h.264 is meant for a one system output.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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[Jeff Greenberg]

I hate to send you somewhere else – but this is a solution that is best answered over at BorisFx.com with their support department.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
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[Jeff Greenberg]

On Illustrator:
You want the layers from Illustrator? And vector based in Motion?
Sorry. Motion flattens everything from Illustrator.

Taking it over the photoshop keeps the layers, but it is rasterizes.

So, if you want the vector based advantages, going to photoshop kills it. The only way I could think of this is to break illustrator layers out into individual files. Messy, but may work I did find this via a google search: breaking Illustrator layers into individual illustrator files:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/3108385

For the widescreen setting:
Use the setting that closest matches your timeline. You can directly place the motion files into FCP – no need to render out as animation. If you do, you might need to throw the ‘anamorphic switch’ in FCP.

For avid:
SD: use the Meridian Uncompressed codec. very important that you set it to millions of colors + if you want an alpha channel to get through.
HD: use either or DNxHD 220 and again, make sure the alpha channel switch is set. This will a compressed file, but significantly smaller (and with an uncompressed alpha channel.)

Either SD or HD, you could use the animation codec (again millions of colors+) but the avid will compress it on import.

You can test the output by generating the QuickTime file and then bringing that back into motion to make sure the alpha channel was output.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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[Jeff Greenberg]

If it looks great in FCP, but lousy on a DVD, then the problem is that part of the chain. No point in examining anything else (as far as my thought process goes.)

I’ll in parenthesis explain each of my thoughts.

We need to examine where something is going wrong:
Between FCP & Compressor – compressor has had a history of bugs, more towards PAL than NTSC frame rates.
Between the compressed video and DVDSP
Between DVDSP and the end viewing – the TV set.
(you have defined a problem, we have to figure out where it actually exists.)

You don’t say where you’re evaluating the problem. You shouldn’t truly evaluate an MPEG 2 on anything less than the end product – the type of 1080p screen you’re looking at.
(it might look bad on your computer, but fine in the final playback mechanism.)

And there’s a real quagmire in the SD on an HD set….you’re downconverting your work to view; and having the TV set do the upconvert – no matter what you do, it might just not look good being blown up. Can you grab a DVD of other animation and see if it suffers similar artifacts.)
(In which case, its the upscaling and there’s nothing you can do about it.)

Other general thoughts;

If you’re not planning to put chapters, try setting the GOP to open. This will permit more variance in the VBR.
(if this works, then that’s the solution)

I’d use a 30 second compression out of compressor and set it to a huge bitrate. The whole idea of only 30 seconds, is that you can also test the adjustment for antialiasitng and details. Try one with them set to nothing; one with them both on, one with value high, and the last with the other.
(by doing 30 second moments, one of them may ‘hit’ and solve the problem)

You need to take the bit rate out of the picture as a factor (or expose it as the problem) – you have to boost the bit rate to the maximum (around 7.5 mb/s) just to make sure that a larger/higher quality wouldn’t’ solve the problem.
(increasing the data rate removes the lower data rate as a factor)

As long as we’re going down this route…..why not put out a 1pass VBR and a CBR, just to check.
(Using 1pass and CBR may solve this, if there’s a bug in comrpessor)

Last, I’d download a copy of bitvice and try it to see if that improves everything.
(Let’s take compressor out of the picture – bitvice has a demo.)

Then put them all on a DVD and actually check them on the final product – the 1080p tv.
(again, where are you monitoring?)

Last, if you want to post 30 second somewhere, I’d be happy to push it through some of my encoders here (Squeeze 7, Episode, bitvice) to see if any of them have the problem.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
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[Jeff Greenberg]

The reason that it won’t help you to render to fields, is that the web has no fields! It’s all progressive.
So, rerender is the best choice. Use some motion blur (which will help give the ‘illusion’ of non-static movement.

Keep in mind that traditional animation was 24fps…and often was 12 (they often shot each frame twice).

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
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[Jeff Greenberg]

I know that some QuickTime formats should accept Closed captioning information in FCP7/Compressor 3.5

I just haven’t ever tried it….but I’m sure you need to use the ‘send to’ (vs. export)

But QuickTime 7.1.6 and later has the ability to display CC information…try it through compressor as a QuickTime h.264 file…

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
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[Jeff Greenberg]

The two most likely causes:
Large stills and corrupted QuickTime files. Since, at this time, FCP is a 32 bit application, it never uses more than 4 gigs of ram.

Normally, you’d try one of two methods (aside from tossing the stills)
Divide and conquer; divide your timeline in half and see if it exhibits the problem. Then do the same for the other half, until you find the problem clip(s).
Or, you might find downloading FCS Maintenance pack from Digital Rebellion. It has utilities to find corrupt clips, remove FCP cache files, etc.

But yours is a multiclip. And divide and conquer probably won’t work – because of the multiclip.

So, since we’re desperate…
Try collapsing and then uncollapsing.
How about removing a clip from the multiclip?
Try making a new multiclip and see if you can add to the clip.

Those are the first ideas I had….

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
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[Jeff Greenberg]

Try to pick these specific speeds: 25%, 33%, 50%, 66%, 75% etc.

Weird Fit to Fill speeds are going to have odd problems with frame blending.

Or run it through Motion and set the Retiming to Optical flow. That will definitely be smooth.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
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[Jeff Greenberg]

Did you collapse the sequence? How about sending it to Compressor?

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
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Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
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[Jeff Greenberg]

You might want to try Premiere Pro’s Project Manager to Move the project?

I don’t know what version of Premiere Pro it showed up; I’m running 5 here…just make sure you dont’ tell it to trim or exclude unused clips.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
Come See me speak at NAB!
Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
Contact me through my Website