Mark Spano
Forum Replies Created
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[Bruce Breidbart] “I then import these assets into DVD Studio Pro, where I only see ONE track of audio”
Can’t comment on your workflow prior to this step except to say why not just export a Quicktime movie from FCP of your sequence with locked audio and video, then take it into compressor and encode for MPEG-2 and AC-3? Assuming you have an M2V and AC3 file, these are the only things you need to import into DVDSP. In DVDSP, each audio track is not channels, it’s audio track as in DVD is playing one audio track (i.e. English 5.1 or Spanish Stereo). You can select the file you imported in the asset manager and if you look at the inspector it should show you how many channels are encoded into it.
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Small speakers, powered, decent, cheap: M Audio StudioPro
Small speakers, powered, really great, with sub, more expensive: Blue Sky Media Desk 2.1
I have experience with both and the Blue Skys sound amazing, the M-Audios are decent. Quite a bang for the buck either way.
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or, come to think of it, Quicktime Pro. (as long as Perian is installed)
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Not sure about Compressor, but if have Perian, you can use MPEG Streamclip to transcode.
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[Paul Harb] “Im not sure to see the frame rate on a R3D file?”
Wait – didn’t you say you transcoded the R3D files to ProRes? What did you use to do that? RedCine-X would probably show you the metadata of the R3D files and you could see the shot frame rate. Also – what device played back your music on set? This whole thing could point to that device playing back at the wrong speed.
Other than those things (and what we’ve already discussed in this thread), I can’t think of what would cause the drift. You might have to start at the beginning. Try stuff like doing it on another machine (if you have one) – transcode a clip, slide your audio in sync and see what happens. Uninstall/reinstall KONA drivers. Trash prefs for FCP. Log in as another administrator level user. I don’t know – gotta start somewhere. Sorry it’s not easily apparent, but that’s sometimes how it is with problems like this. Good luck.
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[Paul Harb] “isnt this a pulldown thing?”
Can you check the RED files again? Was that actually shot at 23.976 or maybe it was shot at 24fps?
I don’t think it’s a pulldown issue though because you said this:
[Paul Harb] “Its out of sync, I stop it….its back in sync…then goes out again….”
which led me to my initial comparison to the slot/bandwidth issue on the card. Try this: set your external video to OFF. Play your sequence. Does it still drift? If so, it’s NOT the card. If not, then it’s the card.
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Going by the instructions I gave you for Compressor, it should work. I just tested it again. I have a 23.976p file, and process it through those settings, I wind up with a 29.97 file (interlaced) where the frame to field repeating pattern is 2:3. In other words, every other frame is repeated into an extra field, such that for A B C D frames in 24p, you get AA BB BC CD DD fields in 29.97. The easiest way to see these fields individually is to output to a Digi or HDCAM at 29.97 interlaced, and from the deck you can jog through field by field. If you’re looking at the file in Quicktime or FCP, you’re seeing blended fields – there’s no way the viewer will show you field by field.
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[Gary] “FCP always wants 48k 24bit audio regardless of where the audio ( and or video) came from.”
A note of clarification: FCP can handle 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz audio at 8, 16, or 24 bits – both as imported files and as sequence settings. The sequence setting should, however, be largely dependent on the output hardware – most third-party cards like KONA support 48kHz ONLY at either 16-bit or 24-bit (which is probably what your stance is referring to). You can choose this in the Audio MIDI Setup utility if you want to configure KONA for 16-bit I/O.
When using audio in an FCP sequence, FCP can render it to whatever the sequence setting is, but does an audibly less good job than Compressor or DAWs like Pro Tools. But you can absolutely use any of the above combinations of bit rate and sample rate source files in FCP. In Paul’s case, 16-bit/48kHz audio rendered to a sequence setting of 24-bit/48kHz would not noticeably affect the sonics, as all FCP would be doing is adding bits at the bottom of the signal.
There’s a lot to be said about how FCP handles audio in the FCP manual. This section copied below might enlighten:
Choosing Audio File Sample Rate and Bit Depth
Final Cut Pro can import audio with any bit depth and sample rate supported by QuickTime and Mac OS X Core Audio. Final Cut Pro performs real-time bit depth conversion and sample rate conversion when your audio file settings don’t match your sequence settings. However, less processor power is required when your audio file settings and sequence settings match.Choosing Sequence Bit Depth
The bit depth setting in the Sequence Settings window determines the bit depth whenever you output or export your sequence. However, sequence audio is always mixed using 32-bit floating-point values. -
aja.com, then Support, then KONA (your model), then software archive. Direct link to LHe archive page: here
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[Alan Langdon] “1- Is there a way to make those added frames interlaced using compressor, achieving a similar smooth motion?”
Yes, but as previously commented, if you’re going to DVD, you should stay at 23.976p. It’s in the DVD spec, and all DVD players can add pulldown seamlessly. Plus, having 6 less frames per second means you can spend more bits during compression on quality.
[Alan Langdon] “2-But then, since most TVs are now LCD and Plasma, not exactly interlaced, is this a good idea afterall?”
You have the right idea in theory: if your DVD player outputs progressive frames (most these days do) and it’s hooked up via HDMI or component to a progressive display, there will be no interlace/deinterlace processes happening, and the picture will be sharper. If either of those things aren’t true, then the DVD player will add interlacing and the display will deinterlace.
[Alan Langdon] “3- Another artifact I am getting from Compressor’s convertions is a sort of pulsing of the image every 15 frames or so, probbly due to the GOP structure of the VBR of Compressor. Now, I am sure VBR is the best way to go, so how can I liminate this pulsing, which is unacceptable? Others here at the Cow have suggested I use CBR, which I am doing, but is taking a long timt to convert because I incremented the quality of other settings availabl… My 20 minute short film is taking about 30 hours to convert!”
Your short is 20 minutes – my advice is to compress with CBR, with an IP GOP structure. I usually use about 6.5Mbps for video and make sure that the audio is compressed with AC3. Total bit rate won’t exceed 7.5Mbps even with multiple audio tracks and all DVD players can handle playing it back. Motion estimation should be set to Better – only use Best if you want to wait a while. Turn on Frame Controls and set Resize to Better, same as source fields, fast for everything else. Output frame size should be 720×480 with 16:9 pixel aspect ratio. A good thing to check as well is how Compressor is interpreting your source footage. Before you add your compression setting, check the inspector and make sure it’s set to progressive. Occasionally it reads things incorrectly and winds up doing a lot of unnecessary processing as a result.