[Michael Sacci]

Yes, CBR is one pass only and that is why it is so much faster, but if you can use high bitrates you are fine.

[Susan Wilcox] ” don’t see where to alter Dialog Norm or compression. I thought the bit rate of 6.0 would affect compression.”
these are in the audio ac3 (dolby digital) settings not the video.

[Michael Sacci]

First – Make sure compressor settings field order settings are correct.

HD 1080i is top field first dominance so your preset in Compressor for SD DVD need to be set to top first also, even though SD is bottom first. If encoding is set to bottom first it will result in a field order problem that is most noticeable on fast actions and pans. If the preset is set to AUTO double check to set if it is choosing Top. I don’t like to leave it on auto so change it to what I want in this case Top.

That said, your problem is probably not with your video encoding but your authoring workflow, which do not do into.

Make sure you are not making a HD DVD in DVDSP. Make your test systems can playback DVD-Rs.

Workflow.

From FCP – Export to Quicktime > Current Settings > Make self-contained

Compressor – m2v Top Field First / CBR 6.0 Mbps (not VBR for quicker encodes)
*** Audio to ac3 .192 Mbps (Dialog Norm set to -31 and compression set to none)

DVDSP needs to be a SD DVD.

[Michael Sacci]

This was my first thought. 8 Mbps second is dangerous especially when used in a VBR and if you have not used ac3 audio you are slamming up to the bitrate limits. Different players are more prone to playback problems than others so unless you can get a list of the players that are producing the problems or you have ton of different players to test it made be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

This maybe late but I never encode m2v much over 7 Mbps. I want a safety cushion and I normally don’t see much of a difference between 7-8 Mbps. Compressor is know to give spikes especially with VBR.

[Michael Sacci]

I have the same MBP speed but with FW800 also. I’m having a lot of issues with the IoHD and ProRes on this system. One thing is that the system is below spec. So I don’t know if that is an issue.

But in theory FW400 should be fine. The old Io only had FW400 and it was able to handle Uncompressed SD which is larger than ProRes HD. But you are getting dangerously close to the limit.

The one thing (That I does really understand) is the IoHD is not feeding the same thing as a video stream and it uses the FW bandwidth in a different way then a deck or HD.

In the end if it works for you it works, just be caution in mission critical situations.

[Michael Sacci]

To get the most natural looking images use a still camera with a shutter speed of 1/2 to +1 sec. If you have to use video just experiment with a motion blur filter. The problem with a filter is they are straight. so depending how long you want streaks to be to may or may look natural.

[Michael Sacci]

Activate the pen tool.

[Michael Sacci]

I have this as well as the VZ-PFI (which is just the focus/iris) and they work fine on my camera and other HVXs that I have rented. The HVX and the DVX(B) have the exact same ports.

[Michael Sacci]

if your clean video is m2v already you cannot send it back through compressor to simple add a watermark, it will recompress the file and it will take as much time and you lose a ton of quality.

[Michael Sacci]

I think I would recommend starting with a 720p timeline (maybe Photo Jpeg as the codec) 1280×720. Your photos will thank you for the progressive format and with this you are using a true square pixel format. 1440x is a HDV setting not the best starting point. Then when you drop your video onto the timeline you need to do to the motion tab and remove the upscaling and if has aspect ratio adjustment applied. You do this by double clicking on the clip in the timeline and than selecting the Motion Tab, hit the red X on Basic and Aspect and their settings will be removed, then if you want to scale up the video up can, remember anything more than 115% really starts to break apart, especially if it not very good footage to start with.

When you are done Export to Quicktime with same settings (MAKE self-contained). Test to make sure your computer can playback this new file.

[Michael Sacci]

FCP has to be installed on the same drive as the OS, there is probably no way of fitting all that on a 40 GB drive.

I would never raid a ATA100 with ATA66 (even if it let me) Raid increases media bandwidth and not program speed.

Frankly if your system is getting you by I would leave it alone and start saving for an upgrade.