Mark Spano
Forum Replies Created
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An alternative to all of these would be to export a ref QT from your 1920×1080 sequence and bring into Compressor. You can use the Geometry settings to crop to 2.35:1 on source and then set output frame size to 1920×1080 and output image inset to 2.35:1. Instant matte creation completely independent of the FCP session…
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Can’t do with Final Cut – can do with Compressor. Follow these instructions (from an old thread posted by Jeremy Garchow):
Export a ref movie from FCP and open that up in Compressor.
Make a new QT setting and in the Encoder tab hit the video settings button.
Choose the codec of your dreams and the set the frame rate to 29.97, then click OK.
Back in the encoder tab, set the audio drop down menu to Pass Through.
Go to the frame controls tab on turn on frame controls.
Resize, Deinterlace, and Rate Conversions should all be set to Fast, and then turn the Output Fields to Upper Field First. Duration should be 100%
Leave the filters tab alone unless you want to tweak something there.
In the Geometry tab set the frame size to 100% of source if your movie is full raster HD, if not choose the closest equivalent of full raster (1920 or 1280).
Hit Submit. Wait. Then you have a 29.97 Upper Field first movie with correct 3:2 pulldown. You can now dance the marimba.
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I have never found a solution. My systems are all different and they all exhibit these issues – it’s a Final Cut problem through and through. Tiger, Leopard, FCP6, FCP7, Kona, Decklink, they all exhibit this inconsistency. Incredibly frustrating. In troubleshooting, I’ve even tried using other serial control adapters (like the Keyspan serial USB adapter) to see if it was any better – no dice. The problem is that it is not consistent. I can do 10 layoffs and 9 of them will be perfect frame accurate. One will be off by a frame, early or late. Inserts to the machine happen on the right frame, but the video/audio come in randomly on time or out. I’ve had more consistent success with Panasonic protocol and a D5 machine, so to me it points to how the device control protocol interface is written for Sony RS-422 and Final Cut.
Not that you want to hear, but I have taken most of my finishing to Symphony as the machine control element there is way more reliable. Lucky to have that in house too. Nearly every other aspect of FCP is reliable and when it bugs out it’s a consistent issue and easily worked around – not device control.
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I did some experimenting with the detail level controls a while back and didn’t find much benefit as compared to the extra time involved – though what you say is convincing me to look into it again. Thanks…
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Yes generally SD downconverts take a quality hit, but I’ve gotten good results from Compressor. Keep in mind you are doing several things in this conversion: resizing, changing pixel aspect ratio, and recompressing with a new codec. Understanding what all of these things are doing, you can create an optimal setting to deal with these. I would say there are two ways to go about it, and I don’t know how much better one is over the other. One is to create an all-in-one encoding preset with adjustments for these. The other is to create a chain, where you have separate presets doing the individual tasks. This would be to take advantage of what optical flow can do for you, but also add a lot of processing time. Often I don’t have that luxury, so I go with creating one preset.
To deal with the resizing and pixel aspect ratio changes, you should have frame controls turned on and resizing set to Best. You are going from a thin-raster 1280×1080 image with HDV pixel aspect ratio to a 720×480 anamorphic image with SD 16:9 pixel aspect ratio. It’s rough no matter how you slice it, but “Best” resizing should understand and do the best job. Leave fields as same as source, deinterlacing set to fast. This will ensure that you keep the original fields intact and not deinterlace. For adaptive details, you can play with the detail level control, but I’ve never seen much impact with it. Definitely leave anti-aliasing off.
To deal with the codec, this will be MPEG-2, but you have to ask yourself how long your material is. To be honest, CBR encoding works well with shorter length material. I do a CBR encode at 6.5 Mbps for most files up to 30 minutes. That’ll fit fine and does a good job with the above frame controls stuff set. If not, your VBR encoding is really the only option, but use these same frame controls settings.
The other thing you have to ask yourself is how you’re viewing the resulting DVD. A CRT? An LCD? A computer monitor? Each of these will represent your footage differently. I would say the CRT would look the best, as its native display resolution equals the disc’s. An HD capable LCD would be slightly less nice, because it is blending the fields coming in to display progressively (as all LCD panels are progressive displays). Less sharp in motion detail, and less sharp because the resolution is much higher and therefore SD material is enlarged to fit. If you have the opportunity to view it as 1:1 pixels, then the tiny sized image on your LCD panel will look much better. And then the computer screen – well that’s variable in other ways, but at least can often show you 1:1 playback in a windowed player.
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[Jason O'Hara] “s there any way to override the DRC that is occuring on playback so the audio stream will ALWAYS play as I intend it, ie. with the full dynamic range – irrespective what setting the user has on their DVD Player?”
No. Try as we might, we can’t disable these features from disc authoring.
[Jason O'Hara] “Or should I simply opt for an AIFF file instead of compressed AC3?”
Won’t make a difference. The player features (like “Night Mode” or whatever) work on any audio playing from the disc.
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Final Cut always thinks by default that your monitoring setup is a pair of speakers. So in the 5.1 setup, the downmixing options are set up by default to sound close to right when heard in stereo. The downmixing options have little to do with what comes out of a professional video interface such as a KONA. That is determined by two factors: number of outputs assigned in Sequence Settings/Audio Outputs and track bus assignments (track panel output choices as discussed earlier). If you’re monitoring the output of the card (HD-SDI or AES) then the downmix options don’t matter. They have nothing to do with anything except how the mix will be heard downmixed to stereo. These options don’t affect track levels going out real outputs. Try setting all of them to crazy numbers and monitor the real outputs – you’ll see they don’t change *unless* you turn downmixing ON. Hope that’s helpful…
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[Brad Bobford] “I’m trying to create a stereo mix out of 6 mono tracks that the client delivered me. How do I do this in FCP without changing the mix levels?”
You can’t really unless you know exactly what the tracks are. For example, a VO should be panned center, music should be hard left and right, etc.. Then, if you just want unity summing, make sure that any tracks that are panned L/R are placed at 0dB and any tracks that are panned center are placed at -3dB. This will only work if the tracks you were provided were intended to be summed at unity. If not, the mix will sound awful to you at unity, and you will have to adjust levels to your own taste.
[Brad Bobford] “Also, what should my sequence “Audio Outputs” settings be set to? Mono or stereo? Lastly why does mono automatically mix down -3db?”
Set your sequence output settings to Stereo. Assuming it’s a stereo mix you’re after, you won’t have panning control if you set to dual mono. Your question about downmix levels: this copied from the manual-
Downmix pop-up menu: Commands in this menu determine the amount, in dB, by which an output channel should be attenuated (lowered) or boosted (raised) when audio is downmixed to stereo—either for output to video or as a QuickTime movie or audio file, or when downmix is turned on in the Audio Mixer. When downmixing, audio output channels can be modified from +10 dB to –10 dB, or turned off altogether.
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In the Audio Outputs section of your sequence settings, check that you have six outputs enabled. I usually set these to dual mono. I believe there is a preset in FCP called 5.1 monitoring that will get you there. Then make sure that each of your tracks is going out the correct output. Right-click on the audio track panel for each track and set the channel output that corresponds to the track. Standard output is as follows: A1=L, A2=R, A3=C, A4=LFE, A5=Ls, A6=Rs.
Surround mixes are often mixed to take advantage of the full dynamic range and may be perceived as lower. Not sure what you’re referring to by ‘blitz tone’…
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I think both are valid, and would be perfect for archiving. I just think HQ might be gaining only the space it takes up and not any higher quality. This thread here has a lot of information comparing ProRes codecs, and in the work that Gary Adcock has done in testing, he’s come to the conclusion that ProRes HQ should really only need to be used for material that originates higher than HD resolution or material that will be subject to many manipulations (such as VFX or color correction work). I would test both in the SD world and make the comparisons yourself. I think (like me) that you will not be able to see a difference between them…