Joe Murray
Forum Replies Created
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Ok, I’ve seen two of my Cleaner-encoded spots playing back on air. They look great. At least as good as my DBeta to BetaSP dubs we used to ship out to all the stations. One other note, since MainConcept was one of the recommended options…I’ve received two confirmations from their support group that the Mac version produces darker mpeg-2 files than the original Quicktime in some cases. They’re working on a fix, but for now I’m sticking with Cleaner.
Joe Murray
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If you’re exporting a Quicktime with 2 channel audio, your effectively mixing down on that export. No need to mixdown once you reimport.
Joe Murray
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This is not for a DVD, it goes directly to a broadcast server and then to air (or cable), thus the high bit rate. I did check the settings as you suggest, and Quicktime’s already set to high quality. Something about the Cleaner-encoded files doesn’t work with Quicktime but works with Windows Media Player. I should see some of these encoded spots on TV this week and will try to report back to this thread on the quality once they’ve gone through this process.
Thanks for the input.
Joe Murray
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OK, I figured out a way to view the files. Not on Mac, but on PC, the Cleaner mpeg-2 encodes look beautiful when played in Windows Media Player. In Quicktime they look like cr*p, but at least I can use WMP to verify quality and motion from the encode. I’m not sure why people don’t like Cleaner for mpeg-2…these look really good.
Joe Murray
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Actually, the other end is FastChannel digital delivery service, and they said the file I encoded with Cleaner looked every bit as good as one I did with MainConcept. I encoded the same spot with both apps, with color bars on the front for calibration, and they said they were almost identical in quality. I did use a really high bit rate with Cleaner – 18 mbps constant – but when I played the Cleaner-encoded mpeg in Quicktime, it looked really bad. I like MainConcept OK, but since I already own Cleaner it would be better for me if it works as well as they say.
So back to my question. Is there another way to view mpeg-2 files on Mac? Anyone?
Joe Murray
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I’ve tried a lot of different encoders but haven’t found the right workflow yet. And you won’t get much help from DG figuring it out either. They’ll tell you “the audio sync is off” even though you can play the mpeg on YOUR desktop and it works fine, but then they can’t explain why it gets corrupted once their system ingests the file. Based on Chris’s reply, I’m going to start trying to work with Cleaner…the others I’ve tried are MainConcept on Mac and PC, Tsunami (TMPeg) from Pegasus, and Digigami. No consistent results so far.
Joe Murray
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Charles, slight change of subject, but since this is an old thread…do you use MainConcept on PC to encode Quicktimes to mpeg-2? I’ve had sporadic issues with the encoded files having no audio, as well as stuttering on clips with 3:2 pulldown. Have you had any of these issues?
Joe Murray
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Rick, do you use MainConcept on Mac for compressing uncompressed Quicktimes to mpeg-2? Do you have any issues with encoded files being darker than the originals (mainly in the gamma range)?
Joe Murray
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I can’t tell if they’re included in your string of characters or not, but Promax is in Irvine and I’ve always gotten good service, advice and prices from them.
Joe Murray
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You’re correct, this is most likely your hard drives spinning back up to speed. It can get pretty annoying and slow you down. The way to get rid of it is, in the Energy Saver settings part of the System Preferences, uncheck the box that says “Put hard drives to sleep whenever possible.”
Joe Murray