[Patricia Buskirk]

Hi,

Did you ever get a good answer for Final Cut Pro users to fix this jagged edge problem?

If so, could you please explain the process to me. I apologize if this post is redundant, but I’ve looked at all the threads that talk about this issue and so far I haven’t seen any solutions or I should say I need clarification for some of the answers.

I did read one thread that mentioned to “nest your HD sequence into a new 720 x 480 sequence” before output to compressor, BUT that doesn’t provide enough detail. There are many steps involved and many settings that need to be addressed with the various pull down menus. I have tons of follow up questions. What about the proper Aspect ratio (i.e. CCIR 601 NTSC(40:27)- which changes the height to 720 to 486, or CCIR 601 NTSC Sq (4:3) or NTSC or NTSC DV , or custom, etc. – and what about the Pixel Aspect Ratio? – Does it need to stay “Square” and if not, which of the other pull down choices do you pick and why? What about the field dominance issue? [So even if I get all the settings right, then what should I expect as far as rendering time for a 2 hour program? Just making slight changes causes crazy amounts of time to render and this approach seems pretty extreme.]

One thread says this issue comes up about 3x a week, but why haven’t I been able to find any answers with just using FCP, Compressor and DVDSp?
If someone has already explained all this, could you please provide me with a link?

thanks in advance.

[Patricia Buskirk]

Hi Fred,

I came across the same jagged pixels issue with pretty much the same workflow you used. Did you ever find a good solution? I’ve tried most of the suggestions with no luck. The entire project is 2 hours, so I would appreciate any ideas that would help deal with the jagged pixels as well as the cumbersome file size/ render issues. (even troubleshooting with small sections is very time consuming)

I recorded with my Sony HDV Z5U camera. Captured as ProRes 422, edited as ProRes, inserted titles from LiveType and exported as a QuickTime movie. Then used Compressor “best quality” encoding settings and then used DVD Studio Pro to create the DVD.

I like the quality of using DVD Studio Pro over iDVD and had success with Compressor and DVD Studio Pro when importing footage using Apple Intermediate Codec. I thought I’d use the ProRes codec to increase the quality, and now am running into this problem. (I used the Matrox MXO hardware to input using the ProRes Codec)

Also, my FCP (7.0.3) sequence setting is 1920×1080 HDTV 1080i 16:9, SQUARE Pixel aspect, UPPER (odd) Field dominance, and 29.97 edit timebase.

My computer is a MacBook Pro 17″
Processor: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 8 GB

Perhaps, is the issue that is in the Square pixel aspect? Wouldn’t Compressor take care of that with its ‘best quality’ settings? Again, I appreciate any suggestions. thanks.
Patricia