[Rafael Amador]

Open any of the Compressor presets, duplicate it and set these values that correspond to the 300Kbs in Compressor 2.
File Extension: mov
Audio Encoder
AAC, Stereo (L R), 32.000 kHz
Video Encoder
Format: QT
Width: 320
Height: 240
Pixel aspect ratio: default
Crop: None
Frame rate: 15
Frame Controls: Automatic
Codec Type: H.264
Multi-pass: On, frame reorder: On
Pixel depth: 24
Spatial quality: 50
Min. Spatial quality: 50
Key frame interval: 75
Temporal quality: 50
Min. temporal quality: 50
Data rate: 225.28 (Kbps)
Fast Start: on
Salud,
rafael

[Rafael Amador]

But what kind of problem show the clips?
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Disk utillity is not enough. Do what Shane says. Diskwarrior or Techtools. Out of disk problems, whenever a FC project start to cause me problems I just open a new project and I select and dragg everithing from the brownser of the old project to the brownser of the new one. Its allways works if is a problem related with the very project.
salud,
rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Hola lolala,
If you can download the film from your canara this mean that your Firewier conexion works well and your camera play OK. But if you can not print to video your camera may be not set up conveniently. I’m sorry I can not tell you for sure about the JVC or the Canon, but the Sony’s they have a set-up that allow to capture but don’t let you print to video. In the SONY DVCam DSR-PD170 (and in the SONY VTR DSR-11 as well), in the VTR SET MENU, you’ve got a set-up A/V-DV OUT (or DV EE OUT) this you must set it to OFF if you want the video from your computer reach the camera.
Conect your camara through the Firewire and set it in VCR mode before to open FC. Once you have open FC go to VIEW>Video play-back> Firewire (PAL OR NTSC up to the camara). Then when you play something in FC you must get the image in your camara viewfinder and you can procede to print to video.
Salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Yes what Borjis says is right. Maybe putting the chapter marker together with a compresion marker. Anyway it suposed that FC set a compression marker in any of the cuts and transition when you export to Compressor from the time-line.
Salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

In the end nobody had explained jet how to use the tone. First the tone has to be a reference for your self when editing. When somebody tells you that wants the audio at -12 or -20 or whatever the important matter is not the levels of the bars but the audio average level. If you work (i.e) -12db, set few seconds of bars and tone (-12db) in your time-line a play it. You will see in the FC audiometer that the green horizontal bars stay at -12db. Set the volume of your loudspeaker so the tone is clear and hight enough but do not disturb you. Now DO NOT TOUCH THE VOLUME OF YOUR LOUDSPEAKER ANY MORE because this will be your reference for the whole editing. And now you have to start to lie your audio down setting the levels so the mix your are getting through your loudspeakers its sound OK to you. If you set a dialogue for example the green bar of the audiometer should be around those -12db. The other thing you must to look at is the small horizontal yellow bar in the audiometer. That mark de peaks and you shouldn’t let it rise much on top of the -6 dbs. If they ask you to work at -20dbs, just do the same but adjusting the audio at with a tone at -20db and your average audio level around this.
As I tell you the tone has to be a reference firstly for your self. If you set few second of tone in the beginning of your film this will help to adjust the optimal level when reproducing the film What I do is to ask my customers which audio level they want. If they don’t know, i go to -12db. I have never had any complain and the truth is that I have been requested to set -20dbs in a documentary that was going to a film festival and was to be shown in a big screen. About specs you will find people very strict and people that don’t give a damn.
Somebody mentioned Beta-cam. When we are recording digital or anagogic signals, we are in two absolutely different worlds. When you digitalize the same audio with to different levels, you are getting two completely different files (two different strings of “0’s” and “1’s” that you get in your tape or in your hard drive). When you are recording in anagogic and you are rising the AUDIO REC level the only thing you are doing is giving more strength to the magnetic field you are creating in your audio heads. In anagogic is very important that the metal particles of the video-tape get magnetized to the higher possible level but without over modulate. This is what you get in a Beta-cam when you record a tone at 0dbs, the optimal magnetic flux, the higher signal to noise ratio. When you play the tape, the reproduction will be optimal. If you had record to low you can increase the volume when playing, but you will rise the noise too. if you record too hight, then you risk interferences in-between the adjacent audio-tracks or even with the video-tracks, also problems of print-through in the tape. A similar process of the Audio is done to the video signal when adjusted through a TBC with.
In digital tapes the strength of the magnetic signal that you lie in the tape is not that important. You are writing “0’s” and “1’s” and as long as the video heads can tell between a “0” and a “1” you will recover the full information without any loose.
Salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Charly,
the bigs problems when the signal is not Broadcast-safe are not when you get a video composite signal (Luma+ Chroma), but when you put on top of that the audio and you modulate the signal to be broadcated. In that case even the audio can sound bad when the video levels are not legal.
Salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Thanks for the info Oliver, you’r really updated.
Salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

If your film will be played through a theater like audio system , -20db will be great, but if is to be played in TV or computers -12dbs is perfect. -20dbs doesn’t mean that we are recording the audio very low, but that the difference between the average level and the peaks is very hight To reproduce all this range you need a good sound system. When you broadcast audio with 20dbs dinamic range, this must to be compressed on broadcasting.Normal TV sets can not reproduce sucha wide range. If you set it to a normal level you will loose the most subtle sounds, and if you set the volume to listen these subtle sound the peaks will break and distort.
When you set bars and tone in a Betacam tape you set it a 0dbs, but Betacam use analogic audio and this level is related with the signal you can record in a magnetic tape without saturate the tape. In analogic you can overstep the 0db , in digital when you arrive to 0dbs you got nothing.
To put some bars and tone in the beguining of the movie is a good policy because will give the best refference to any posterior adjutment, both audio and video.
salud,
rafael

[Rafael Amador]

What you are looking for is Compressor. You can export a .mov (refferenced or self-contained) or you can send the movie from the FC time-line. Another interesting application to do the same is MPGStreamclip, free from the web.
However if you are getting different file size with the same codec is not because you are ussing ffmpgx but because you are setting a different bitrate when exporting the h.264 but this can compromisse the quality of the film.
Salud,
rafael