[Richard Sanchez]

What’s up Carlton?

In a nutshell, 9000 kbps, kbps standards for Kilobits per second. That means, every second of video, you are using 9000 kilobits to describe the video. Just calculating that out, 9000 x 60 (seconds) x 10 (minutes) equals 5,400,000 kilobits. A byte is about 7 bits, so divided by 7 that is 711,428 kilobytes which is around 700 Megabytes. Enough math! I did test to simplify.

I used a program to quickly spit out an h.264 mov with a datarate of 9000 kpbs and an audio data rate of 192 kbps. The resulting file was 657.24 MB That was a 10 minute file, so I was testing the extreme high end of your deliveries. Obviously 5 minutes would be in the 325 arena. The filesizes will be large due to the requested datarate, so to reduce that, you could ask them if they can take a lower datarate.

To alleviate the need to have to downconvert the footage, you could shoot standard def on your P2 cameras. That way, you wouldn’t have Final Cut doing the downscaling (since it scales pretty poorly). Grant it, your footage wouldn’t be future proof anymore. The reason Compressor is going to take so long encoding (especially with frame controls on) is because it is going to analyze your footage meticulously to preserve as much detail as possible in the downconversion process. If you’re not downconverting, by shooting standard def, it’s one less very processor intensive job for compressor to do. You should still expect 3 to 4 x realtime encoding in H.264 (since it’s fairly complex codec) but that would be faster than using compressors frame control options.

Telestream Episode is another compression tool that is known for being quick to encode, but I’ve never used it. Google it and check it out, that might be a good solution for your turn-around needs.

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

First off, I would have cut in a native 720p sequence and then used compressor to crop and resize to a 4×3 aspect ratio, since it will do a much better job than Final Cut, but that’s already done, so I won’t grill on that one any further.

Given that your client asked for a data rate of 9000 kbps, you shouldn’t set your encoder settings to automatic. Did the editor ask for a total date rate of 9000 kpbs, or a video data rate of 9000 kpbs. If it’s a total data rate of 9000 kpbs, you would set your audio to 192 kbps AAC and Set your Video Date Rate to somewhere in the 8700 to 8800 (allowing a little head room as there will be flucuations).

You should use Compressors frame controls to resize your video. Obviously, setting it to best quality resize will be the best method but it will take a very long time. You could set it to second best (Linear I think) and it will still do a great job and not take nearly as long. Shane has a good tutorial explaining frame controls at https://lfhd.blogspot.com/2006/10/dv-to-dvcpro-hd.html

Now the issue of broadcast quality arises. That really is a term that means nothing. Broadcasters will put up DV and less if their program requires it, and if it the network clears it. Being that your client gave you a specific data rate, use that. In response to the time length and file size, your client mentioned the data rate they wanted, and since the datarate will dictate the filesize, you’re doing what your client asked for. In regard to the time it requires to compress it, that’s just how it goes. Compressor does a great job, but it will take a while. I’ve heard that episode goes a little faster, but have never used it myself. You can buy different peripherals that will speed up encoding, but they tend to be not cheap.

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

If you’re referring visual effects, Final Cut really isn’t made for that. You can cheat certain things in FCP that you would normally do in After Effects, but they’re just completely different tools. As far as looking at different tools, most third party companies that make plugins for After Effects also make plugins for Final Cut, though they don’t always translate over due to the limitations of each respective program.

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

You mentioned it looks bad at transitions and titles. Under the RT Extreme tab on your timeline, do you have it set to Dynamic? That would account for FCP showing your video blocky at transitions and titles. Set that to high. The tricky thing is, even though your not going out to tape or DVD, the canvas is still not a good reference at all, especially for monitoring field issues (I.E. Progressive vs. Interlaced)

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

Are you viewing this on an external monitor or on the canvas?

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

Red Giant has the Magic Bullet Frames plugins for after effects. There’s a plugin called “Opticals” that does some filmic fades.

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

No problem. Glad it all worked out!

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

No camera records to that format. It most likely came from a compositing programing like After Effects. Just bring it into compressor to convert it. Use the advanced conversion presets and make sure frame controls are on and set to high quality and you should be good to go.

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

What is the framerate of your project? If the footage from After Effects was not rendered back to XDCAM EX, it will require a render. If it is rendered to XDCAM EX, your framerate is probably off. I’m going to take a shot in the dark and guess that you’re working with 23.976 footage. If you rendered your footage out of After Effects at 23.98, it will stutter. Final Cut abbreviates 23.976 as 23.98 but it is not 23.98. When you create your comp in after effects, I would double check that it is at 23.976 and not 23.98

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks

[Richard Sanchez]

I’ve had similar problems in the past where I would try to matchframe clips in the timeline and it would take me to a different spot, and sometimes a different clip in the timeline. What I did in those cases, was trash my preferences, and then I would manually track down the clip and recut it into the sequences. If it’s one or two clips, it’s certainly annoying, but that worked for me. If it’s a multitude of clips, it could be a file linkage problem. Also, I’ve had similar problems with corrupted render files. Especially if I’ve applied an effect to a clip, rendered it, and then applied a new effect to that same clip. You could also try using the Render Manager under the “Tools” tab to delete your render files. You’ll have to rerender everything, but it might clear up some of those issues.

Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA

“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks