Compress to MPEG-2

Hello there,
I am using final cut express to make a movie that will be projected on large screen (2 or 3 windows high), so I am very concerned about the final quality of the DVD. I know that iDVD does a good job compressing .mov into mpeg-2. But is there a better way? There seems to be two categories out there, 600$ products like Sorenson Squeeze or Cleaner, and then there are products like popcorn or DVD2one for 40 $. Why so much difference??? I think that DVD studio pro is not sold on its own anymore . Thank you.

Unless you're willing to shell out the bucks for Final Cut Studio in order to get Compressor, you're going to be hard pressed to find anything at a lower price that beats iDVD. iDVD is one heck of a program, even though it looks simple on the outside.
Your projector is going to affect the final, visible video quality far more than iDVD's compression engine. Take the time to evaluate your projector.

Similar Messages

Please help-Trying to compress to Mpeg-2 for Convention, also resizing issues

Hello,
I just recently finished making an AMV in Adobe Premiere 5.5, and I am having trouble trying to figure out how to compress it into an Mpeg-2 source for a competition/convention.
I also have these massive black borders on the side of my video that I know is probably due to improper resizing on my part, and although I have tried to remedy this with a new avisynth script of the exported uncompressed AVI (before compressing to MPEG-2), whenever I try to run the avisynth script in either VirtualDubMod or TMPGEnc (the converting program recommended by: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/mpegforcons/) it crashes, although the original video does work.
This is the avisynth script I have created for the post-video:
FFVideoSource("C:\Users\Freeman\Desktop\Fight the Power.avi")
FFCopyrightInfringement("C:\Users\Freeman\Desktop\Fight the Power.avi")
AssumeFPS("23.976")
SSRC(48000)
LanczosResize(720,352)
AddBorders(0,64,0,64)
per the recommendations from the guide listed below
I do not know if the resizing I have set up in the new avisynth script will fix my resizing issues, and I would like to improve that as much as possible, so if someone could clarify for me, that would be greatly appreciated.
You may also notice some audio issues throughout the video, however on further playback this never appears to happen in the same place. I believe this is caused by poor audio quality, and I have a friend of mine working on setting up a lossless source that I will try to recompress with the video before friday, however if someone else might know what is causing this, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Here is the current MPEG-2 I have, however for obvious reasons, I do not consider it acceptable as of yet:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IIKYWRXF
The original export from Premiere is Microsoft AVI Uncompressed, and then attempted to convert to MPEG-2 (I tried multiple settings, they all have the same sizing issues), and as I said before, no matter what I try to do with the avisynth script, it crashes.
I have even tried taking out every line from the new avisynth script except for the first two detailing the location of the video and audio, however this does nothing, it still crashes.
I had to convert all my original source avisynth scripts to AVI files (that are massive, as I am editing from 52 episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood), and so editing the original scripts is impossible at this point, because to my knowledge, that would mean I would have to reconvert them all to AVI, which took over 16 hours, and then that would probably make me have to re-edit this entire video (which if you look at it, based on length and how much work I've put into it: is impossible, especially given the time constraints).
So anything that I can do to fix this will have to be done to the export from Premiere, unless there is a way to work with the AVI's that I made from the avisynth scripts.
The source is primarily 16:9 DVD (Fullmetal Alchemist) and very few parts from a 4:3 DVD (Naruto). (You can recognize these parts in the video, it is whenever someone is rowing in a boat during the lyrics "Row Row")
The avisynth script for all the fullmetal alchemist DVD's is as follows:
mpeg2source("F:\DVD RIPS\Music Video Rips\Brotherhood\Disc 1 (1-7)\MainMovie\FMA_BROTHERHOOD_P1_D1\FMAB 1-7.d2v", cpu=4)
ConvertToYV12()
Spline36Resize(848,480)
#TTempSmooth()
FastLineDarkenMod()
LSFmod(strength=120)
LUTDeRainbow()
And the avisynth script for the one Naruto DVD is as follows:
mpeg2source("F:\DVD RIPS\Music Video Rips\Random\Row Row\MainMovie\ROW ROW\VTS_01_1.d2v")
TFM()
TDecimate()
Spline36Resize(848,636)
Crop(0,78, 0,-78)
These recommendations came from what I could figure out from:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech31/
If anyone is curious, the song is "Libera me from Hell", and it is 44100 from what I could tell when I ran it in WINAMP (I converted it from mp3 to wav through WINAMP, if there is a better way that I am unaware of, please let me know).
I know this is extremely long, and thank you anyone who has taken their time to look through it, it is greatly appreciated.
The deadline for this is friday (5/20/11), so I need help with this ASAP and thanks,
Dexter

Dexter,
Those "black borders," if they are visible in the Program Monitor, are most likely due to a mis-match between the Source Files and the Sequence Preset.
If they are only showing up upon Export, then there is likely a mis-match between your Sequence and your Export, and could be either with the Aspect Ratio, or if using non-square pixels, the PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio).
I'll defer any commens on AVISynth to the experts here.
Good luck,
Hunt

Compressing an mpeg 4

Hi I have a 30 min DV pal 16.9 sequence that I would like to compress for the web I saw wondering what is the best way to go about compressing an mpeg and what the frame size would be to keep the 16.9 ratio
any info on this would e v helpful
thanks
sam

First, export to QuickTime from FCP with current settings. This can either be a Self Contained or Reference Movie -that's up to you.
Open the result in QuickTime Player. Press command and J keys. click on the Presentation tab and choose Conform Aperture. It should jump to the Clean Setting.
Go to File > Export for Web. The default settings will make a pretty good movie.
Smaller version: choose File > Share > Email > Large. This will give you an excellent quality to data size ratio.

Question about "RE-COMPRESSION" of mpeg 4 files

First off this is a great forum. It has answered many questions. This is my first post.
This is my workflow.
1. I have a massive library of Betacam tapes that I am archiving ( over 2000) average length 45 minutes)
2. I capture them from a betacam deck, thru a canopus adcvc 110, at SD, No problems.
3. I wind up with media files that are like 15 gigs. I have over 40 terabytes of external storage, I use firewire 800 (so far, so good)
4. I then take the media files, drag them to the timeline, edit etc, add graphics from motion etc
5. I then simply play the timeline via firewire to a dv, video deck, and send the tape to the tv station, they closed caption it and it hits the air
(so life is great, this works perfect)
Here comes the question
1. After having done that, I use the "send to compressor" function, to generate an mpeg 4 file, which instead of 12 gigs is like less than one, it looks great.
2. This file is then uploaded to an ftp site, given a description, and then put on the website for viewing or purchase.
3, since I have like 2000 tapes, do the math, if each one takes 12 gigs....lots of drives.
4. Most tapes are NOT edited for television broadcast, I just find a good in and out point for a fade, compress it, shoot it to ftp and im done.
5. Recently I have begun deleting the 12 gig files, sine I have the messages in mpeg 4...to avoud buying several petabytes of storge.
SOOOO
After all that, here is my question.
If I want to edit a program that I have in the archive, that the decision has been made to broadcsat for some reason, If I drag the MPEG$ file onto the timeline, edit it from a 50 minute down to a 28:30, drop in green screen cut aways, grapics, lower thirds animated transitions between clips, titles, etc...
Render it.
THEN play it directly from the timeline via firewire to the mini dv deck...
How much quality will I lose on the base video, which is mpeg 4, as compared to the 12 gig media file?
Does it "re- compress" in some way?
should I just suck it up and pay for storage for the 12 gig files that probably will never use for broadcast?
or can I use an MPEG 4 file as my "main video" and not come out looking like an amature moron?
Does any of that make sense? or is it TMI from an idiot?
I come from the analoge days, D-3's and D-5's, grass valley 200 switcher, pinnacle dve's, 18 Ikegamis shooting NFL football. Betacams, D-1's, sattelite uplinks. all in good old NTSC 525...
So bear with an old man.
Any assistance would be great.
Can I edit using an MPEG4 file and not get burned?
Be well all.
Michael D, Fodor.
heritagechristiancenter.com
San diego.
cya stay out of the heat...

You probably won't have a huge loss in quality-- as you say yourself, the MPEG4 looks pretty good for it's file size. I won't get into a debate about whether or not it's the best option for archival, that's another thread.
But as long as you're editing in FCP (7), you'll want to convert it to something else before importing. ProRes is a pretty standard choice. Otherwise it'll be nothing but pain. You can still archive in MPEG-4, but for those that you pull from the archive to re-broadcast, recompress them to ProRes.

Video compression h264/MPEG-4 AVC

hi guys,
I need to export a file in mp4 container with h264 compression. The result shows h.264/MPEG-4 AVC compression which is h.264, right? If I undestood it right h.264 and MPEG-4 AVC compression is the same thing, right? just wanted to be sure...
thanks and have a nice day!

thanks
I had already tried but not working
The video is ok with all the preset that match 720p ...but not the audio
...i think is a codec issue

Preserving original interlacing while compressing to MPEG-2 video?

One of our partner companies seems to have trouble creating interlaced MPEG-2 .m2v files using Compressor -- it always comes out progressive, no matter what options are used. Perhaps a bit of (boring) background to understand the situation:
We are a non-profit and currently negotiating with a third party to receive many hundreds of their videos for a streamable version of their video archive we're building. The originals are losslessly compressed and for some reason interlaced -- they were probably taken from Beta SP tape that way.
Our archival system would like to take MPEG-2 as "high-quality" (comparatively) input and then renders to many formats (H.264 etc.) in many containers for streaming. We do deinterlacing on those input files, if they come interlaced.
We would like to preserve this MPEG-2 file for future compression runs in future streaming formats that don't exist yet, so we think it makes sense to stay as close as possibe to the losslessly compressed original format that the third party gave us.
Can Compressor preserve the interlacing that was in the lossless source file or is this pointless? Does Compressor need to deinterlace the material anyway in order to be able to compress?
If there is no way to preserve the original interlacing and if a deinterlacing pass is part of the compression process anyway, then we'll ask for progressive material from Compressor, otherwise it would be nice to stay close to the source.
Any opinion or information is much appreciated

Thanks a lot for your response. Yes, it's 25 fps PAL video, I have one version in Apple Lossless and one in DV. So far I have tried the DV version, because I'm certain that one is interlaced. More tests with lossless follow today.
But as I understand it, most codecs today are block-based and thus would need a non-interlaced full picture to work at all? It doesn't make sense to look for blocks in material that comes in cut up bits and pieces, one half-picture per frame? So from that perspective, it would make sense for Compressor to deinterlace the source material before encoding it anyway, whether we tell it to or not.
Thanks for confirming that MPEG-2 output can be interlaced with Compressor, that's one less thing to worry about. What I'm left wondering is whether it is even mathematically possible to preserve the original interlacing through to the output MPEG-2
I'm doubting this more and more.
Probably using decent-quality deinterlacing in Compressor and making the resulting MPEG-2 progressive would do more to preserve the quality of the source material.

Mac Pro 8-core slow compression on MPEGs

My Mac Pro 8-core with 9GB of RAM is very slow compared to my G5 Dual 2.7GHz with 2.5GB on doing MPEGs... the problem only exist with MPEGs in Compressor 3 or 3.0.1. All other formats the Mac Pro gives the G5 a thrashing. I've read in here that many people have it the other way around.. that MPEGs are supposedly more multiprocessor capable.
Both with using virtual clusters (4 instances) and no virtual clusters I'm getting around 52 minutes on a DVCPRO HD 720/24p clip which is exactly 6 minutes in length. The G5 dual 2.7GHz with 2.5GB of RAM did this job in 21 minutes and 33 seconds.
On the Mac Pro I've erased my system and reinstall with just FCS2 on the system... still the same speeds. I've taken out the 2x4GB sticks.. still the same speeds. I've moved the 6 minute clip onto different volumes still the same problem. I've tried other DVCPRO HD clips.. still the same.
The problem only happens with the DVD 90-150 presets regardless of quality. Does not occur with the HD DVD presets or H.264.
Mac Pro configuration:
Mac Pro 3GHz 8 core
9GB of RAM (2x512mb, 2x4GB)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT with dual 30 inch ACDs
3TB of internal Hard Drive storage... one unraided 750GB for system files.. 3 RAID 0 for Scratch.
AJA KONA LHe capture card
Runiing Final Cut Studio 2 with compressor 3.0.1
G5 configuration:
Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz
2.5GB of RAM (2x256MB, 4x512MB)
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL with 23" ACD
250GB + 160GB internal Hard Drives.
Running final Cut Studio 2 with Compressor 3.0.1
Any help would be appreciated... I've tried everything in my technical powers to solve this one.

Made a new DVD: MPEG-2 custom setting with an average bit rate of 7.7Mbps... still slow... about 50 minutes to complete the 6 minute DVCPRO HD 720/24p clip. The compressor daemons are averaging around 60MB of Real Memory and 450MB of virtual memory. I really think this lack of memory usage is causing the problem. This only happens on the DVD 90-150 MPEG-2 presets. Any other format is grabbing at least 200MB per daemon... including HD DVD MPEG-2 and DVD MPEG-1. I will continue to test different settings and pray for a change.
Getting all compressord (Not Responding) for each 4 instances in the virtual cluster when I run the DVD 90-150 MPEG-2 presets. The batch monitor is still reporting progress. Real memory usage fluctuating in the 60's per daemon and around 450MB's for Virtual Memory. Compressor daemons not responding is a problem solely on the DVD 90-150 MPEG-2 presets.
No major difference in speed between CBR or VBR custom presets... memory usage still in the 60's per compressor daemon.
With Job Segmenting turned off & One Pass CBR... 20 minutes to job completion. The memory usage is around 65MB of Real Memory and 450MB of Virtual Memory. CPU activity on the one active compressor daemon is averaging around 460%.
One thing I am learning is that processor activity as reported by Activity Monitor is not a reflection of speed.
Message was edited by: Trancepriest
Message was edited by: Trancepriest

Getting video compressed in MPEG Streamclip for use in FCE

I have AVI video created by a Flip Video device. The video and audio work fine in QT, VLC, and in the Flip Video software. However, when I open the video in MPEG Streamclip I get video but no sound! I need it to open in Streamclip so I can convert it to DV video for editing in FCE.
Following conversion there is still no sound. Any suggestions??

Where are you monitoring the sound? In what application? Did you export from Streamclip to DV or to QuickTime?

How do i compress to mpeg 20 mb file in compressor?

I have a video parts in 1080p, and other pieces in standard def. 3 minutes in length I'm sending to compressor. It has to be avi or mpeg file no larger then 20 mb and the smallest I have gotten was 38 mb using the mpeg -1 settings. any suggestions?

Well. since AVI is a container, I would imagine the MPEG requirement can be fulfilled by MP4, which is a container with h.264.
Even so, your data rate needs to be too low to allow decent quality at full res.
So try the HTTP Streaming, Broadband Low setting and see if that does reduces it enough. That will give you a 640x360 frame size and a bit rate of about 2.5 Mb/s in an MP4 wrapper. Should look decent – certainly better than the MPEG-1. (If it is still too big, you can back off the bit rate.)
Good luck.
Russ

Question Regarding Audio in MPEG-2 Compression

Hi,
I have recently been on holiday and wish to compress some stock footage which is taking up ridiculous amounts of space on my Mac. Not only will it be saving me precious HDD space, but I wish to put it on DVD at a later date too and know that MPEG 2 is the standard for SD DVDs.
My problem is with the audio when compressing for MPEG-2. I Understand that both have to be compressed separately so I'm converting the video with a dolby soundtrack, but how do I join them again?
Alternatively, theres the option of checking a box so the audio is multiplexed however the end result always seems to be a file thats unreadable by all applications on my Mac (All software is up to date and I own the entire FCP studio)?
It's a slightly 'Noobish' question I guess, and I'm thinking I'm in the wrong section altogether now oops and maybe I should be looking up how to use DVD Studio Pro?
But any help/ Guidance would be great for an amateur like myself who's just starting out with trying to get his head around the Pro Suites.
Thanks in Advance.

Hi:
My problem is with the audio when compressing for MPEG-2. I Understand that both have to be compressed separately so I'm converting the video with a dolby soundtrack, but how do I join them again?
You don't need to join them again ! You must import both audio and video files in DVDSP and place them in the same track.
You must choose the right DVD enoding preset depending on your footage lenght in minutes and encode your video as MPEG2 and your audio to Dolby 2 (AC3). Giving both files same name (i.e. movie1.mpg & movie1.ac3) will help you to organize your assets in DVDSP.
Visit the DVDSP forum and use the Search feature. You'll find a lot of good info in previous posts.
Hope that helps !
Alberto

MPEG Compression for PowerPoint?

Hi,
I have some MPEG files that need to be in a PowerPoint presentation, but needs to be compressed more to take up less space on the company's POS system. I only have MPEG files, no original/other formats to work from. How do I compress the MPEG files in Premiere?
Thank you,
Jennifer

Do they open and run in Premiere?
If so...try to re encode them via Adobe Media Encoder.
It will be trial and error.

Can Pr Elements read H.264/MPEG-4 AVC ?

Premiere Elements 7 has been fine for my limited purposes until now, but I've recently started using wildlife cameras, which record video in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec in an AVI wrapper. The resulting videos play perfectly well on Windows Media Player, and can be edited by Windows Movie Maker, but Premiere Elements 7 won't read them.
Is there a way I can persuade PrE7 to read this sort of video? If that's not an option, does anyone know if PrE12 can read them?

Blacknest
Thank you for the opportunity to take a look at your .avi files which both appear to have H.264 video compression and MPEG Audio (probably MP2) 2 channel. That video presented an atypical one for Premiere Elements in its 1280 x 720 @ 18.000 progressive frames per second. MediaInfo read the video compression as H.264 rather than the avc1 which it typically uses to represent AVCHD (MPEG2 AVC/H.264). We could dig deeper into any subtle differences here in the naming and other for H.264 versus AVCHD. But the best course of action comes from the great contribution of John T. Smith and your follow up on that to get your video into Premiere Elements.
I looked at changing the file extension from .avi to the types that I mentioned previously, including .mp4. All would not import into Premiere Elements. Premiere Elements did accept the .avi file, but only the audio was represented. I was able to convert your H.264.avi into H.264.mp4 using VLC Player converter component. That H.264.mp4 did import into Premiere Elements, but, although there was a video component represented, its thumbnail was distorted.
You did a great job with the Dropbox download setup.
Please update us on your progress with the Premiere Elements editing and export of your H.264.mp4 video now that you have gotten into a format that Premiere Elements will accept. From what you wrote, the video compression is supposed to be the same as the original. It is just the file extension that has been changed. Is that correct?
Continued success and congratulations to you and John T. Smith on a job well done.
ATR

Converting an MPEG to JPEG

I downloaded a movie clip from my camera to the computer and the default format was .MPG with a file size of 37.8MB I want to share this file through email and when I compress it into a .zip file, it only reduces to about 34.7MB. Is there a way to change the format to the much smaller .JPG format?
Thanks!

MPG is short for MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group). MPEG defines a set of standards for compression of low-to-moderate resolution full-motion video. In your specific case, it is probably video matching the MPEG-2 specification for video data compression. MPEG-2 (with some additional constraints) is the format used on DVDs. It's not very compressible. The zip file you created is only smaller because there's a little bit of redundancy in the beginning of each frame.
JPG is short for JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). It's a standard for compression of low to very-high resolution still images.
You cannot turn a whole movie into a photograph, but you can turn individual frames of a movie into photographs. Note that if you convert every frame of a movie into a JPEG, the result will be several-times bigger than the movie itself.
You can open your video in quicktime and use the export function to export to Picture or Image Sequence and use the Options... button to specify you want JPEG(s).
Alternatively, if you Quicktime Pro, you can re-encode the video and scale it using the h.264 codec and make it quite smaller.

MPEG 2 in FC Studio

I just finished a project and need to compress into MPEG 2. I don't have the option in FC, yet I purchased FC Studio so I have DVD Studio Pro. Never had this problem with FCP 4 &DVD Studio 2. Help!
Paul Towne

Yar, you can also try searching the forum for MPEG-2 and variations on the spelling. We see the topic at least weekly and several folks have suggestions. Be aware, the MPEG2 functions of Compressor may not yield satisfactory results. We've been hearing that complaint since Studio shipped so be sure to check and search the Compressor forum, too.
BTW: You can get to DVDSP with a reference file.
bogiesan

AVI vs MPEG-2?

Hi everyone,
Can anyone tell me which Container/Format(AVI or MPEG-2) gives better video and sound quality after it's converted (encoded) to watch on a regular standalone DVD player?
Rio.

AVI is a container format, and can contain any number of compression formats (mpeg, DivX, DV, etc). You can make an AVI file with mpeg2 compression should you choose.
However, the extension used for mpeg2 files when authoring a DVD is .m2v (audio should be separate AIFF or AAC file), and you should stick with that. It should also be noted that AVI is primarily a Windows format, and that OS X tends to use Quicktime for all its video needs.
As far as quality is concerned, that depends entirely on your compression settings for mpeg2.

Compress to MPEG-2

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