Tom Brooks
Forum Replies Created
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[rafael amador] “I think that PhotoJPEG is supported by QT in PC. . At 100% quality (I disagree with Tom here) is RGB (files 3 times smaller than Animation, although not Alpha channel).”
You are right Rafael. I did not address the color space issue with PhotoJPEG 100%. However, since the Flash animation will be operating in the RGB color space, this seems like a good choice. If you need alpha channel, there’s always PNG. So, Rafael, which codec would be your absolute first choice in this situation?
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The H.264 does look horrible. The “jaggies” on original are obviously normal interlacing as you’d expect. I don’t call that “jaggies” but “comb” or “mouse teeth.” On the H.264, it’s much worse and that “zippered” effect looks like reversed field order interlaced. That’s a guess, since I can’t analyze your whole work flow. Something is wrong in your compression settings to get that result.
PhotoJPEG is a standard Quicktime codec, supplied with the player on both Mac and Windows. It’s a lossy codec, but at 100% it is visually lossless. H.264 is not an ideal choice for an intermediate between your original and Flash because it’s too much compression. Search out posts on the Compression Techniques forum. You’ll find mention of PhotoJPEG.
The key to quality in this case is getting the footage deinterlaced in the best way you can. FCP will simply throw away a field, halving your resolution. Other deinterlacing plug-ins for FCP will do a somewhat better job. Compressor can do a really good job, but at the cost of time. If you experiment with the quality settings, you might get it to look OK with a faster encode.
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You need to deinterlace for Flash. I would recommend PhotoJPEG at 75 or 100%. Compressor’s frame controls allow very good deinterlacing, but the time to compress is long. You might try deinterlacing in Final Cut to see how it compares. Squeeze’s deinterlace is pretty rough. MPEG Streamclip can also do a good job of making a PhotoJPEG deinterlaced intermediate.
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Looks like normal interlacing to me. You should see this go away if you change the Item Properties of your sequence to Field Dominance – None. My guess as to why your video clips do not show this is that they were shot as 30P. When you pause, the video clips will not show interlace.
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If you will be doing zooms and pans on the photos, make them around twice the pixel dimension of your sequence size. Make the smaller dimension twice the corresponding dimension (height or width) in the sequence. TIFF is usually less compressed than JPEG, thus can be better quality. Both will work, however.
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Did you try a search on that topic? Lots of answers have been posted in the past.
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Are you producing After Effects for use in a 16:9 edit? Did they mean 864×486 by chance?
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It’s the correct aspect ratio. You might want to search the Compression Techniques forum to get more thoughts. Most codecs prefer a final size that’s divisible by 8 or 16, for example. You could get there by going to 720×400, cropping two lines off the top and three off the bottom. An alternative is 640×360.
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By way of clarification, are you able to copy other files (not from the P2 card) from the Powerbook to the eSATA drive connected to the Macbook?
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If you are using “Unlimited RT,” certain clips will play, but at a reduced quality and/or frame rate. It might be simpler to work in “Safe RT” mode. There is a little drop-down menu on the left side of your track panel where you can select this. With that setting, your unrendered clips will have a red bar over them. When you render, that bar changes to blue-gray. “Motion” projects in the timeline always require rendering. “Safe RT” should make things clearer for you.
Unless you are very familiar with Final Cut and how it organizes clips, media files and render files it is best not to try to move those items from one place to another. You will run into trouble doing that.
Shane Ross has made a good DVD about organization in Final Cut. This could save you a lot of grief in getting started. Larry Jordan also has a good article on his site about organizing projects.
Final Cut Studio 2, FCP 6.0.2, Mac OS-X 10.4.11, Quicktime 7.3.1, 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.