[Shilpi Roy]

found it, thanks! I definitely wasn’t going to be able to come up with that by myself :).

[Shilpi Roy]

I onlined to HDCAM (it was also shot on HDCAM), and had my online editor give me a full res quicktime out of the Avid, using the DNxHD codec. I then converted that to Apple Prores HQ (using Compressor) so that I could work easily within FCS2. It is the Prores QT (around 16GB)that I was compressing down to MPEG2.

In terms of my settings for the MPEG2 settings for Compressor I chose a Two-pass VBR Best with an Average BR of 6.8 and a Max of 8.0 (which is definitely pushing it, I know). My motion estimation is Best. GOP at 15 (Closed structure).

One thing I’m not sure about is “field dominance.” It was on Progressive. Automatic was grayed out and I wasn’t sure if I should do “top first” or “bottom first.”

The problem I’m having is that on certain TV’s different images will retain a flicker around the edge of objects for short periods of time. It usually won’t encompass the entire object or person, just part of them. On low end TV’s these flickering edges are worse then on Hi end TV’s. Sometimes it’s so small you can only see it if you’re sitting closing to the TV, but other times it’s noticeable if you’re at a normal distance. When played on computers I think the flicker is virtually nonexistent. It looks a little bit like the flicker you see when small credits are being scrolled vertically, (but that flicker is around the edge of an object) if that helps any.

Do you guys think this is the best I can do in terms of compressor settings?

In terms of a Hardware encode, it would be straight from a deck, off my HDCAM master, and I believe they can do 2 pass VBR.

thanks!