Best quality footage in (uncompressed?) prior to dvdland
what is the cleanest input path from 1" analog tapes to dvd thru fcp? several dv tapes have been already been generated from these reels using dv ntsc codec. is there any clarity to be gained by importing the clips in an uncompressed codec?
thanks, alan
NTSC DV compresses 5:1.
Uncompressed is well, uncompressed.
Question is how you acquired the footage, and how you plan to ingest it into FCP and with what.
Similar Messages
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New to 16x9 format, how get best quality when using standard dv footage?
If I am capturing standard NTSC dv footage, and adding standard dimension digital photos, what capture and sequence settings should I use to get best looking 16x9 output? I know I can export as 16x9 and burn a 16x9 DVD in DVDSP, but I was thinking I should capture and edit that way as well to get best quality.
Thus far, I've been editing everything as 4x3 and assuming the tv's these will be shown on will compensate, which is generally true. I would like, however, to give my clients the option of which output option is best for them.So, a client would have to give me 16x9 raw footage for me to produce a true 16x9 DVD?
Yes.
I know I can't produce HD DVDs, at least not cost effectively, and most people don't have players anyway.
Right. None of us can. The movies from the store or Netflix aren't HD. HD has no current relevance in DVD production (other than as acquisition formats).
I do want their footage to look as good as
possible on those large screen tvs.
If you produce a good DVD it will look good. All the other DVDs that are 4:3 are just that - 4:3. Same with 4:3 television. If they were produced well they should look great on any screen.
1. I'm starting with DV NTSC raw footage, a low-res
codec.
OK.
2. I'm compressing to MPEG-2 to be playable on an
SD-DVD player, a further low res codec.
OK. But you really mean "to be playable on a DVD player".
3. Regardless of what I do, it's going to be
low-res.
Regardless of what you do, the resolution is limited by current DVD technology. That is, in the NTSC world, 720x480 whether it's 4:3 or 16:9.
Does MPEG-2 always look crappy on an HDTV? On a 72dpi SDTV, it looks acceptable. Is there a workaround for HDTV?
Whether or not it looks crappy is subjective. If Hollywood-produced DVDs and SD television look great on it, then it's possible to make it look great.
Your real limitations - the ones you have control over, are:
- quality of camera, glass, and related equipment
- quality of lighting, audio, camerawork, production in general
- recording format (DV ain't the greatest).
- editing format (hint: you don't have to edit in DV)
- quality of editing / editor
- quality of MPEG2 encoding
In your case I think the last one is the most relevant. If you aren't getting acceptable results you may need to learn more about MPEG2 and Compressor.
BTW 72dpi is a print term, it has absolutely no meaning in video.
Further question, if I'm doing a photo slideshow, not DV footage, can I leave it uncompressed or will it convert to MPEG-2 and stink regardless?
To make a DVD movie it needs to be MPEG-2. That's the technology we have. But it doesn't have to stink. The MPEG-2 you use is the same MPEG2 the studios use with movie releases. The technology is the same, the difference is that they have people who really really know how to use it well.
There is a way to make actual slideshows from JPEGs which play from a DVD or CD. I know little about this, but I suspect that the resolution is still limited to 720x480. Someone will correct me if that's wrong. But you don't have to put them through MPEG2 compression.
You may benefit from finding out what 16:9 really means. All it means is that the display is wider. That's all. There is no implication of a quality increase, in fact from DVD playback the 16:9 picture will always appear a little softer than SD if viewed on a widescreen device. That's just the way it is. -
How to give client best quality of raw footage
So normally I shoot, edit, and burn sporting events for a certain client. However, this thime the just want to pay for the raw footage. Since I've noveer done this before, I'm a little confused. Usually I would export using Quicktime and then drop th quicktime into iDVD or Roxio and then burn a copy. But since they might want someone else to edit the footage, how do I give them the best quality format. I am sticking with burning something to DVD. But last night I was looking at export using quicktime conversion. There were all kinds of options. What would you recommend for exporting? I would assume if I burn it onto a DVD using iDVD, they would have to rip it to edit it. But doesn't puting something on DVD compress the footage? It is shot in SD, but I want to ensure maximium quality. Any suggestions?
It's a Sony miniDV camera. The footage specs are as follows:
Sony:
Frame Size: 720x480
Vid Rate: 29.97 fps
Compressor: DV/DVCPRO-NT
Data Rate : 3.6MB/sec
Aud Rate 48.0 KHz
Aud Format: 16 Bit
Pixel Aspect: NTSC-CCIR601
Field Dominance: Lower(even)
Or at least that's the information I got from FCE. The footage is 3 seperate camera angels with about 75 minutes for each camera. I'm assuming they mean to have someone else edit it, but what program they would be using, I really don't know. When you state "1) an actual copy of the raw footage", do you mean a tape copy? I do not want to give them the original tapes it was recorded onto.
"QuickTime/DV or QuickTime/AIC" I do not know the difference. I refer to myself as the Cole Trickle (Days of Thunder reference) of video editing. I don't know how or why the car works, I just know how to drive it. With video editing, I do not know all the internal knowledge of aspect ratios or what a codec is, but I know how to tell a story and get that feeling onto a TV screen. Yes, I am limited by my own ignorance, but I am a visual learner. I can read it 100 times, but if someone shows me once I have it down.
Aside from the rant, I want to deliver the footage on DVD. Our original agreement was for myself to edit the footage, but I respect the free market. I want to be as profesional as possible when it comes to business. I fell into this client backasswards, and wasn't meaning to create a full time career, but they liked my work and I liked doing it. -
We are using a Sony HDV-Z7U camera for acquisition. We recently recorded an event using the camera's non HD capabilities. We set the camera to record "DV SP" 16x9 settings on both Mini-DV tape and CF card.
To import the DV SP footage into FCP7 we chose the "DV NTSC anamorphic" setting in the log and transfer settings window. After a successful transfer from the CF card (the CF card held approximately 83 minutes) we checked the size of the file and found it to be 16 Gigs! Why so big? An 83 miniDV tape shot in SD should easily fit on a standard 4.7 gig MPEG2 DVD.
We need to burn DVDs of this show - we sent it to compressor and got horrible quality.
What is the best setting to use in FCP7's log and transfer settings window to import DV SP 16x9 standard def. footage and what is the best method for exporting for outputting this footage to DVD that preserves the original quality of the DV SP footage?? Anyone? Many thanks> Why so big? An 83 miniDV tape shot in SD should easily fit on a standard 4.7 gig MPEG2 DVD.
No it doesn't. DV is 13GB per hour.
In any case, a Video DVD uses the MPEG 2 codec, not DV.
>What is the best setting to use in FCP7's log and transfer settings window to import DV SP 16x9 standard def.
DV NTSC anamorphic.
>what is the best method for exporting for outputting this footage to DVD...
Use the Compressor DVD preset "Best Quality 90 mins".
>...that preserves the original quality of the DV SP footage?
Not going to happen, you are compressing by a factor of 1:4. Shooting as HDV would have given you better quality material to start with. DV is at the bottom end of the scale. -
What's the best setting to save footage (.mov) to dvd/cd with best quality
Hi, I'm editing a little movie that might be played later on tv/cinema. I 'm trying to keep/burn my footage into a lighter format but I can't guess which setting is the best. Would the setting be good enough? (also do I burn it on a dvd or data cd?...) Is somebody could help me? Thank you, Laurence
(my footage were filmed with a 4 chip camera)If you have the camera to import into iMovie I don't understand why you can't send it back to tape. That will be the best quality and the fastest time.
If your PowerBook doesn't have a DVD burner you could take the tape and camera to a friend that has a Mac and a DVD burner. Send the file to iMovie and then iDVD for burning.
Once you export to a lower quality QuickTime file some of the quality will be lost forever. The tape would be identical to the iMovie version.
There is no "best" export method because every file is different. I would use Movie to QuickTime movie, sized at 640X480 and select the H.264 video codec and Apple Loseless audio codec set at 48kHz stereo. Use the same frame rate as your source and a bit rate about 2,000. -
Make uncompressed DV project best quality on DVD
I finished my subtitling on an uncompressed DV project , how can I get the best quality on DVD out of it , My Compressor does not work , any other software ?or I can take my project to another computer to make the DVD .
does your Compressor tell you that the background process isn't running..., or does it tell you that you have an illegal license installed...?
if it is the first option, type this into a Terminal
sudo /Library/StartupItems/Qmaster/Qmaster start
don't forget the spaces after sudo and before start -
How much video footage can be in movie for Best Quality
I made an IMovie with about 1 hour of video and exported it to IDVD. I added a slideshow with about 150 photos and music - about 15 minutes long. When I went to burn it to a DVD - it would not allow best quality. Why?
Is there a limit to how much video can be procesed as Best Quality?iDVD encoding settings:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/7.0/en/11417.html
Short version:
Best Performance is for videos of up to 60 minutes
Best Quality is for videos of up to 120 minutes
Professional Quality is also for up to 120 minutes but even higher quality (and takes much longer)
That was for single-layer DVDs. Double these numbers for dual-layer DVDs.
Professional Quality: The Professional Quality option uses advanced technology to encode your video, resulting in the best quality of video possible on your burned DVD. You can select this option regardless of your project’s duration (up to 2 hours of video for a single-layer disc and 4 hours for a double-layer disc). Because Professional Quality encoding is time-consuming (requiring about twice as much time to encode a project as the High Quality option, for example) choose it only if you are not concerned abo
In both cases the maximum length includes titles, transitions and effects etc. Allow about 15 minutes for these.
You can use the amount of video in your project as a rough determination of which method to choose. If your project has an hour or less of video (for a single-layer disc), choose Best Performance. If it has between 1 and 2 hours of video (for a single-layer disc), choose High Quality. If you want the best possible encoding quality for projects that are up to 2 hours (for a single-layer disc), choose Professional Quality. This option takes about twice as long as the High Quality option, so select it only if time is not an issue for you.
Use the Capacity meter in the Project Info window (choose Project > Project Info) to determine how many minutes of video your project contains.
NOTE: With the Best Performance setting, you can turn background encoding off by choosing Advanced > “Encode in Background.” The checkmark is removed to show it’s no longer selected. Turning off background encoding can help performance if your system seems sluggish.
And whilst checking these settings in iDVD Preferences, make sure that the settings for NTSC/PAL and DV/DV Widescreen are also what you want.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US -
Best Quality Export From Final Cut Pro Into After Effects?
So I converted all my footage into Apple Pro Res 422 (24 p, 1280 x 720) for use in FCP and want to export edited parts into After Effects. What is the best quality export to bring into After Effects and also export from After Effects back into FCP?
zikade wrote:
Depending on your storage and what you're up to with your footage I'd recommend uncompressed. Large files but you won't loose any quality. Animation is also lossless if you want to compress your footage. If your drives are not fast enough, go for ProRes HQ from FCP to AE, and Animation the way back...
Since you've converted to 422, stick with that. You cannot gain anything by exporting from FCP to a codec that has a higher bandwidth such as PRHQ or Animation. You just don't want to go down.
Rendering out of After Effects going back to FCP jsut use the same base codec. Again, you will gain nothing by using a higher quality codec. However, you may want to use PR4444 or even Animation if you must have an alpha channel. PR4444 uses trillions of colors and you will get an interesting warning when you try to render to it. You can dismiss the warning.
PR4444 has the distinct advantage of being realtime in FCP7 and X. Animation requires rendering back in teh FCP timeline.
bogiesan -
How to export and reimport clips maintaining best quality?
I'd like to ask a few questions.
(1) I have several subclips in FCE that I would like to export, so I can import them back into FCE as individual clips, separate from the original capture. I would also like the option to use the exported clips in iMovie project. The most important thing is to save the clips at the highest possible quality. I ran into a problem when trying to import the clips back into FCE.
First, I tried exporting clips using File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion... with the following options:
Video Settings:
Compression Type H.264
Quality: Best (the slider in the Settings window I dragged all the way to the right for Best quality)
Key frame rate: 24
Frame Reordering: yes
Encoding mode: multi-pass
Audio Settings:
Format: Uncompressed
Sample rate: 48 kHz
Sample size: 16
Channels: 2
Prepare for Internet Streaming <unchecked>
The clip was saved to disk. I didn't open or modify the clip at all.
Then I tried using File>Import>Files... but when I tried to import it, I got this error:
"File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown."
So this is the problem I'm experiencing. Can't re-import the clip into FCE (it imports into iMovie fine, though)
Questions: Am I using "wrong" settings? Why is this happening? How can I export and reimport clips while maintaining best video and audio quality?
(2) A couple related questions: Some of my original source video was recorded at 12-bit quality (32 kHz). I know 16-bit is best (48 kHz) but the camera I used came with factory default 12-bit (and as a novice I didn't know to change it until several months later).
So here are my questions.
(a) If I export these clips using audio export settings at 48 kHz instead of 32 kHz, would that cause any problems?
(b) Would those clips then be recognized by FCE and iMovie as having 48 kHz audio even though it was originally recorded at 32 kHz? (I know the quality will be no better, but I've read somewhere that using 32 kHz audio can cause some problems with out-of-sync audio, particularly in iMovie. My hope is the new clip with the 48 kHz audio will circumvent such problems.)
Thanks for any assistance you can provide.
PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTTSchneider: Thanks again for your valuable reply. I have a few follow-up questions.
My first set of questions is about rendering audio to 48kHz in the timeline.
Almost immediately you'll notice that FCE has tagged the
entire audio track with a red bar meaning it will
need to be rendered (if you try to play the clip from
the Canvas controls you'll just get beeping or very
low quality sound). Go up to the Sequence menu and
select the Render All (or Mixdown) command and FCE
will transcode the 32kHz audio of your clip to the
48kHz audio of the sequence it's sitting in.
I followed your instructions and everything seemed to work until I got to the passage above. I dragged the subclips into the timeline. The clips appeared in the timeline but there was no red bar. If I chose Render All from the Sequence Menu, nothing happened. If I chose Export to Quicktime Movie, however, it takes several minutes, apparently rendering the audio and video. If I chose instead, Print to Video, the red bars do appear and the rendering process again gets going. There is a small progress bar for both operations in the center of the screen with a percent done and estimated time remaining.
Question: Why doesn't the red bar appear as soon as the clips are in the Timeline?
Question: Why doesn't Render All (or Render Audio) work? It would be much easier to walk away while all the audio rendered into 48kHz and then come back later to save the individual clips to disk.
My second set of questions pertains to the possibility of using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion as a substitute for Export>Quicktime Movie, mainly for academic instead of practical reasons.
If you export a clip directly from the bin "Using
Quicktime Conversion" there aren't any suitable
conversion video/audio formats that would give you
both video in the right format (for iMovie) and
transcode the audio to the sampling rate you want.
I understand your description of rendering the audio files in the timeline. If only academic, I was trying to see if I could duplicate the results using using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion. I chose Quicktime Movie as the format. The video setting was DV/DVCPRO-NTSC. The audio was uncompressed with 48kHz rate. This created a Quicktime movie file with these formats. If I opened the quicktime movie file in Quicktime and checked the info on the file, the audio was indeed 48kHz.
Question: Does this mean that the Quicktime Conversion process rendered the 32kHz audio to 48kHz audio prior to writing the file? If so, it would seem to bypass the need to render the clips in a sequence (although if I could render all the clips in the sequence at once, while I was away from the computer, it would be faster than rendering and saving each clip one at a time).
Question: When I exported a clip this way, then imported it into iMovie, the original capture date/time info was missing when I got info on the clip. However, when I save the clip using Export>Quicktime Movie, the date/time of capture was still present. Would there be any way to preserve this date/time of capture info when using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion?
Question: If I decided to Export>Using Quicktime Conversion with the above settings (DV/DVCPRO-NTSC, 48kHz audio) there are other options I'm given pertaining to the video settings. There are settings for Compressor Quality, with a sliding bar where you can choose Least, Low, Medium, High, and Best quality; and there is Scan Mode (interlaced or progressive). How does one choose among these? If you want the best quality exported clip, I suppose you would chose best quality, but what scan mode is "best" for my purposes -- interlaced or progressive?
Thanks a lot for your help. I'm learning a lot! -
HOW DO I GET THE BEST QUALITY RESULT!?!!?
I have a canon GL2 and when I plug it in directly to the TV and watch my footage the quality is great, I then upload it to Final Cut and the quality is somewhat there, but when I go to export it I can never achieve the quality that it gets when I hook up the camera directly to the TV, and roll the tape. How do I export using compressor or not, to get the best quality, I dont care how big the file size I just need the quality!!! Thank you in advance for the help!
It depends on what format you want to output to.
If you just want the best quality, then output to 10-bit Uncompressed quicktime - the files will be huge though.
Do you need to output back to tape, DVD or something else?
Also, make sure that you have the right settings in your sequences, so you don't loose any quality there. -
Exporting - Option for Best Quality?
Okay. Just upgraded to QT Pro. What "export" option produces the best quality video?
Also, should QT Pro be able to open an WMV file? I've been having to use Flip4Mac, but is water marks everything when I try to do the conversion to *.mov format.
Thanks for any info and insight.The best quality video will always be lossless or uncompressed. The reality about compression is that it's always a trade off between image quality and data size and as Colin pointed out depends a lot on what you use it for.
While you're working on a piece of video, it's always best to keep it as uncompressed as possible. Compressing footage and then compressing it again leads to a much reduced quality, something like generational loss when recording from tape to tape.
As a good balance between data size and quality in Quicktime, I'd recommend working at the full pixel dimensions and frame rate that you captured and using Apple's MJPEGA codec at full quality.
You might also think about AVI file compressed with DV codec - they won't be as high quality, but will have the advantage of being readable on Macs as well as PCs which don't have Quicktime installed. -
NEED THE BEST QUALITY QUICKTIME MOVIE FOR DVD! THANKS FOR ANY ADVICE.
I just finished a three minute piece that will be shown on DVD and projected to a sixteen foot screen. I usually just output a self-contained quicktime movie with current settings and then compress with bitvice. While I'm happy with those results, because of the size of this screening, I'm curious whether there might be better options for output to quicktime, such as uncompressed, etc?
I've also heard that I could output as a Jpeg, or a PNG file, but I'd love some advice on what works best and the workflow, as I need to get this done fast and can't really afford the time to experiment.
Any advice would be HUGELY appreciated. THANKS1I usually just output a self-contained quicktime movie with current settings and then compress with bitvice.
That will provide the best quality ... the quality won't improve over what you had in FCP. Depending on your source media type(s), you may have had a better quality export IF you had edited and rendered with another setting.
-DH -
Best quality dvd-premiere pro or encore
hi all-some advise needed.
I want to make the best quality professional wedding dvd for a client nd I have a few options and i just want to get feedback on which is the best method.
pc=win xp, prem pro 2 and encore 1.5, PAL, 4x3 plenty of hard disk space, 2gb RAM
wedding is 2 hour long but am I splitting in 2 to get the best quality
I think have 3 options-which is the best?
Option 1 build the DVD in premiere pro via DVD layout (nice wedding menus as well)
Option 2 export the encoded wedding via the encoder (media concept i think) and then just import and build the menus and dvd in encore
Option 3 export an uncompressed avi file via file-movie-export into encore and let encore do the encoding and build the dvd.
What do you guys think? Am i missing any other better options?
I would really aprreciate any advise or criticism,
thanks
Paullabrisher wrote:
IIf in laying out the DVD in Encore you find that you'd like to change something in the Premiere file after you've imported it into Encore, you simply make the change and re-export the movie to the same name/directory etc. i.e. overwriting the previous file.
I cannot stress how strongly I disagree with this method. You should never, ever overwrite an asset that is used in Encore from outside of Encore. That is asking for big trouble, and if you don't get bitten by it right away, you will get bitten by it eventually. Instead, you should add a version number to the modified asset, and then use the Replace Asset command. Another good method if you're using an all-Adobe workflow is to use Edit Original, which will open up the program used to create the asset. When you finish the modifications, saving will update the asset in Encore, and make sure that all links to all supporting files are maintained.
The worst thing that can happen using labrisher's workflow is that your Encore project will crash with the dreaded PGC error, or some other fatal error, and you will never be able to recover and build a finished disc, disc image or set of DVD folders. You will then have to rebuild the project from scratch.
-Jeff -
I'm going to save my old Hi8 tapes on a hard disk using final cut pro x, to save it for the future. But how shall I export it, and in what will be the best quality to save it in?
Hi Carsten...good luck with your project.. I had just about as many Video8 & Hi8 tapes as
you that I digitized and eventually brought into FCPX..took me many months not weeks
to do so,BTW, as each tape was 60-90 minutes in lenght...and many hundreds of
gigab ytes of storage ( uncompressed AVI files)..it's tedious work unless you plan to farm
it out to a processing house...also regarding eventual storage format...remember
Hi8 is 400 lines or about 540X480 in todays resoultion metrics..you can't make hi-def out
of source that starts out as 400 lines...in my case I rewrapped the avi files into .mov
containers and imported the mov files into FCPX where I got rid of the hundreds of
minutes of Colorado mountain landscapes to get to that one minute shot of the kids
on horseback ( late 80's for most of my archives)..so its a job..scouring thru 30X90 min
of source to not miss those precious memories takes diligence and hard work but its worth
it; eventually I encode the uncompressed video I want to save in H.264 format Staandard
Def not HiDef -
I made a video and its 2.01 GB in iMovie. i want to put it on youtube but I want the best possible quality. The limit for youtube is 100MB whats the best way to compress my movie?
Hi F,
I followed your link and found your instructions about exporting from iMovie with best quality for YouTube.
The instructions were pretty clear, although my options didn't line up with them exactly (I'll tell you my explicit settings below). Still, I exported it successfully.
Then I uploaded the resultant .mov file to YouTube. When it was all finished processing, I viewed it. After the first fraction of a second all I saw was garbage -- just junk patterns filling the screen. The sound was excellent. (by the way, I had lots of very short clips in there -- 00:00:03 in length (not sure what the units are).
So I went back to iMovie, opened up my movie project. Played the video. Now it is intermittent garbage, too. Looks just like the uploaded file, but only intermittently.
Here are the exact options and settings I used for export:
File->Share, chose quicktime and expert settings, pressed the "share" button.
in the Export dialog, I selected "movie to quicktime movie" and clicked on the "options" button.
Options:
Video:
Settings...
Set compression to mpeg-4
Set quality to medium
Set frame rate to 30
Let Key frame and Data rate defaulted (unchecked)
Filter...
didn't look at this. Now that I do, it's set to "none"
Size...
Selected the "custom size" radio button and set it to 320 x 240
Sound:
Settings...
format: uncompressed
sample rate: 44.1khz
sample size: 16
channels: 1 (mono)
There was also a check box for "Prepare for internet Streaming"
It was already checked and set to "fast start"
I didn't change it.
If you could give me any further help, I'd really appreciate it. This was my first attempt to put anything on YouTube.
Thanks a lot,
Bruce Delaplain
Message was edited by: Bruce Delaplain1
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