[Tom Laughlin]

Larry Jordan on lynda.com has a free web clip on this topic, check it out sometime, he talks about progressive and interlace, and it’s quite a good clip:

https://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=580#

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

Ok, and what is even more weird about this, I know this is an old thread, but people are still having this same problem, is that I have several clips that are about 12 minutes each, some export out of compressor to m2v just fine, and some do not.

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

Alan, thanks, you’ve been most helpful.

Cheers,

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

Alan, (and others)

Thanks for the explanation here, this makes sense. I completely understand and acknowledge this scenario, as with the project we are shooting and the magnitude of hours we are needing to get on one card, the decision to shoot SP was not mine. The concern of course was getting the most video on a card, and so therefore 160 minutes seems more of an advantage than shooting in HD, especially since this is going straight to “web”, so , if we did shoot in the HQ quality, it would ultimately be compressed for web, so what the grooup I’m working with was thinking, was that there is no need to shoot HQ, unless we are going to DVD or Blue-ray. I never thought of it that way though, in terms of “not shooting” what the camera does best, HD. But I think it is a matter of card space.

As far as your thoughts on the level or quality of the HDV being shot, I’m actually personally surprised that the HDV quality really looks good. I mean I know it is not HD, but for HDV, it’s a great picture. I’m satisfied, at least for the amount of hours we are able to get on one card and the quality HDV I’m seeing, maybe we are just lucky, but for web, I guess it is sufficient.

Any further thoughts Andy on this 24p to 29.97 and how that affects this project? Could I reset the sequence and change it from its current time-line setup to another setting, and change the frame-rate, or does that even make sense, sense it’s really not 24p, you mentioned a 3:2 pull-down? I guess this may need to be done on my next edit, as I probably won’t have time to reconvert this to a 24p format, then replace my assets with the same names and re-linking, I’m not sure if it’s worth it at this point. But as far as steps 1-8, does this appear to be straight to what HDV would be imported as and edited? Taking into consideration everything has stayed the same with the original footage being imported and edited in HDV?

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

Also, I guess I can always export it out in 24p at the end, in QT or Compressor, and will that return it back to the 24p frame-base it was shot in, even if it was not edited in 24p, but 29.97?

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

THANKS CRAIG!!

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

[Daniel] Did you even bother to read Craigs link that’s always at the top of this forums page?

Daniel, I’ve seen this calculator before, I noticed at the top, it read “Flash Bit Rate Calculator”, I’m not encoding H.264 for Flash or outputting FLVs. When I changed the codec in the calculator to AVC/ H.264 output, the recommended settings in the calculator were pretty close to the recommendations already output with Compressor, using some presets, and also tweaking presets.

I understand that there is no “magic bullet” for H.264 encoding, everyone knows this, but isn’t this why we have forums? To discuss better ways of doing what we are all doing? To share info on processes and best practices and learn about what people have tried and failed with, etc? Maybe there’s no room here for me to learn more, but I appreciate your patience and answering my questions as far as alternatives and better means of encoding, which I’m willing to look into, learn more about, and actually try. So, I don’t need the lecture on “You probably wouldn’t know how to use it anyway” speech. I’m just here for help, ideas, positive, and informative information and communication. Thanks Daniel and Craig. I’ll look over your suggestions and see about getting this process moving forward, and onto better encoding practices.

Thanks!

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

[Tom Laughlin] “Width and Height: Up to 854 x 480 ”

[Daniel] “What sort of frame size is that? Did you even bother to read Craigs link that’s always at the top of this forums page?

Daniel, when you export out of compressor, it although it says it is “720×480”, with it being a file that is 16×9, it auto-sizes the image as a 16×9 image, even though the QT file data says it is a 720×480 file, when you click on the file in QT, it auto-opens up and here is the info, see the picture here:

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

Craig, also, when you get a chance, can you link some articles that you haev found informative n this subject, that you’d suggest?

Last question:

[Craig]:”It’s CAVLC only. There’s no ability to use CABAC entropy. You can’t set it to High Profile. It’ll decide to be Main or Baseline. There’s no ability to set the number of B frames or Reference frames.”

Can you quickly elaborate on this? If not, it’s fine, just wondering.

Thanks guys,

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

Craig thanks, you’ve always answered my posts with specificity, and I appreciate that. Daniel, sorry for the name issue. Craig, in your perspective, what would be the ideal for H.264 encoding, whether it is from tests or from articles, or from your personal preferences, how do you prefer to encode H.264 and with what software? I understand that each project, client need, website specs, etc, it is all different and each source file is different, but can you suggest what your majority of H.264 encoding, or past encoding H.264, has been done with, and what the settings you felt were ideal, in this case, with the majority, if applicable? For example, I do a lot of compression using compressor, but most of the time, I usually do a preset, then tweak it alittle, and output a:

Name: H.264 800Kbps
Description: H.264 for high-bandwidth connections
File Extension: mov
Estimated size: 295.31 MB/hour of source
Audio Encoder
AAC, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz
Video Encoder
Format: QT
Width and Height: Up to 854 x 480
Pixel aspect ratio: Default
Crop: None
Padding: None
Frame rate: (100% of source)
Frame Controls: Automatically selected: Off
Codec Type: H.264
Multi-pass: On, frame reorder: On
Pixel depth: 24
Spatial quality: 50
Min. Spatial quality: 50
Key frame interval: 150
Temporal quality: 50
Min. temporal quality: 50
Average data rate: 0.688 (Mbps)
Fast Start: on

Also, there is a publication on the web called “Simple Encoding Recipes for the Web”, which takes one through various set-ups, suggestions, and areas where you can go in and tweak, and they tell you why, and how, and etc. It’s by Philip Hodgetts and Intelligent Assistant, and after the read, it was able to inform me somewhat on basics on encoding softwares and how to encode them, but this book seemed a little to vague and also detailed where it didn’t need to be, and not detailed where it needed to be.

Anyways, this book and reading many articles on Streaming Media magazine on-line were some things that spawned my curiosity and posted questions about Compressor and how far one can really go with it, in terms of quality. But since it doesn’t even play in the same fields as these other bigger name encoders, what would be your top 3 encoders and why?

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel