[Paddy Uglow]

Thanks Yohan. Yes, I’ve done similar for 24 -> 25fps conversions, but 24fps to 30fps *really* shows up in the difference in audio speed. I think I once converted an NTSC film to 1080-24p and did a frame-for-frame conversion like you suggested, and slowed down the audio a little, then time stretched it a bit more so the voices weren’t too low but the timestretch wasn’t too extreme either. It wasn’t a wonderful result, but it was the best I could do.
– Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

Is there a mismatch between the audio khz of the sequence and the clip?
Failing that, you could try Compressor like Jon suggested, but maybe just export the audio – then you won’t be degrading the video and it’ll be quicker.
Good luck

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

Have you been into AFX preferences and switched on the multi-threading option (it’s called “Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously” is CS6? I ticked the equivalent in CS3 on my macbook and it sped up rendering substantially.
Which operating system are you running? I have strong suspicions that my Mac Pro slowed down a lot when I put 10.7 on it. It’s a 2x3Ghz quad core xeon with 12GB ram, but my 10.6 2011 2.1Ghz 8GB RAM MBP compresses video from Quicktime Pro at about 70-80% of the speed of the Mac Pro.

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

Hmm, not very helpful: I’m using a thunderbolt-to-vga adaptor and playing back on a 1920×1200 screen (not mirrored). Figures in the System Monitor seem pretty similar – actually it looks like it’s using a bit more CPU when just using the laptop screen!
I was playing back fullscreen video in Premiere Pro CC.
But VGA probably isn’t the best test.

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

According to this it’s not hopeful:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18596843#18596843

Presumably diplaying graphics on the internal 1280×800 screen AND a 1920×1080 external screen is going to require more work. How well does it do in “clamshell mode”?

There’s lots more online that seems to agree with the above: one poor guy with a posh 3840×2160 external monitor found his multi-tab Chrome browser took 6 minutes to open with the external monitor, and only 33.5 seconds just using the internal one!

I think the resolution that the external screen is running at is the main factor.
I’ll see if I can do some tests with a 2011 Macbook Pro.

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

For any retronauts out there using an older version of InDesign which doesn’t have HD page templates, here are some helpful tips:
CS3 will only export to JPG (so no transparency). Premiere CS3 won’t take SVGs (neither will Photoshop) or PDFs.
For 720, make your page 17.7778″ by 10″ and export at 72ppi. For 1080 make it 26.66667″ x 15″

To hide the background on the JPG, the color key effect works quite nicely, because you can feather the edges too (can give you a nice border effect). And you can make a single lower-thirds box in Premiere’s Text Editor which you can update in one place.

Not quite as easy as with CS6 and later, but still worthwhile if you’ve got a collection of titles that you want to be sure are all laid out the same, and an easier editor than Premiere’s.

[Paddy Uglow]

Hi Lee,
Isn’t Soreson Squeeze a pretty elderly codec? So maybe it’s not h.264? I remember using Soreson before h.264 came on the scene.
Are the artefacts in the original when you play it back on the desktop? If not, as a last resort, you can try a motion screen capture to capture desktop playback to a codec of your choice (I’ve had to do this occasionally!)
What’s the playback method? If they’re being shown at an event you could make a playlist of all the original video files and play them back with VLC Player or similar.

Those artefacts look more serious than mere overcompression – it looks like the decoder can’t read the codec properly or there’s corruption in the file.

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

I was looking into this. Can you use an ATEM TV Studio and a Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle (or one of the other shuttles) to capture the HDMI output of the ATEM into the Mac? It looked like this would work. Though I thought controlling the ATEM + capturing its h.264 AND dealing with the HDMI might be a lot of work for one computer – I’d have used one laptop for ATEM control and h.264 capture, and another for streaming the HDMI output from the ATEM.
But it might be cheaper to buy a PC laptop to stream the h.264 with the previously mentioned software.

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

Have you got Soundtrack Pro with your FCP6? Or is that only in the “studio” package?
Re the sound, I suppose you could apply EQ to make the good bits sound as bad as the rest.
Or just “display the fault”: post up an apology for the poor sound quality wherever it’s published, then listeners will be expecting it to sound poor at times.
If the *amplitude* is a bit up and down, there’s the (free) Levelator software app, though I find it’s a bit heavy handed.

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk

[Paddy Uglow]

My first thought is that it can’t find its scratch disks. Maybe try setting to “same as project” (if not already) and see if you’re still losing render files?

Paddy, CreativeMedia.org.uk