Best output for compress in Cleaner or Squeeze

I have a file I am ready to compress for web and CD distribution. I have saved it out several ways (animation being one) but no matter what I do, my files don't look good at all. I've tried several pre-sets for compression and I have been using them recently with excellent results, so I must be doing something wrong in FCE.
I usd to do a lot of this back when FinalCutPro was new, but have been away for several years, so maybe I am forgetting something. Can someone advise as the best way to save the highest quality file out for compression?
Thanks much!

Hello Charles,
What is the nature of your source media - NTSC video, stills, graphics, etc.?
What version of FCE are you using?
The animation codec is probably NOT the right choice.
Have you tried exporting to MPEG4 or H.264?
Also, read through some of Ken Stone's articles - here are a few I'd suggest as starters. Even though there are references to Compressor many of the basics can be applied to exporting from FCE -
QuickTime movies from FCP - For the Web
Encoding for YouTube Using Compressor
Video to iPod

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What is the best output for archiving in Quicktime?

Hi,
I'm producing webvideo. The video's are converted to quicktime and dropped on a videoserver and converted to flash.
The most important footage is archived to tape but I'd like to archive all the output. What is in your opinions the best setting for output in quicktime with less space and enough quality to use again in webvideo. Final use will be 800kb flash video.

You should archive the material in it's native format so that you have the possibility to revisit the project and make changes or generate master files in other formats.
Use the Media Manager to consolidate your project into a single enclosing folder. This can be compressed into a .zip file or disk image. It will save space if you dont include render files, even more if you make the material that came from tape, offline -although you will have to recapture in that case.

Best output for DVD

What's the best output method for publishing onto a DVD that
users can access? I would also like to be able to have the users
continue where they left off previously in the presentation.

HI,
Theres a million and one SWF to AVI converters out there
(Sothinkmedia *dot* com) is one of them. That will also allow you
to attach a playback bar, or, just use the one in your media
player, similar to what you see in YouTube.
Hope that helps.
Cheers

What is the best setting for compressing to a Window Media Player?

I now have the latest Compressor, just now need to figure out which is the best setting to use for compressing to a Windows Media Player. Does anyone know which is the best method?

I'd propose you buy a licence for Telestreams FLip4MAC (flipfactory) Quicktime components to enable ENCODING for HD and SD as you need. It works ok however none of my work requires specifics for windows player. I have a licence just the same.
If you have Flip4mac already installed, you can use the system preferneces panel to order a an ENCODER component licence. There may be others around as well.
You can just use compressor.app and change the inspector video to use "quicktime components/windows media encoder" in the batch job.. its pretty easy.
hth

Best Format for compression

I have some very large QT files, about 16-18GB each that I need to put onto a DVD to play in a DVD player. What is the best format to compress them into so that the movie looks good when played on a regular TV and DVD player? I use Compressor so if you are familiar with that and know a good one to use, let me know. Thanks very much.

If possible, something more specific than "the normal 2 hr compression" would be a better help. Which format specifically.
"Normal" depends on your content and and what you intend to do with it. Most DV compressed files are, on the average, between 12 and 13 GBs per hour depending on content. Thus, an 18 GB file would likely be 80-90 minutes in duration. Add a menu or two and any possible incidentals (previews, photos, slideshows, etc), as well as, not knowing if you are going with AIFF (PCM) or AC3 compressed audio, Figured it better to err on the safe side and suggest a two hour setting unless you know the movie play time is well under 90 minutes. Assumed you would then pick a specific setting to match your specific content (16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio) and the specific quality desired (best quality/2-pass or the fastest encode/single-pass).
However, if you have Ti Toast, then, as QTKirk indicated, it would likely be the best choice here. Simply drop the edited/standalone (or even a reference) file onto Toast and allow it to automatically encode to fit and create the menu(s)/or auto-start w/o menu as desired.

Obvious ? Want *best* output for DVD - what do I choose?

OK - this seems rudimentary but I've been on iMovie '08 for about 4 months now and it's still not obvious. I am shooting video footage on my Panasonic DV Camera - it's a great quality. I was under the assumption that I can import into iMovie without losing any quality, edit clips and keep same quality (and I'm not changing any color, audio, or cropping, etc - just clipping out some images, adding transitions), then export in same DVD-ready quality. I want to take the footage and put onto a DVD to watch on a TV.
So, why doesn't that seem obvious? I can't really find the right export. It's cramming down size to 640 x 480 and setting quality at medium. Using H.264 is a compressor - and if I want a DVD, I'd prefer it not to be compressed since it's going to be converted to a MP2, right?
Am I missing something? What do I use to Export at the same pristine quality in which I brought it in to then use on a DVD (and I mean shown on a SCREEN big viewing)?
I hate to commit "apple blashphemy" but when I used Roxio Media Creator or Adobe Premier Elements on my PC, the video was of better quality. I have Final Cut Express and maybe the answer is to spend about 40 hours learning it better because I much preferred the ease of iMovie for quick footage. But, I can't stand the end product looking worse.
Seems like iMovie is fine if I want to shove into a smaller-visual-size, poorer-quality video for MobileMe or email or YouTube but not keeping the quality I bothered to take? (And, even with the latter, the quality is poorer when I do a side by side of video footage from my dig camera - canon powershot s5 is - from straight out of the camera AVE vs pulled into iMovie, added transition, uploaded).
I know there are many of you that are professional videographers out there and can still make iMovie work in your flow for short, quick projects - am I completely missing something here?
I just want the best quality output - thanks for your help -
Alexa
p.s. To establish - I am using DV tapes an importing directly. I also have an ADVC-300 for bringing in analog. I am not messing around with anything during capture.

I'm going to have to disagree with the other poster here. I don't think iMovie 08 is touching the DV format as it's captured/edited. It may be using a method of changing the display, by only displaying a single field (as your screen is progressive, the 2nd field is kinda irrelevant unless it's an interlaced display.)
I do promise to go back to Muppet Labs and test this at some point this week.
On the other hand, the real problem is to "share" the work, iMovie is converting it into h.264 format...and then iDVD is converting it to MPEG-2 format.
To work around this, is pretty simple: Export using Quicktime:
For the Video, change your compressor to DV/DVCPro; the footage is interlaced, the quality slider is useless on the DV codec.
Change your audio to 48k 16 bit stereo.
These match the incoming DV footage, and should export it out 'untouched' for iDVD to make an MPEG-2 file from.

...best selection for compression...

....a 1hour and 43 minute video SD video 4:3. What would be the best compression for formatting to a 3.9 gb file size to go on a 4.7 gb disc. I'm trying to avoid the dual layer set-up. Thanks

Did you try the DVD Best Quality 120 min preset? That's what I would go with, with 103 minutes of video. That should give you enough room for audio and some extras.
If you just want to check how the quality of the encoding gets, just do some test encodings on about 30 seconds of your video (put in/out points in either Compressor or FCP).
If you just want to squeeze your video on to a DVD-5 disc, with the best video quality possible, you should maybe have a look at Mr Bitbuget or Bruce Nazarian's Bit Budget Spreadsheet.
Good luck!

Best Output for DVD from FCP???

I'm a newbie and need help. I was outputting from FCP 6.0.4 using Export > QuickTime Movie, then importing that file into DVD Studio Pro. But, a college student who saw it recommended Exporting using Compressor 3.0.3 which I did using the DVD: Best Quality 90 Minutes. I noticed an improvement in my DVD quality, however, in every program I've tried and retried so far I get a little short segment (about a 10 second portion) in my half hour long program that all of the sudden goes crazy with distortion and pixelization and image irratic jumping movements. What can I do to create a totally smooth video when going from FCP to Compressor or is there a better way to finally get it into DVD Studio Pro? I want the highest quality solution as the video footage is originally HD. Thanks for your help, Desperate Russ

coyotegyrl333 wrote:
For some reason, I've always found this to work:
render your project and make sure you have only one
video track in the timeline. Drag existing sequences into
a new one so that you accomplish this. Render.
Restart the computer.
Export using compressor.
Maybe this is mumbo-jumbo, but it works every time for me.
good luck to you.
The advice is more or less sound but you have several unnecessary steps. Your idea is to consolidate all of the FCP timelines and their associated media into a single timeline; you are nesting the project.
Forcing everything to render is good.
Export the entire project as a self contained movie.
Import the self contained movie into DVDSP.
You would perform these steps with each of the individual movie clips you want to have as menu items in your DVD project. Maybe. You might be able to use one single large movie and set go-tos for each chapter. Whatever.
But there is no reason to restart your computer.
And there may be no good reason to use Compressor to create the MPEG2 files.
bogiesan

Best output for non disk use

I have several closely related questions about Adobe Premier.
When I work with standard definition video and Adobe Premier, I have always been producing video DVDs. I start with digital video on DVCPro, Mini-DV or DVCam tapes and play them via firewire into a computer where I capture it using Adobe Premier. Premier creates an .avi file. Later when I add titles and output from Premier for Encore, Premier creates a separate .m2v and .wav file which Encore uses to make the DVD.
My first question is: Is this .avi file the highest quality format that Premier can capture to ? Are there capture quality settings ? the reason I ask this is because i never thought of an .avi file as being abroadcast quality format and have been suspicious of it since i started using Premier nearly 10 years ago.
I have always been very unhappy with the degradation in quality when making DVDs. This is of course understandable considering the Digital video, which looks very good, is recorded at 25 megabytes per second, while a DVD uses quite a bit less. I have been very dissapointed that no standard has yet to be created for using Blu Ray disks for standard definition video. A Blu Ray disk could hold full quality digital standard definition video, and could hold a lot of it. So I have been considering foregoing the many advantages of an optical disk, and instead, or in addition to, producing files for playback from a video server.
My second question is: Can a video server play back separate video and audio files as one ?
My third question is: If my intention is not to use Encore to produce a DVD but instead to produce a file for server playback, what is the highest quality format Premier can output that is likely to play back on a video server ?
I also use Premier to produce HD video, which I have been putting onto Blu Ray disks. I have been very happy with the quality of the final disk product. I don't know how much better this video could look if I didn't compress it for the disk. I have no way at this time to play anything on a HD TV that isn't on a Blu Ray disk. I start with either XDCamEx video files or streams of uncompressed 1080 tifs. Premier then creates a separate H.264 (.m4v) and.wav file, which Encore turns into an .iso file from which i make the Blu Ray disk.
My fourth question: If I were not outputting HD video from Premier to send to Encore for making a Blu Ray disk, what is the highest quality 1080 format Premier can output which is likely to play back on a video server ?

at this time h265 is one of a few codecs missing from adobe's software. if you want to encode to h265 you can look at a free encoder, called handbrake. it doesn't work with adobe's software directly, so you will have to use it to re-encode an exported video from premiere/ame.
h.265 was chosen as the codec for 4k/uhd blurays, this doesn't mean 4k tv's that play media files will support it. its still somewhat new, so there might be some tv's that lack this support. if you are planning on taking media on thumb drives to other places, you might look at h264 for the most compatibility. if you are just playing this media on your tv, then you just need to figure out what you will use as the media player. some smart tv's will do this, some bluray players can, and then there are dedicated media players like the Sony FMP X10. the sony isn't really a media "server", as much as a media "player". the sony media player has a 1tb hdd inside, so it stores the media itself rather than needing a separate media server to hold the media.
the Sony FMP X10 may be fine for what you need, but its pretty expensive for a player with only a 1tb hdd inside. there are bluray players that output 4k/uhd, for under $300 that will also act as a media player. if you already have one check if it does any playback from a networked computer or a usb hdd. however those bluray players may only support hd files, vs 4k media files. finding a media player that supports 4k media files and h265 like the sony says it does, might be more difficult. there are other 4k media players with no internal hdd. they use a network media server and some support usb hdds. 4k is very new still, so there will be more 4k media players coming to market, to push prices down.
the internal or usb hdd's are the simplest solution vs setting up software on a computer to stream files over a network. if media collection requires multiple hdd's then using a computer to hold all the hdd's and stream the videos over a network, can be a good option. there are many media players and media servers, and alot of features that each can offer. if you haven't already, look up guides, tutorials, reviews, etc, to help figure out what you want to do.

What's the best output for burning to HD DVD

I'm working on some projects that I would like to burn to HD DVD. The original footage is captured with a AVCHD camera at 1920x1080 (highest setting) then ingested to Apple Intermediate Codec 1920x1080 to retain the highest quality. Now I want to output them and burn to an HD DVD using Toast 9 to retain the highest quality and avoid re-encoding the data. What would be the best settings to use to export from FCE?
Thanks,
John
(BTW - Yes, I know HD DVD is a dead format but I've got a player and the ability to burn playable HD Discs so it's still a viable format for me!)

Thanks Tom,
That was the first thing I tried and it came out Format : Apple Intermediate Codec, 1440 x 1080 (1888 x 1062) with Normal Size: 1920 x 1080 pixels (I'm reading form QuickTime Inspector here.)
So I'm confused. Which resolution is it really? If it is 1440x1080 am I losing quality in the down-rez?
Beyond that, I take what you're saying is that using this output it will only get encoded once going to the DVD. Is that correct?
Thanks,
John
Message was edited by: mojojones

Best output for HD media player?

I have a seven-hour project shot in high definition with the Sony PMW EX-1 at 1080i 60. All clips have been through Color and are now in Pro Res 422 HQ. There are six to eight tracks of audio as well. My goal is to output to a file to play on a media player, in this case the ASUS O!play. I want the highest quality possible. This will be used to play a continuous loop of nature footage.
The O!play will play H.264, and mpeg2/4. I've tried to use Export Sequence-Quicktime conversion. I've set options to:
Data rate: 10,000 kbits/sec
Size: 1920X1080 HD
Sound: 320 kbps
A three-day render of this huge project compressed the file size down to 28.9GB. While the overall picture quality is acceptable, there are motion artifacts--water does not look fluid and can appear blocky and sometimes briefly freezes or "hangs up", leaves in wind seriously blur--and some cross dissolves are not smooth. Must I accept this extreme degree of compression? File size is not an issue for me. I have a dedicated 1T hard drive feeding the media player via e-Sata cable.
I've also tried a sample through Compressor using the HDDVD 30-minute preset and making it a transport mpeg-2 and the same issues were there.

Back of napkin calculations tell me your 7 hour ProRes (HQ) movie would be about 500-600GB. Your H.264 version was 1/20th of that size.
Try changing the Keyframes from Automatic to 30, and set the Data Rate to 15,000 - your movie will probably double in size, but my guess is you'll get a better result.
Also - pick or create a 30 second problematic section - water/leaves/etc. That's small enough to do tests on. Play with the settings in Compressor (set up Compressor properly to take advantage of multiple CPU's - 1 instance for 2 processors - to minimize your compression times). Use that section as a test lab to dial in your settings. Instead of 3 days, you can home in on what you need quickly.
Post back with your results.
Patrick

Best practice for compressing images to uniform size?

What would be an effective method of compressing all the images (JPEG) used by an application to a uniform contentLength?
Initial thought is to generate a new copy using processCopy with successively smaller integer values for compressionQuality (in steps of 5 or 10 say) until a result smaller than the target length is achieved, then replace the original with the first suitable copy.

contentLength is decided by many factors such as height, width, compressionQuality.
If all images have same height and width, changing compressionQuality will help to get expected contentLength. But be care when using too small compressionQuality, which may make image quality poor.
Another way to have uniform contentLength is using TIFF format with NONE compression.

Best output for MOS Super 8 telecined project

I've finished my project (with the generous help found in this discussion group), which is now 1 hour 16 minutes of old Super 8 footage I've had telecined and transferred to digital files. No audio, just video. I'd like the end product to be a DVD playable on any computer or television in the best possible quality. I've started an export via Quick Time Conversion, but the time estimate keeps getting longer. It is now telling me at least 5 hours. Did I pick the wrong output format? Should it be Quick Time movie? And which settings should I use? Thanks in advance.

You should export to QuickTime Movie.

Best quality for compressing data vide file

Hi,I have a 5minute clip which I have been asked to burn on a normal cd as a data file.Whats the best exporting option I can use.should I use compressor? or should I go directly to the quicktime conversion option in final cut?
thanks

I hope I don't have this worng, but export>quicktime movie will only make a movie based on the currently selected sequence settings. Sure you can make some choices from the drop down menu, but the default is the current sequence setting.
So if this chap were working on a 320x240 video sequence with a horribly lossy compressor, then he'd end up with a pretty rough finished quicktime.
Choosing quicktime conversion does not necessarily compress the footage if you don't select a compression method that will destroy it. You can just as easily not compress it via this method. I would say that using Quicktime Conversion means you really have to know what you are doing so you get all the settings right to match your destination format.

Sony AVCHD + Voltaic HD = Best Output For iMovie?

After running into dead ends the past few months, trying to import HD video from my Sony HDR-SR5, I purchased Votaic HD. What is my best conversion type to maintain the best quality audio/video to edit in iMovie?

On Apple's iMovie '09 Camcorder Support page (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3290#2) it is rather odd that they list the Sony DCR-SR5 in amongst the HDR models. I'm wondering if that is a misprint. A Google search on DCR-SR5 comes up with many references to HDR-SR5, but nothing of significance on the DCR-SR5 - does it actually exist?
So, I'm thinking your model is actually supported. I have the Sony HDR-SR7 which works fine. But be aware that you must erase any SD (MPEG-2) content from the camera before iMovie '09 will recognise the HD (AVCHD) content. See this Apple article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1793
John

Best output for compress in Cleaner or Squeeze

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