[Jimmy Stephans]

Update on all my issues and testing… Please remember that I am new to both FCP, and to HD video overall.

Again, my goal is 1280 wide by 720 high clips that are 2-5 minutes long to be downloaded to user systems and played locally. My site runs about 88% Windows users and prior to this weekend WMV was what I offered them.

The testing below was done with a 2 minute 30 second clip that originally started as HDV on a Sony A1U, was captured in FCP using ProRes 422 (using guidelines / tutorial on CreativeCow).

First, the WMV issues…

I tried Flip4Mav and couldn’t get it working. After a bit of help from Sydney in their support I got in running today. Took a bunch of fiddling with their presets to get it as I liked (see ProRes and 8bit notes below), but it seems fine now — but not as good as other options.

Over the weekend, while waiting to hear back from Flip4Mac, I was looking into other solutions for making WMV files from my FCP editing. I tried two options… FCP into Compressor to ProRes422, and FCP into Compressor to 8bit Uncompressed.

ProRes took about 35 minutes and resulted in a 2.6gb file.

8bit took about 5 minutes and resulted in a 12gb file.

File size is an issue because I need to get them from the MAC to a Windows machine for the WMV encoding. I do it over my local network, but it takes a bit of time.

Once on the Windows machine (Vista Home Premium, AMD 6400 processor, 4 GB ram) I tested encoding with TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress which I have had on the system for a while.

Before testing I had installed the Windows ProRes software from Apple on the computer — thus I have no idea if TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress would read the ProRes file without that being installed (I assume some Codec is installed by the Apple product).

In both the ProRes and 8bit test the final WMV looks very good. Interestingly the final WMVs are both exactly the same size.

The WMVs created on the Windows box with TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress look visually better than the one produced with Flip4Mac when all are viewed on the same Windows box / monitor. Its not a huge difference, but coming from a long time in the still photo business, I see less detail in shadows on the Flip version (when encoded at same settings).

Next, the Quicktime issues…

I’m all new to Quicktime, Divx and most other formats so this was a bit of an eye opener.

While testing (playing) over the weekend I located a series of Compressor presets at this site: https://compressorpack.com/

I got that, installed, and started playing and testing. I found that using their Quicktime H.264 preset called “SS_HD_720p” was perfect for my needs.

Better than I could get tweaking the Compressor H.264 presets as a novice.

The final MOV file from the “SS_HD_720p” preset are about 18% smaller than the WMVs files from TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress and seem to look better, and are visually much better than the WMV produced by Flip.

I was so impressed with the Quicktime / H.264 / “SS_HD_720p” files that I added Quicktime downloads as a new feature of my site starting today.

Most testing done with the same FCP timeline / export, but the results are consistent through all 4 clips I have created thus far.

SIDEBAR… On advice of a current site member I checked into Divx. Just this month they came out with Divx 7 for Windows and it seems to use H.264.

I got the latest Pro version, which comes with a converter.

It would not read the ProRes or 8bit files — saying “not a real video stream”

Vegas Movie Studio on that same Windows system does read the ProRes file fine (forgot to test 8bit), as does Quicktime Pro for Windows.

I couldn’t test Divx 7 with the same files because it wouldn’t read ProRes or 8bit, but testing the compressor part (offers no adjustments) did look pretty good with some older AVI files created in Sony Movie Studio.

Overall, my first week with a Mac / FCP has been a learning experience, but the results with the “SS_HD_720p” files is impressive.

Thanks for all the help….

Jimmy

[Jimmy Stephans]

Carlo,

I think you may learn something about it in this great online / free tutorial. I did.

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/smith_stephen/fcp_custom_settings.php

Or, you can review the available presets for Compressor they have here:

https://compressorpack.com/

[Jimmy Stephans]

Agreed, maybe I wasn’t paying close attention and clicked “-“.

It was the Apple H.264 preset.

Is there a way to reverse what I did?

I do have the droplet thing on the desktop, but was hoping to fix my mistake.

Any further thoughts?

[Jimmy Stephans]

Denise,

Thanks I’ll try that in the morning and post results.

[Jimmy Stephans]

Bill,

Thanks for the help. I’ll try those setting in the morning.

To answer your question about 720 x 1280, I didn’t know it was anything unusual. I’m pretty new at this stuff. Originally I did a few clips on a Windows Vista machine, with the built in Windows MovieMaker. That size is one of the few export options it offers. Later that was also an option in Sony Vegas Movie Studio when going to WMV.

It seems its also one of the options in Flip4Mac (one that I can’t get to work).

My source is Sony HDV footage captured using ProRes422 that I learned about here:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/poisson_chris/hdv-prores.php

More Saturday, after testing your ideas.

Thanks Again