[Rich Rubasch]

Are you looking for an MPEG-1 or an MPEG-2 file? Or an MPEG-4?

What are your current settings?

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

…AND 3 divided by 4 = .75.

So if 544 will be your horizontal resolution, then you would use 408 for your vertical resolution. Both are divisible by 8 and 544 by 408 is an exact .75 ratio or 4 x 3.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

More detail….see if I can get my typos under check…

The true 4 x 3 equivalent to 720 x 480 is in fact 720 x 540. However DV video has 6 less lines than D1 NTSC (720 x 486) so you just can’t stretch it up to 540 vertical lines…that’s where 534 comes in. But 720 x 534 is not in fact true 4 x 3, so it is not a true downscale to 640 x 480. I use cropping in Cleaner or other encoder to remove lines to create the 4 x 3, then do the scaling.

I also use the multiple of 16 if I can…usually I can get there, otherwise I use the multiple by 4 method.

The key is that if you know the encode is going to look a lot better if you stick to these basic rules, you have apretty good argument for your client why you are suggestng to tweak the frame size a bit. Usually a player frame can be adjusted in a small way to make it work.

Good luck,

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Since flass video will be viewed on a compute monitor (most likely) it should be viewed with square pixel dimensions. 720 x 480 DV video is non-square pixels. The square pixel equivalent would be 720 x 534.

By choosing “Maintain Aspect” the encoder believes you want to maintain the non-square pixel dimensions and scales down accordingly.

Using 720 x 534 as the square pixel equivalent to your source clip, you can multiply the dimensions by .75 to get in the ballpark to what you want the Flash video to be.

720 x .75 = 540
534 x .75 = 400.5 (round to 400)

If you want your horizontal frame to be 540 pixels, I would set the vertical size to 400 pixels (with “Maintain Aspect” not checked) and you will have a non distorted image in the final Flash clip.

Did this help?

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

I have three G5 dual 2.7s and the ALL have FCP 4.5, 5.0.4, 5.1.4 and 6.0.

Motion 2 and 3.

Compressor 2 and 3.

SountrackPro 1 and 2.

No problems to report.

One is a Kona LH, and two are Aurora Pipe systems.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Not only is than an issue, but it will also tie up FCP while it encodes. No more editing once you’ve sent a job directly from FCP. For this reason, you are almost always better off sending a reference clip to the hard drive and putting that into compressor for encoding.

I know you said yo don’t want to, but sometimes there is a workflow that will actually do what we want, even when it is not what we want to do!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

It might be a better option to use something like MPEG Streamclip to create an intermediate format, then compress with one of the many apps from there.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Episode is probably the winner as the best overall Encoder for all formats. It won in a recent magazine review.

They even have a plug in to allow you to use Compressor settings from within the Episode interface.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Episode seems to be winning in the magazine reviews as well. Episode really does it all.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

I could not see the clip, but one I agree with croppiing from the sides. This basically crops off the action safe area getting more of the “meat” of the shots. I also agree that if you have letterbox material crop off all the top and bottom where the letterbox is. Again, didn’t see the clip, but if we have a letterbox show we crop off all the black top and bottom.

We also go with 15 fps on almost everything. Again, didn’t see your clip so am not sure if you were already doing that.

I am also not sure why it is taking so long…you didn’t specify what computer you are using to encode with. Nor what the source file is.

Let us know,

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media