Steven Washer
Forum Replies Created
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For me, Compresor is much too slow. I recently created a series of DVDs, about 30 minutes each, and tried Compressor at the 90-minute quality setting. I got a reading of about 33 hours to digitize 33 minutes of footage. Unacceptable in my environment.
Steve
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I’ve got a FCP users group meeting on the 13th. This will get onto the agenda for sure and I’ll report back.
Steve
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It didn’t work very well. While the 8-bit uncompressed file right out of AE looks pristine, as soon as it is droppped into DVD Studio Pro as an .mov file or pre-renderd as an MPEG-2 file, you see some tearing of the outlines around the text and a bit of tearing around the outlines of the company logo. In fact, the look is practically identical with both versions. This leads me to wonder if DVD Studio Pro has changable timeline settings itself as does FCP, but I can’t find any in the program and of course this isn’t a DVD Studio Pro forum. But these programs are all so interrelated now…
Steve
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Rafael,
Thanks! It’s quite intersting, this series of observations we’ve been following. Now that I’m aware of the various permutations available from within and without the timeline settings, I’ve been condusting some real-world experiments. The last step of the process, however, is still causing problems with artifacting at the MPEG-2 level. I’m getting some tearing of the text and smearing of the reds within the MPEG-2 file, even when outputting from a 10 bit uncompressed timeline that has been rendered. The same happens when rendering that file into an MPEG-2 file using QT Pro from the original rendered After Effects file rendered in the animation codec. I’m going to try rendering that original AE file in 8 bit uncompressed and see if the resultant MPEG-2 file gives me a reduced amount of tearing.
Steve
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You know, I think that’s going to work better than the method I have been using.
Thanks for your help today. I never realized I had QT Pro in that little player application until you pointed it out.
If you ever need any help, feel free to contact me. I do a lot of AE work and interactive stuff as well.
Steve
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Exactly. QTPro seems to reside within the application in the output module of FCP. At least I can’t find an application called Quicktime Pro anywhere else on my hard drive. So within the application, I can output the file to MPEG-2 for import into DVD Studio Pro.
Were I to output the timeline with an animation codec, I’d have a video file that it seems I would have to re-import into FCP to output to MPEG-2. Or am I missing something?
BTW, I agree with you about the FCP/AE interface. I also output AE files in the animation codec before bringing them into FCP for further work. I usually have not output the FCP files as animation files because they are just too large, but I may have to re-think that now.
Steve
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Hmm. Interesting. But why would you need to output to an animation codec prior to going to MPEG-2 if that is already an output option within FCP? BTW, if you have a FCP license, do you automatically have QT Pro?
Steve
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Thanks, Rocco!
That was the problem. A whole new world inside the program that I didn’t know was there!
Experimenting a bit reveals that a similar, though more subtle quality hit occurs if you render in MPEG-2 from a timeline that has been rendered in the DV codec. I think from now on I’ll render the timeline in animation before going out to MPEG-2.
Steve