[Tom Brooks]

For a slide show, maybe Keynote or iPhoto would be the better choice.

[Tom Brooks]

Wow, good discovery.

[Tom Brooks]

“I love me some Bessie Cow.” …classic!!
I’d have to guess it’s a problem with the codec in the AVI’s. FCE is not properly understanding the frames between the key frames in the mp4 stream and gets confused at those points. A conversion to a normal editing codec in which all frames are basically key frames would probably solve it. MPEG Streamclip is a program that could do a nice batch conversion for you since you may not have Apple’s Compressor.

[Tom Brooks]

If these are QT Reference movies, you should be able to open one in QT Pro and save as self-contained. When one is open and you’re viewing the Movie Properties, it should show all the numbered parts in the Resources pane.

[Tom Brooks]

Pat,
In spite of your good attempt to provide detail, your problem could have many, many different explanations. I’ll offer a couple things to look at.

If it looked good in Final Cut but bad on the DVD, you may have compression quality problems. It sounds like you’re letting DVD Studio Pro do the MPEG-2 compression for you. Try doing that step in Compressor and then bring the resulting MPEG-2 file into DVD Studio Pro. Use one of the Best Quality DVD settings.

It could also simply be the bad quality of titles in DV video in general. If your exported Quicktime movie is DV format(probable, based on dimensions), try making a copy of your sequence and change the “compressor” in the sequence settings to DV50. DV50 is a much better compression scheme than DV and the titles will immediately look better. Then export from the sequence using Compressor and choose one of the Best Quality DVD settings. Again, drag that completed MPEG-2 file into a track in DVD Studio Pro and finish your DVD as needed.

You could also be observing interlacing as displayed on a progressive monitor. Interlacing itself is not inherently bad. It’s only bad when your monitor is unable to display it properly. The solution here depends on what else is contained in your video. If it’s just titles that move, you could set the Field Dominance of your sequence to None and export that.

In any case, the change to DV50 and the better compression done in Compressor should help your final result.
-Tom

Final Cut Pro 6.0.3, Mac OS-X 10.4.11, Quicktime 7.5, After Effects 6.5 Pro, G5 Quad 2.5, Kona-LHe V5.1, 4.5GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7800-GT 256MB, G-RAID 2x1TB FW800, 6TB RAID-5 (Enhance E8-ML, Highpoint 2322), Panasonic HVX-200P P2.

[Tom Brooks]

Sorry I don’t have Squeeze in front of me at the moment, but I believe there’s a place to set aspect ratio at the top of the main window. It defaults to 4:3, but you can set it to 16:9 up there. I think this is the only place you specify your source as anamorphic. As others said, your output will be 16:9 with square pixels, such as 640×360 or 320×180.

[Tom Brooks]

WEre you exporting directly from your Final Cut sequence using Compressor or did you bring a QT movie into Compressor outside of FCP? I’ve had no luck using virtual cluster in the former, but it’s OK in the latter case. Does Final Cut allow distributed processing via QMaster like Compressor does? I’ve never seen it documented.

[Tom Brooks]

Yep. A frame of standard def video is made from two half frames, called fields, which are recorded a 60th of a second apart. When you make a freeze frame the two fields are displayed together and the motion difference recorded during that 60th of a second causes the flutter. The picture is alternating between the two slightly different fields every 60th of a second. De-interlacing will stop the flutter.

Final Cut Pro 6.0.3, Mac OS-X 10.4.11, Quicktime 7.5, After Effects 6.5 Pro, G5 Quad 2.5, Kona-LHe V5.1, 4.5GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7800-GT 256MB, G-RAID 2x1TB FW800, 6TB RAID-5 (Enhance E8-ML, Highpoint 2322), Panasonic HVX-200P P2.

[Tom Brooks]

If you’re exporting directly from the FCP timeline using Compressor, I guess it’s a problem with that process handling the render of the animation. A quick fix might be to export a Quicktime movie “using current settings” and then take that to MPEG-2 in Compressor. Sometimes the direct export from the timeline causes unpredictable results. If FCP can render and play it but the direct export via Compressor fails, I’d try this approach.
-Tom

[Tom Brooks]

What’s your sequence setting? Are you working in SD resolution?
I got some decent results from a 1080p29.97 sequence. I used the Windows Media Encoder on a PC to make a 1280×720 file at 29.97fps and a data rate of 4Mbps, progressive. Real nice except for a little hitch in the horizontal movement that showed up only inside of PowerPoint. The finished 1280 movie was inserted on the slide using “Insert Movie from File” and set to play automatically and full screen. It looked pretty great on the big screen.

If you’re in SD, you won’t get results that good. The PowerPoint Hi setting is nothing special. It’s about 1200kbps 2-pass VBR in Squeeze on my Mac. If you don’t have 2-pass it’s probably because you have a lower end version of Flip4Mac. With 2-pass peak limited VBR, I usually set quality to 0. That makes the encoder favor motion smoothness over sharpness when the bitrate limit is reached.

I’d go to around 2000kbps for SD. MOst modern PCs handle that with ease and you don’t need much more than that for SD. Low quality deinterlacing is one of the worst problems you face. If you have a high quality deinterlace plug-in for Final Cut (Nattress, e.g.), you’re better off using that before you export for Squeeze.

Are you testing the results of the PowerPOint Hi compression on a Mac? Not a good test. The only good test is a PC and preferably in PowerPoint on the actual show computer. Windows Media on the Mac is often stuttery in my experience. See if you can Google around and find Ben Waggoner’s “Best Practices for Windows Media Encoding.”