[Michael Sacci]

[James Navarro] “I am sure I have audio with the media. When I played the clips before compressing, they had audio, but afterwards, audio is gone! “
Are you saying that audio is gone off of the source clips, the H264 clips or the Converted clips?

Use the preset

Settings>Formats>Other Workflows>Advanced Format Conversion> Apple Codecs>ProRes for Progressive Material – don’t use (HQ)
That setting will pass the audio on to the new file with no conversion.

[Michael Sacci]

That is the normal ProRes, it is just there. If it is not you can make a new preset or reinstall the easy setups.

[Michael Sacci]

[Viking Jonsson] “stereo or mono if it’s panned right”
What makes something stereo is the panning. That is like saying it doesn’t matter what you set your camera too as long as the settings are right.

If something is recorded as stereo you want to keep it stereo. When you record dialog you are recording that in mono, you would want to leave it mono. For stereo to sound like stereo there has to be differences in the right and left. A gun shot on the right side of the screen, you would only want that sound coming from the right speaker. Music is stereo to give it depth, separation between what you here on the right or left. Listen to 70s rock and you will hear major sweeps cause it was a new thing.

You can use dual mono to boost the audio levels but it will sound the same as a single mono. Dual mono tracks raise the level 4dB.

[Michael Sacci]

You can delete tracks from the file in QT Pro 7. This will even make the files a little smaller.

In FCP you can unpatch audio tracks 3-8 before you bring in a clip from the viewer, that way only tracks 1 and 2 are in the timeline.

[Michael Sacci]

There is no way to upconvert DV to HD without losing quality. It will get softer than what you have. Do a hardware upconvert gives a better results. Using Frame Control in Compressor helps or using a plugin like InstantHD. But there is no free lunch here. DV footage will never match HD footage, unless the HD is shoot very poorly, then you may have a chance.

[Michael Sacci]

The issue is normally when trying to go the other way. 29.97 into a 23.98 sequence. If you want the cleanest 24p look editing in a 29.97 hurts that.

[Michael Sacci]

Send to (and the old Compress With) has FCP sending one frame at a time. Before it sends it to compressor it uncompresses the frame brings it into 4:4:4 color space. The extra time that it takes is this step. So making the compression faster would make the bottle neck go away.

[Michael Sacci]

Personally I think the problem with BD is the pricing. New releases at $30-35 on average, that is just crazy. For the big sellers the first week you can see them at $20-25. I like all the extras you get on the disc, so if downloads win think of another segment of our business that goes away. I don’t like that.

The other thing that pisses me off if more and more BD force you to watch all the trailers. Only way to get by some it to FF, next chapter and menu buttons are blocked. Add to this Universals annoying ads on the upper right. I’m sure the guy that designed the menu loves to see his work covered by an ad.

Back to Ryan, yes if your footage is interlaced don’t deinterlace in any step.

[Michael Sacci]

That is an encore question.

[Michael Sacci]

I had this problem a while back, the audio not the video, with my Kona3. It was suggested that I route all the computer audio to the Kona. This stopped the crackles for me. Have not seen a negative side effect. I turn off the annoying alert sounds anyway but that is a must or else the bonk will make you jump out of your seat.