[Simon Hustings]

Hey,
You may need to change some settings under the geometry settings within Compressor. You will need to force a 16:9 Aspect Ratio. as you are ultimately going from rectangular pixels (that of broadcast) to square pixel for computer/web use. Geometry will also allow you to set frame size as I doubt you want to output full size HDV for online use.
As for the DVD version, assuming you have selected the right Compressor preset (DVD Best Quality 90mins for example), once you take your outputted audio and video into DVDSP, it will display your visuals correctly. (Make sure your DVDSP assets are set to 16:9 Letterbox within DVDSP though!)
Cheers,
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

Try exporting through Compressor as H.264 800Kbps. I’ve always had great results with that option. Low file size and very good quality. Experiment with a short clip first, then tweak the settings as you see fit. Compressor in general gives you much greater flexibility and control than exporting using QT.
Cheers,
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

Which filter are you talking about in particular? A few are used.
The creator certainly used a beach bypass effect and quite a heavy vignette in places as well as some nice time remapping. Quite like BBC’s Top Gear in it’s overall appearance.
All the best,
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

For the DVD version I’d suggest using the Compressor preset of DVD: Best Quality 90 mins. This gives you a video stream of 6.2Mbps (2 pass) and 192Kbps ac3 audio. You can increase these settings, but I wouldn’t recommend taking the combined data rate over 8.5Mbps, even though most DVD players will accept data rates of up to 10Mbps, you want to leave yourself a big enough gap from this limit as some DVD players may have a lower threshold.
I’ve always used DVD: Best Quality 90 mins and although I may change other encode setting, I leave the bit rates alone and have always been happy with the results.
For the web version, I’d have a look at the H.264 800Kbps/LAN presets. They offer reasonably sized video compared to file size and anyone with QT7 and above can view it. Depending on your source material, you may need to change the Pixel Aspect parameters and Frame size within the Geometry Settings of your chosen H.264 preset. A few trial runs may be required. Check out Compressor Manual for further information on Geometry Settings.
All the best,
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

Mirela,

Have a look at the Color Correction filter in FCE. You may get what you need from tweaking the blacks, mids and whites sliders. Up the whites and mids to increse the overall brightness of the image and drop the blacks a little to replace some of the contrast lost from brighting the image. It’ll be trial and error to begin with, but it should help. (Usually, you should change black levels first, followed by whites and mids) I think Kenstone.net has a tutorial for CC in FCE on his website.

Rgds,
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

Justin,
The version to fit on DVD, is that to be viewed by commercial DVD players/Computers or is the DVD just a storage medium? (Data Disc compared to VIDEO_TS DVD)
The 150Mb web version sounds suitable for H.264 encoding. Is that your max sixe limit? For such a short duration, and with good compression available, 150 may be a little bit of overkill!
What version of FCP, QT and Compressor are you using?

[Simon Hustings]

We’re kind of going round in circles here!! When you output from FCP, you are either looking at a 16:9 image, 4:3 cropped, 4:3 squashed or 4:3 Letterbox image. Changing options in Compressor, if you don’t know what you’re doing, isn’t recommended. And something like this you should decide on in FCP. There should be no need to change any geometry settings, as all this is doing, is something you can do in FCP before hand.

You said the client doesn’t want 16:9 so we strike that off the list. The remaining 4:3 options, all of which can both be done in FCP are:

4:3 letterbox : Will give you black bars top and bottom, but proportionally, your image will look correct. You can then finesse these options within the motion tab, by using the distort and scale options to reduce the black bars top and bottom and fill a little more of the screen. (But at the expense of losing a little of the image on the left and the right) Almost a 14:9 look.. half way between a centre cut and 16:9

4:3 cropped: As we discussed before, which takes a centre cut from the 16:9 image and effectively enlarges the centre portion of the image so you don’t get black bars top and bottom of the image but fills the 4:3 screen and proportionally everything is correct, only larger and softer.

4:3 squashed: Takes the 16:9 image and vertically squashes your image to fit the 4:3 screen, making people look longer and thinner.

The last option isn’t really an option, as your image will look obviously disproportionate.
If you decide one of these three options, then Compressor is easy.. just choose which DVD preset you want to use (DVD Best Quality 90 mins etc).

When I have to take a 16:9 image and make it fit a 4:3 screen, I always go down the 4:3 letterbox route. Good luck!! 🙂

[Simon Hustings]

I know the internet has been here for a while David, but did you really post that link on the COW on Dec 31, 1969? I think you beat Tim Berners-Lee by 20 years or so!!! 🙂

[Simon Hustings]

Yep, i was talking about converting your finished project from PAL to NTSC. Converting the rushes to NTSC would reduce the quality even further, and would take a long time. I wouldn’t suggest doing that!!

[Simon Hustings]

Okay, in FCP, go to Sequence>Render Selection, and make sure that ‘Needs Render” in ticked under the Video options.
FYI, FCP will struggle with only 1GB of RAM, but it shouldn’t effect it’s ability to do Cmd+R renders.
Cheers,
Simon