Quality loss within FCE

Hi there,
I've imported a .mov into FCE, but when I look at it in the Canvas window it looks all grainy and bad (compared to the original, that is). Look at http://www.sparkreclame.nl/example.png to see what I mean... Left is the original mov in the viewer, right is placed on a timeline.
The movie is rendered, and even when exported to Quicktime Movie it's bad...
Any help?

,mov doesn't mean anything. DV can be .mov. HDCAM can be .mov. When you put it into a DV sequence you're converting the material to an interlaced television. The format is designed for display on a television set only. You must monitor your output on a video monitor or television set. QuickTime player playback has to be set to high quality to see the full format. The viewer displays your original video, whatever that is, while the Canvas usually displays a limited resolution output in DV.

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Any Quality loss in FCE using H.264

I have shot video using the new Canon SX30is with 720p. The files are H.264 (1280x720). I have put them directly into FCE and then rendered them. This took some time, but worked fine. My question is did I loose any quality be doing this? I saved it as a QT. I want to get Roxio 10 Toast Titanium w/HD plugin. Basically I'm asking if the edited video is in 720? In FCE I set the sequence to 720.
Thanks,
Rod

Thanks for the quick response. I have streamclip and have tried it, but not sure about the settings. The streamclip default export settings to QT are as follows - Compression: Apple Motion JPEG A, 1260x720 (unscaled), I can set quality to 100%, Interlaced Setting checked, and Field Dominance: Upper Field First.
Not sure where 'converting AIC' is located or if it part of exporting to QT.
Since I have completed editing, I will leave it, but would like to know how to use streamclip in the future.
Thanks for your help skalicki.

Tif export quality loss

hi,
i exported a tif sequence from a mp4 in premiere (cs6) to do some compositing on it. the exported images look the same but when doing some color correction on it the tif sequence reveals that it's in lower quality.
the left side is the tif export with significant less detail.
i also tried ae with color management but i always had the same problem.
rendering with 'use max depth' and 'use max quality' did not solve the problem.
did i miss something or is premiere processing some colors wrong internally?
(as a sidenote, quicktime player, nuke, vegas12 worked just fine)

hi,
it looks like the problem is related to mpeg 4. i did not have time to do further testing. here is the file info:
Format                         : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile                 : Advanced Simple@L3
Format settings, BVOP          : Yes
Format settings, QPel          : No
Format settings, GMC           : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix        : Default (H.263)
it did not occur with other videos.
the interesting thing is that the quality is fine within the timeline. but upon output there is a quality loss.
no, output is 8bit. as mentioned in the first post 'use max depth' did not solve the problem.
quicktime based applications did not have the issue.
as for the color shift problem i thought it is related to the same issue but it was something different and is fixed now. i was unable to edit the post to remove it.

HELP! iPhoto 08 Quality loss after edits

HELP! iPhoto 08 Quality loss after edit!
Any edited version, no matter how minor, causes the file size to be cut in half!
Original 3872 x 2592 is 3.1mb at 300dpi .
Edit version 3870x2590 becomes 1.5Mb at 72dpi.
B&W conversion 3872x2592 becomes 1.6mb at 72dpi.
Seems like a major degradation! iPhoto 6 wasn't this bad.
DPI change is not a problem but the file size change sure is!
PLEASE! any ideas before I upgrade all my files to 08. Please - don't say Aperture, it's still too slow and cumbersome. Trying to avoid Lightroom and stay within Apple sphere.

It really isn't a big degradation. There is a jpg compression when you make any edit but you might be hard pressed to see the reduction unless you're enlarging/printing the file to very large sizes. The most critical part of an image file is the number of pixels in it.
The reduction in size depends on the image content of the photos. If there's a lot of the same color, i.e. like lots of blue sky or a same color wall, that type of image will see much more compression than a very intricate photo. Also when removing the color information for a B/W conversion reduces the file size considerably. Do a Google search for jpeg compression and you'll find some very informative descriptions on how the compression is performed and what part image detail plays in the resulting file size.
You would have to compress the file a number of additional times time before you'd see the change. And with iPhoto's Revert to Original capability, you can start a new edit fresh with the untouched digital negative.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Export quality loss

I must be missing something. Is there some place I can read all about codecs and video formats and how to export from FCE without massive quality losses?
Typical example:
I download a one-minute video in MPEG-4 format. It's 114MB, 1280x720, uses AAC and H.264 codecs, and data rate is 14 Mbit/sec. The QuickTime inspector says "millions" (of colors, presumably) and 60 fps. Video quality is excellent.
I edit it in FCE, and when I try to export it, there is severe quality loss, even when I set the bit rate very high.
Can somebody clue me in as to what I need to do to preserve the original quality?
Message was edited by: G Robert Lewis

Thanks. I got through the use of MPEG Streamclip OK, but I'm at a loss how to create an HD sequence that matches the clip's specs. None of the "settings" or "preferences" or "properties" I've looked at seem to cover the needed options. "Easy Setup" came the closest, but a matching resolution spec wasn't available.

What quality loss is there when cam videos are compressed sent over email?

What quality loss is there when sending videos taken with the iPhone 3GS over email? It seems that it's being compressed in preparation for being sent over email.

Hi Ric,
The Canopus ADVC-100 works fine with FCE. Here are a few tips -
First, make sure you only connect or disconnect it from your Mac when both your Mac and the ADVC-100 are turned off. Make sure that your camera video-out is connected to the s-video port on the front of the ADVC-100. Ditto for the audio connections. Only DIP switch 2 (IRE level) should be in the ON position. Connect a FW cable from your Mac to the 6-pin FW port on the back of the ADVC-100.
Second, once they are connected via FW, make sure the ADVC is turned on and actually in analog-in mode before you start FCE. I have often found the ADVC-100 resets this mode by itself after being turned off or idle for an extended time. (All you need to do is hit the silver button once or twice, depending on the current mode, in order to switch it into Analog-in mode.) If it is not in this mode, FCE will not detect the ADVC and will act as if there is no device connected. (Normally there is a warning message if FCE fails to find a camera or ADVC connected however if you turned off that message at some earlier time you would not see it again.)
Third, you can use either the DV-NTSC or DV Converter easy setup in FCE. I have used both with my ADVC-100 and they both work.

Display size query, + quality loss from iMovie originals

Learning to work the iDVD process, but what is the word on a foolproof sizing method, such that the thing will display OK on any TV? I don't see any way to restrict display size in iMovie, and what good is the TV Safe check, if you can't control the display size?? Also is quality loss inevitable? I'm compiling the DVD from separate files, less than 1 gb ea. I used "full quality" Quicktime compressed versions from the original iMovie file (which look fine in QT); then pulled those back in to iMovie, then shared to iDVD. One of the files looks fine encoded, but the other has weird sizzling-oil standing wave artifacts, even on still scenes from jpegs. Looking for help/comment/expressions of sympathy
Thanks,
John
Houston TX

Hi v
Quality of the DVD-disc depends on several things.
• Highes Quality isn't Top - better is Best Performances (up to 60 min movie)
confused naming - in iDVD'08 there is Pro Quality AND I like it.
• Media brand - I use Verbatim
• Type: DVD-R my choise no DVD+R or +/-RW
• I save a Disc-Image and burn this at an as SLOW speed as possibly (eg x1) with Toast™
(Disc Util tool can also do this)
• I DON'T USE the function Share/Export to iDVD from within iMovie - IT IS DESTRUCTIVE !!
Just drop the movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window - then iDVD do the
rendering and so much better. Especially if there is photos in the movie.
• Free space on internal (start-up) hard disc - should be about 25Gb when all material is imported
and structured. This for iDVD to work with - iDVD can't use an extern hard disc as scratch.
(less than 5Gb - result is most probably of no use at all)
This is what come's first to my mind.
Yours Bengt W

Significant quality loss and jagged diagonal lines when exporting from FCP

I've been working on this problem for several days and I'm going insane! Every time I export my movie from Final Cut, there is a significant quality loss. It is most noticeable in two ways: diagonal lines become very jagged (looking somewhat like diagonal lines in an older video game -- more a diagonal sequence of blocks); also, in some areas such as faces, the colors get a little blurry and there seems to some "pooling" of colors around the edges of the face.
I'm pretty sure the problem's not in capture: the Quicktime clips that I captured from the camera are all pristine. When I play them in Quicktime, I can blow them up several times their original size, and they maintain their sharp lines. (I also Reverse Telecined them all with Cinema Tools, if that's relevant.) I also know the problem's not just my computer monitor; when I play these movies on my external monitor and TV, they look bad too. The clips look bad after I bring them into Final Cut, and while I'm editing, but at first I figured that was because Final Cut sometimes doesn't show full resolution in the timeline. Still, when I export, the quality of the original captures just isn't there.
Some details:
Captured from 24A progressive, Sony HVR V1U HDV.
Using Final Cut 6.0.1, Compressor 3.0.1, Quicktime 7.2.0, OS 10.4.10 (all the most recent versions I believe).
I've exported in many different ways: using Compressor (and have tried a number of different settings: the DVD Best Quality 90 Minutes default Setting, as well as using a variety of bit rates from 3.0-8.0, One pass CBR, Two pass CBR, Two pass VBR, Two pass VBR best; Video Formats NTSC, HD 1440x1080...I have tried many combinations. Regardless of the size of the m2v created, the files seem to have the same problem over and over. I've also tried exporting from Final Cut as a Quicktime Movie and with Quicktime Conversion. Same result. I also tried using different compressors with my Final Cut sequence: Apple Intermediate Codec (which I used when capturing -- you have to with the Sony HVR), HDV 1080p24, HDV 1080i60, Apple Pro Res 422, H.264...
What's happening? Why is Final Cut turning my nice pristine captures into jagged foulness? What can I try that I haven't yet?

Welcome to the forums!
Unfortunately, you seem to have tried everything I can think of, and I don't have the latest versions of FCP to know if it is a bug. However, in the off chance that you haven't given this a shot:
Take a problematic 10 second section of your timeline (set in and out points) and the Export -> Quicktime (not QT Conversion) and make sure that you have it on Quality settings that you captured, and select the "Make Self Contained" box.
Look at that in Quicktime and see if it's bad. If it's not problematic, use that video file in Compressor for your render.
Hope that helps!
~Luke

Sound Quality Loss

When I create a track on an audio instrument track using the Vienna Symphonic Library Special Edition, the sounds are great. But then, when I export it to an audio track in order to save room, the sound quality goes way down. Is this because I am using the built-in audio on my macbook pro? 16 and 24 bit exporting doesn't seem to make a difference.

Colin, theorectically, there should be no difference.
theory sometimes lets us down.
it does here.
i find the same thing: everything sounds like a million bucks then you press bounce or export and the resulting file sounds like a quarter of a million.
some things you can do to keep up the dub quality are: get the instrument to peak at no more than -6 on logics meter.
keep the playback tracks level down, especially if you have a full orchestra going (25-40 tracks). mine end up somewhere around -18.
a frozen track results in a 32bit file. 24bit is the max for export and bounce.
i can hear a difference there too.
this is nothing compared to the quality loss, as in Waveburner, when dropping to 16bit for CDs...... THAT is very noticable.
let's not mention CD to mp3(:
maybe things will change in a future edition of logic where 32bit files may be used anywhere.
make sure you are listening to the playback at the same level (spl) as before dubbing.
The built in audio has nothing to do with the quality of a bounce, it only outputs the result.
apples conversion is not top grade, never has been.
it might be time to invest in a pro D/A. Benchmark make a beauty.
if you don't need 8in/8out, just go for a 2in/2out. at the same price point, the 2/2 should be of better quality.
the loss with digital is nowhere near as bad as with analog, if that makes you feel any better.
best, david r.

Quality Loss When Importing Video into Timeline...Any Ideas??

Hey all -
I'm fairly new to CS4, so excuse me if this question is a little dumb.
I've offered to edit a friend's actor showreel to familiarize myself with CS4. He gave me a bunch of HD clips: they're .MOV files, and are 1920x1080 and 23.976fps.
I can import a clip and drag it into the preview screen in the middle: it looks fine. However, when I drag it onto the timeline, it suddenly looks faded and blurred. It's not horrible, but it loses the vibrancy of color, the sharpness and the contrast of the original clip. A lot of the quality is gone.
I've tried opening the project with a number of different settings, no difference. I thought it might look OK when I exported it, but it looks just like it does on the timeline monitor: a little washed-out, blurred, just not as nice as the original.....
I'd hate to present it to my pal looking like this, can anyone suggest a solution? I tried everything I could think of already....
Thanks!!
B

Hi Hunt -
many thanks for your reply. I've spent the last couple of days trying to follow your advice and do more research.....still no luck.
Firstly, I upgraded my OS to Windows 7, thought it might help for some reason. Didn't. I downloaded a bunch of codec packs.
Gspot reports:
Codec: AVC1
Name: H.264
Codec Status: undetermined
So I'm basically running through all the possible output formats, but really it doesn't seem to be an encoding problem: the quality loss happens as soon as I move the file from the preview screen to the timeline.
If you have any othe suggestions I'be very pleased!!
Thanks
Bruce

Another quality loss issue: exporting

I see a lot of people have problems with quality loss.
I am importing an movie of an animated screengrab (using Snapzpro). This movie looks great - nice and sharp when viewed in QT. After importing into iMovie it's slightly blurred, notr a big deal just looks a bit "warm".
However when I export it looks bad, diagonal lines are very jagged. I've tried export at Full quality, I've tried expert settings with DV-PAL and many other codecs.
It's just about OK if I use "none", and then import into QT Pro and export with DV-PAL - what I don't understand is why I can't just use DV-PAL direct from iMovie.
Is this something I just have to put up with? Would it better with Final Cut Express?

Actually I discovered since posting the question, that the dimension is something to due with it, but too small rather than too large. I was capturing at 640 x 480 and I discovered that capturing 768 x 576.
I also think that the nature of the image is crucial. This is large scale musical notation - lots of diagonal black and white straight lines so any jaggedness becomes very obvious.
What I still don't understand is why the export from iMovie using DV PAL is not as good as the export from QT using DV PAL - I have to export from iMovie with no compression, then re export from QT Pro.
Although I,m totally ready to accept this is a human operator error, I've also seen lots of people say iMovie does degrade on importing which is why I wonder if I need final Cut Express or Pro

Huge quality loss in iMove '11

Hello fellow iMovie users.
Yesterday I upgraded to iLife 11 to get the new iMovie and its "new" audio editing capabilities. I could ofcourse just buy it from Mac App Store, but I am principally against App Store and its strict rules, so I choosed to get it the old way.
Anyway, I liked what i saw. Finally the new iMovie was about as good as the five year old one, and had some neat features like chroma key and cropping.
So I decided to start practicing and create a short video based on some old DV-videos filmed with my Canon MV950 DV-PAL camera.
I imported the footage into iMovie, and noticed some significant quality loss after the import.
And it get worse. After I exported the video, it seems like it is heavily compressed, even if I'm exporting to QuickTime and selects the highest quality possible.
I have some screenshots to show you the differences.
This is the original DV-footage.
The imported video. Notice the higher compression and the choppy edges.
And this is the exported video. Notice the insanely bad quality, especially in dark areas.
Is there any way to fix this, or do I have go back to iMovie HD?
PS. Sorry if my post is a bit unreadable. I'm from Norway.

Steve,
While I agree everyone should have owned a HD camera by now, there are a lot of low-end SD cameras that are still being sold today. In this era of our economy, consumers are sensitive to prices; especially low or lower prices.
And unlike the video camcorder boom of the 80s with Sony introducing the Video8 handycam (shoulder mounted camcorder), people today do not video using traditional camcorders. Most either do it through a digital camera, DSLR, iPhone or blogger cameras and are already mostly in an acceptable progressive format. There is nothing wrong with DV style cam. Canon GL-2 and the Panasonic DVX-100 are still commanding such a very high price tag for cameras of older technology and still being repaired goes to show that there are people out there still using it.
If one can convert quality interlaced footage into quality progressive footage, you can use that footage and create good results using iMovie 11. I agree with you and Tom that iMovie 11 captures interlaced footage in full. But what's the use if it can't make a good product in the end that looks like what iMovie 6HD can do and when there are PC software out there including the free Windows Movie Maker that can do this with no problem.
Consumers, unlike some of us, only relate to past software used and are usually benign to the fact of progressive vs interlaced. I have dealt with some mis-informed customers that they believed FULL HD only means 1080p at 60fps; anything else is not. I digress.
With Mac users, they don't necessarily follow the same upgrade frequency as PC users either. Macs generally last a lot longer between upgrades compared to a PC because they don't have to run a barage of virus/spam/anti-malware growing definition files which ultimately slow an otherwise healthy PC down. Macs do not have to worry about this.

Quality loss after exporting 1280 x 960 30fps footage

Hello everyone,
Everytime I edit and export footage shot with my GoPro camera (1280x960p, 30fps) the quality gets a little less. Very frustrating as I am clueless after a long time of looking for what I'm doing wrong..
I use Premiere Pro Version 4.2.1
Sequence presets:
General
Editing mode: Desktop
Timebase: 29,97fps
Video Settings
Frame size: 1280h 960v (1,0000)
Frame rate: 29,97 frames/second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)
Fields: No Fields (Progressive Scan)
Export settings:
Format: H.264
Preset: Custom
TV Standard: NTSC
Frame Width: 1280
Frame Height: 960
Frame Rate (fps) 29.97
Field Order: None (Progressive)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels.
Has anybody got an idea what could help here?

Thanks for the replies guys, but unfortunately the problem isn't really solved yet..
I tried checking the maximum render quality, but that only resulted in my laptop not being able to smoothly play the exported video.
Filming with the 1280 x 720 setting is possible, but then the footage just doesn't look that sharp.. (as I can't film in 60fps, I got the first GoPro 960).
I installed Cineform and converted a little test video to AVI. This resulted in an export video without quality loss, but the conversion with Cineform took way too long for it to be a practical solution cause I edit a lot.
At last, Abhishek Kapoor, I couldn't find the video setting you're talking about to increase the maximum bitrate.
Any other ideas that might work?

Video quality loss

I am importing video from a DVD using "Mac the Ripper", then converting the VOB files using "Video converter for mac 3.2.6".
Making up the my movie in Imovie 06 sending it to Idvd 08, and then burning a disc image using the best performance setting.
This all works fine except the quality from the original DVD is much better than the final result, being digital I thought there would not be much quality loss.
Is there a better way to achieve this without losing video quality. Or should I use different settings in any of the programs, (I have not changed settings from default setting in "Mac the Ripper" or "Video Converter".
Any advice appreciated, I am new to this process, but apart from quality loss I am having success.

Noted Bazmond, but we have to be careful!
You need to convert the VOB files back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.

Quality loss when converting pro res to mp4

Hi
I have a problem with the workflow from After Effects to a final .mp4 video.
I have been editing time lapses in After Effects, and exporting them as Pro Res HQ- all good so far. However, I can´t seems to be able to convert the Pro Res file to a .mp4 (or quick time .mov for that matter) without significant quality loss. This happens if I convert using adobe media encoder, or if I import the Pro Res files to Premiere and export through Premiere.
However, if I import the original JPG/TIFs to Premiere, and export using the exact same setting- I get a better result. Also, when I have uploaded the original Pro Res HQ file to vimeo, they do a much better job of converting it than Media Encoder or Premiere do when I convert to .mp4 (I´m aware that it is not the same conversion, but still..).
So my conclusion must be that AME and PP does not convert from Pro Res to other codecs very well? I have to work on my files in AE, and I need .mp4 as the final product (requirement for uploading to a stock site). How do I do this without getting lower quality video than if my workflow and export was only in Premiere? After Effects does not render out .mp4 very well it seems...
A screenshot showing the setting I use when exporting from PP or AME. The settings produce a good result when exporting other files from PP, but not the Pro Res files I have exporter from AE.
Thanks for your input!

Figured it out after testing various settings. I read an article describing the keyframe interval setting at 1 as the best option- clearly that was wrong! After searching I found a better description of keyframe interval: "Having too many keyframes severely reduces quality, because the efficiency of reusing image areas from previous frames is completely lost at each keyframe – the encoder has to "start over" at every keyframe. Therefore, we want as few keyframes as possible to achieve the highest quality for the given target bitrate."
Tested with keyframe settings 25 and 75- both seem fine.
Thanks for the feedback

Quality loss within FCE

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