Compressor Newbie

Compressor intimidates me.
I have yet to use it, even though I have been an FCP user since v3.0. But then again, mostly I have been doing 30-45 minute vids and haven't really thought I needed Compressor.
All that has changed. I have a 2:29:00 monster on my hands and need to cram it onto a single sided DVD.
Is this even possible? If so, what Compressor setting would y'all propose I use. Or, should I just hack out 30 minutes, somewhere?
Generally speaking, codecs and compressing are a black art to me, so I really need some tender, loving support here.
Jenny
1GHz Dual MDD Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2g ram, 4-300 HD, ATI 9800 Pro 23" Cinema Disp.

http://discussions.apple.com/post!reply.jspa?messageID=4395662
Alberto

Similar Messages

How to achieve good non-interlaced video using compressor (newbie question)

Dear all,
I am completely at sea but I know that I have to use the "none" setting for the field order and cannot for the life of me work this out.
Now- I usually export direct from Final Cut Pro (H.264, best quality etc etc) but this time the exported QT file just will not de-interlace (not my footage but I have to deliver the edit), come **** or high water.
So- a kind soul said to use Compressor... And to not use any field ordering.
But HOW? I watched videos, sought to use the instructions given me here but am still totally lost.
What I did:
1. Launched Compressor,
2. Dragged in the self-contained reference QT file from my desktop,
3. Picked a setting (H.264 which has field reordering ON by default),
4. Dropped the "setting" into the blue field to right of clip thumb,
5. Double-clicked the "setting" and then-
6. picked the "Encoder" button, as instructed but cannot change the Field Order.
Because Compressor is completely new to me I don't know if I ought to NOT pick a setting until I have it how I want it, saved it as a "custom setting" and THEN bring it into the project or if I am to do it once brought in to the project. Either way- how to change the field order to "none". Or should I pick a de-interlace filter? Just that I have been looking and testing and nothing I do creates a de-interlaced final file.
All the tutorial videos I have watched (erm- about 5 now) go over exporting and how to pick your settings from those which exist but what I need to know is how to change a setting to suit (ie get rid of the evil interlacing).
I am hoping someone here can give me a very simple step by step or point me in the direction of one.

Let me see if I can wrap my head around what you're trying to do. You started with an HD timeline 1280 x 720 (16:9). Into this you want to add your SD PAL clips, shrunk down for a picture in picture effect (a completely different concept from multicam.) But your shrunk down clips have nasty interlacing, and the one clip which was meant to be full frame looks like rubbish, right? Sorry but there's no way to blow a clip up 180% and have it look even halfway decent. At least not in FCP. Compressor has an upscale algorithm, available in the same Frame Controls tab where you did the de-interlacing, which can give you somewhat better results. There's also a plug-in from Red Giant called Instant HD which may or may not yield better results than Compressor.
Here's where you went wrong. The clips to be shrunk should have been deinterlaced before bringing them into FCP, and into your sequence. Go ahead and do this, using the ProRes 422 setting, with the deinterlacing technique from before.
Your sequence in FCP is fine, except that you want to change its compressor to ProRes 422 so that it matches your newly imported de-interlaced clips.
You want to de-interlace your P2 1080i clips beforehand as well. The other change to make to your sequence is to change Field Dominance to None.
If you've already finished your edit, you can still do all of the de-interlacing, outputting all of the results to a new folder. But you have to do every source clip in its entirety if you want to re-link to retain your edit.
When Compressor's done - this will probably take all night - open your FCP project, select all the source clips, right-click and choose Reconnect Media. Locate the newly de-interlaced ProRes clips and Connect.
Then you only need to export your sequence as a Quicktime Movie, Current Settings, Self-contained. This will give you a pristine master which will play fine on your computer, and from which you may then use Compressor to create a web or dvd version as needed.

Batch seems to be named... but won't submit cos it doesn't think it is..

I'm a compressor newbie converting 40 wav files to mp3. I've set up all the files with settings and destinations and as far as I'm aware I've saved the batch with a name (by saving it in the file menu) - It certainly has the saved batch name on the tab in the batch window. So.. I go to submit it and it says I haven't named the batch. I'm on v3.0.5. Can anyone help - I just don't get what I'm missing here?!?

Sounds like this issue:
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/compressorerror__you_must_enter_a_name_for_this_batchsubmission.html

Newbie despaired: compressor 1.02 NO SOUND with H264

I'm a newbie, so please forgive my question, it could be a silly one.
I tried compressing a vob directly in compressor 1.02 to h264. I created a quicktime profile for it as there was none in compressor. I tried everything, but no matter what I get no sound in the compressed mov!
This is driving me nuts - I spent the whole of last night on this.
Can someone tell me what is wrong (sound works on my dual G5-tiger, no problem)
Gratefully and exhausted
Totoro

yes you got my problem right -oops demuxing... I haven't tried that one yet :-c I'm a graphic artists and i've been told by a client: there, we've got FCP on that G5, do you stuff... sigh, thanks dog there is a forum such as this one!!!
all advise most welcome (and no, the project is too small and short of money to pay a specialist to do it :-cc)
cheers
Totoro

Compressor 4 - Newbie

I know this sounds dumb, but I cannot find any video or audio filters in Compressor 4.
I've used FCP X and Send to Compressor. The Inspector window has A/V Attributes, Additional Information and Job Action. Nothing regarding filters. What am I missing?
Thanks!

Select your settings in the job and open Inspector, You'll see a filters tab – fourth one to the right.
Russ

NEWBIE- CONVERTING NTSC PROJECT TO PAL USING COMPRESSOR (?)

Hi all- thanks for any help you can offer.
I am taking a project(instructional dvd) with six chapters that I have completed in NTSC. I was told that if I want to now go to PAL, that I could go back to final cut pro 5, make quicktime movies of each chapter then put them in compressor with pal settings and make mpeg2's out of them. Then I create a new dvd studio pro project in pal and go from there. When I did that (IS that the way to go?) it seemed as if compressor took waaaay too little time to compress the chapter. Just looking for some advice on the most sure fire way (short of importing and re-editing all my clips in final cut) to convert my ntsc quicktime movies to a pal format that I can use to make a pal dvd.
Thanks so much
suz6
g5 quad Mac OS X (10.4.9) final cut studio fcp 5/ pro dvd studio pro 4

Hi:
Read this recent post in Compressor forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1015451&tstart=0
Hope that helps !
Alberto

Comparing video quality of AVCHD BluRay discs using Final Cut Pro Share vs Compressor

Up front, I will admit to being a newbie when it comes to using Final Cut Studio 3 and would appreciate some feedback from the Apple forum experts.
I have spent a lot of time trying to determine how to achieve an optimum group of Compressor 3.5.2 settings so that the playback video quality of an AVCHD BluRay disc is equal to or better than one created by using the simpler auto settings of FCPro Share, version 7.0.2.
When using Compressor’s auto/default maximum settings, I experienced the same error message reported in:
Error MessageDuring Creation of Blu-ray Disc in FCP and Compressor 3.5
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12073794#12073794
I have since made some Compressor AVCHD Discs with smaller bit rate settings and compared video quality with a single FCP Share AVCHD disc. Both seem to be equal in providing a very good video when viewed on my new Panasonic DMP BDT 310 BluRay player. However, the Compressor AVCHD discs show some motion artifacts not present with the FCPro Share version, especially when scrolling text or when objects are moving through the field of view, and visible artifacts are seen from a stationary chain link fence and other lattice work in the background of the video sample.
My sample video used for the comparisons between Compressor and FCP Share discs is a 21 minute duration home movie, originally captured from a mini DV, Canon HV30 1080i camcorder using ProRes HQ encoding(1440x1080), and dragged into FC Pro 7.0.2 timeline where 10 chapter markers have been inserted.
To create an AVCHD disc using FCPro Share, Markers are used to set the IN and OUT points, Select IN to OUT from the timeline, pull down File Menu Share, Select Create BluRay from options in pop out Share pane, and designate output device along with picture files for Background, Logo, and Title options. When these are completed, click on Export. My 21-minute video required almost two hours for encoding including about 10 minutes for burning. This accomplished on an iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.
To prepare this same 21-minute video for use with Compressor, I again Select IN to Out from the FCPro timeline, but this time use File Export as a QuickTime Self Contained movie including Chapter markers. Then Open Compressor, choose Create BluRay from Template pane, right click on the down arrow in the Batch window and load the QT self contained movie file. From there I went to the Inspector window and tried various combinations of bit rate settings along with Frame Encoder options such as Better or Best motion parameter controls.
I have tried the following combinations of Bit rate settings along with varying Frame Encoder controls and burned an AVCHD disc for each example:
Example A
Compressor set to 6 Mbps Average and 8Mbps Maximum, Frame Encoder settings OFF. Approximately 4 hours to encode although the time remaining estimator indicated a larger value of ~7 hours; not an accurate estimator at all.
Example B
Compressor set to 6 Mbps Average and 8Mbps Maximum, Frame Encoder settings ON, using “Better (Linear Filter) and Better (Motionadaptive)” settings. Approximately 4 hours to encode, not the 13 hours that were estimated.
Conclusion: Comparing A & B Compressor versions, Disc B showed some improvements in reducing motion artifacts over Disc A.
Example C
Compressor set to 13 Mbps Average and 15 Mbps Maximum, Frame Encoder settings ON, using “Better (Linear Filter) and Better (Motion adaptive)” settings. Multipass checked. DeInterlace was checked. Unknown hours to encode; about 8 hours done overnight..
Conclusion: Disc C showed some minor improvements reducing motion artifacts over Disc B
Example D
Compressor Auto settings,i.e., 15 Mbps Average and 17 Mbps Maximum, Frame Encoder settings ON, using “Better (Linear Filter) and Better (Motion adaptive)” settings. Multipass checked. Approximately 12 hours to encode, done overnight. Inserted disc next morning after the overnight encoding was completed, and a few minutes later an error message pane appeared that the maximum bit rate had been exceeded. This message was consistent with the Apple posted thread referenced above. Unfortunately the long overnight encoding was wasted.
It seemed to me that the best Compressor settings for suppressing the motion artifacts were displayed by the disc burned in Example C, i.e., 13/15 Ave/Max Mbps with“Better” Motion settings in the Frame Encoder.
However, when this disc was compared to the AVCHD Disc burned using the FCPro Share, the latter still seemed much better. I do not know what the auto bit rate values are as set in FC Pro, but for me, the quality is quite good AND the motion artifacts are significantly reduced, especially evident with the scrolling text.
Sorry about this long post, but I thought the detail would be necessary for the experts, and maybe helpful to others trying to get started in this BluRay arena. Did I misuse Compressor? I think the sample video exported as a self contained QT movie was the right thing to do? Not sure where I went wrong.
Thanks in advance for Feedback and Recommendations. For now, I’m going to stay with the simpler process using Final Cut Pro Share function.
BoBo

Thank You, Brad, for responding; glad to hear I'm not the only one having similar Compressor issues.
You may have hit on something. Perhaps Compressor's use of H.264 encoding was the reason for my motion artifacts? And perhaps Final Cut Pro Share retains the 1440x1080 quality as it burns the AVCHD BluRay disc?
I had Toast 10 for less than 30 days a couple of years ago, and was lucky to get a refund.
What version of Toast do you have? Wondering if new Toast 11 has improved previous bugs, especially upgrading its Chapter text, pictures, music. I would go back to Toast if it came close to mirroring DVD Studio Pro, or even iDVD capabilities.
Thanks,
BoBo

Can Compressor 4 remove duplicate frames?

I have some videos which were converted to 30fps from a lower frame count. It was obviously a simple conversion that duplicated frames as needed.
The problem is, when I use these videos for slow motion, the duplicated frames cause the slow motion to "pause". In order to fix this, I have to remove the duplicated frames (obviously I don't care about sound, and I don't care about time sync). Once the duplicated frames are removed, the slow motion is nice and smooth.
In the past, I've always done this with very short clips, so I can do it manually. I open the video in QTP, advance one frame at a time, and when I see a duplicate, I delete it. Since there's always a pattern, depending on what the lower frame rate was, this can be done reasonably quickly, for very small clips. But it's obviously a tedious process.
I was wondering a few things:
1) Can Compressor 4 fix this issue for me? I've tried a few things in Compressor, but no help yet. I'm just a relative newbie, so that's not surprising.
2) Are there any other utilities that might help? Something that removes duplicate frames, for example?
3) These clips were already converted when I received them. However, in the future, when I convert a lower fps to 30fps for the purposes of doing slow motion, how should I do this in Compressor so as to have smooth slow motion at 30fps? Again, I don't care about audio.
I've done a few days worth of searching, but I still havent found the answers. Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks!
Dan

The Reverse Telecine didn't remove the extra frames. Who knows - maybe the frames aren't exact duplicates, although for the most part, they look it to the naked eye, which I realize doesn't mean much.
Oh well, doing it by hand isn't the end of the world. I've probably spent more time trying to figure out an automatic method, than it would have taken to do it by hand. But of course, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's ever done that...
Thanks for trying. As I've been searching for help on other things, it's amazing how many times one of your posts helps. So you've helped me plenty, for which I thank you.
Dan

What else can I use beside Compressor?!

Compressor is now useless to me. Unknown time remaining will not fix. What else can I use? Anyone know?

Look, we understand your frustration and, since we've been hanging out here a long time, we differentiate newbie issues as separate from actual or legitimate problems by seeking information newbies refuse or simply do not understand how to supply. You've added significant information that will allow us to assist you.
Compared to the hundreds of thousands of successful and happy Compressor users, "plenty of people" is not significant.
The next post in this thread suggests your only hope is a complete system wipe and reinstallation. Do you want to try that and report back to us?
It is useless if it doesnt work and yes I've never gotten to use it. I have used lessons on lynda.com. It's not that I don't know what I'm doing. Try a simpler batch, I was using the simplest of batches. The setting is conventional. I spent time on the phone with 2 different Apple tech people who know compressor. I assure you I have spent the entire day trying to fix this to no avail.
I've learned that plenty of other people have this same problem with no solution being offered here or from Apple.
<
bogiesna

Do I need to render before Compressor?

Sorry about this newbie question. After coming back from Color, my timeline has the red lines on top of the clips. Do I need to render before to straight export via Compressor ? Or is Compressor sort of does the render? thx.

It makes no difference whether you render or not because FCP hands over the raw frames to Compressor. Compressor ignores all FCP render files.

Export using Compressor - How?

I just got DVDSP, v3, and now the "Export>Using Compressor" menu option is available. When I selected it, I couldn't figure out how to get my files to be accessible in Compressor without first doing a "QuickTime Conversion".....
So, why and/or how the purpose for "Export>Using Compressor"???
Or do I even want to do this? From what I read on the forums, it sounds like I will get the best quality final product on my pushing-the-time-limits DVD that was shot with marginally acceptable quality video (DV) by tweaking the presets in Compressor. So that sounds like I need to get uncompressed files into Compressor (....and figure out how to "tweak" it....).
If I just drop a .fcp (Final Cut Express Movie File) into DVDSP, will there be any loss of quality vs using Compressor on its own first?
Well, I guess this shows my inexperience, to be sure, and I apologize to the forum for asking "newbie" questions....
Thanks in advance for the help!
CD

There are no batch send to Compressor, but you should be able to send them one after the other and set them off in the Compressor queue.
after I start the first one the system locks me out until it is finished.
Not sure what's happening here. What versions are you using? This doesn't happen for me. I can set a number of projects one after the other to Compressor, set the process, submit it, and return to FCP to set up the next one. The Compressor queue goes through them one after the other in the order in which they're submitted.

Export Using Compressor locks up FCP

Im kind of a newb to compressor so bear with me.... I was under the impression that when you export using compressor from FCP that you were still able to edit and work within FCP as compressor is a separate program. However, whenever i use the export using compressor option i get a dialogue box in FCP that says 'compressor processing' and then it goes through my whole FCP timeline frame by frame. I know in the past i have exported using that option and was still able to work inside of FCP while compressor rendered. Could i have possibly changed some settings in compressor to cause this to happen?

This also is normal when compressing an HDV source sequence into h.264.
HDV is a Long-GOP format, which requires a lot of processing power to decode. H.264 is also a highly compressed format, which also takes processor power to use.
Depending on your machine, you may want to look into how to set up a Quickcluster.

Newbie with 2 problems

Hi,
I'm a newbie on DVDSP 3 trying to use stills for a project. There's one issue regarding this that I can't solve:
I am trying to make the menu (background) go from black (a black image or DVDSP's option for black frames) via a slow dissolve transition into a still image. I have tried previously making a clip of this in FCP, iMovie, PhotoToMovie and Still Life, but the outcome has been really low quality in all cases. Doing it with still directly in DVDSP seems to be best.
I have the options for transition set in the menu palette, starting with black and ending in the still, but no go.
I have also made a slideshow of this and turned it into a track, but don't know how to bring that into the menu - if it's even possible.
If someone can help regardless of the lousy description above, I would be very grateful.
The second issue is that the button I placed in the menu doesn't get solid colors (I've used the Apple Panes_Navy50p). When simulating, half of the button is "miscolored". I am probably doing something stupid, but what?
TIA for help.
Dan

We'll probably need more info. When you say...
I am trying to make the menu (background) go from black
(a black image or DVDSP's option for black frames)
via a slow dissolve transition into a still image
Do you mean "I want a menu that starts black, then gradually fades in the background menu image, and then my button options appear once the background has completely appeared"?
If so, then you're better off doing it as you first described. You'd create the entire sequence in Final Cut or something else, export it as a QuickTime movie, then encode it to MPEG2, then import it as your background image for your menu. You'd set the menu's Loop point to where your background image has completely faded in: that's the point where your buttons will appear.
You said you'd gotten "low quality" results when you tried doing this. Describe the issues with your results; also, describe how (or if) you converted your FCP clip to MPEG2. To get the best quality for this type of thing, you would NOT use a DV codec for your FCP sequence. You'd use one of the Apple Uncompressed codecs or the Animation codec... that way you get no compression of the image until you convert to MPEG2.
Also, you'd be better off using FCP's Export->Using Compressor option to encode your fade-in into MPEG2.
Can't help with the button as I rarely use the provided Apple Shapes. I'd recommend going with a different shape, or creating your own highlight with a black-on-white overlay graphic.

FCPX, Compressor and Dolby Digital 5.1

Hi all,
I had Final Cut Pro 7 HD and gone over to FCPX.
The Apple Store in Sydney told me to burn a disc with 5.1 surround sound I should export to Compressor. Tried but no sound. is it possible to burn to disc with 5.1 from FCPX?
I've been using FCP for around 10 years but FCPX is a bit of a learning curve. Even with FCP 7 never needed to use compressor as the movies I make are mainly for friends and family but now I have to have a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack. I understand DVD Studio Pro did that but it's very complicated so please, even though well versed in the old FCP, treat me as a newbie on the new version.
Basically I have footage captured with my new Sony HDR- CX190 and have imported into FCPX. I have some audio I want to dub over the top which is in 5.1 AC3 but the first export only one clip came out, not everything in the timeline and no audio so sent to Compressior and it asked for settings so added them and Compressor said the sound was 5.1 surround and I processed and it burned to DVD but no sound!
You're all probably laughing as it's probably so simple I'm overlooking something that's most likely staring me in the face:
What I need to know is once I have all of my video clips, transitions and 5.1 sound in FCPX - how the **** do I get that onto a DVD or Blu Ray disc that will play all of the footage and in 5.1 Dolby Digital?
Any help will keep me from pulling my hair out!
Thanks
Dan

Be sure you have nothing selected in the timeline, especially ranges. If you have a range selected, only that range will export.
In 10.0.6/7 in the Share menu you can go out either SD DVD or Blu Ray DVD, and if the audio in the timeline is surround sound, the dics should encode that way. But be sure the timeline/project is set for surround sound.
If this is a Project timeline, go to the Project library, highlight the project, go to the Inspector, the bottom right is a button with a wrench icon. Click that and verify that "Audio Channels" is set to "Surround".

5.1 mixes into Compressor; our experience

We just remastered a show in 5.1. We had some strange problems (like no center, LFE or surround channels!) when we exported from FCP to Compressor.
Our problem was indeed using "Export to Compressor" in FCP. The secret seems to be to Export each track as a Quick Time file and then dragging these into Compressor. You can actually drag each channel onto an icon in Compressor--it can handle up to 6.1 surround.
Be sure to keep each track at 48Khz. I think it might dither the tracks from 24 bit down to 16, but I'm not sure. (I was listening to our producer over the phone.)
Don't freak when the Batch window only shows one file--usually the first file you dragged into Compressor. All the other tracks are there.
Our 5.1 Dolby Digital AC-3 is PERFECT! (O.K. We are going to bring the C channel down a smidge, but the darn thing works!!)
Thought y'all would like to know this--we are newbies too and it's been a LONG road getting here. It is one extra step with the creating the Quick Time files, but it's worth it.
Power Mac G5 Quad 6.5 Gb RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Final Cut Pro, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro

can you help me with this....
i'm making a sample dvd that has one menu and one video track. when i go to export the audio (using final cut 4.5) to compressor using the dolby presets, it generates the file but the file does not play in DVD Studio pro 4.
I have ac3 files that i made with A.pack with dvd studio pro 2 and they work fine in DVD Studio Pro 4.
Can anyone tell me why i cant get compressor to output an ac3 file that can play in my dvd studio pro 4
I have to turn this project in ASAP.

Compressor Newbie

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