FCP/MPEG2 compression

N

nickpaxton

New member
Hey everyone,

Long time reader, first time poster.

This may be more of a question for the compression and output section, but here goes anyway.

Just finished my first short, edited in FCP HD, ready to output to DVD and all other formats in between. When I "print to tape" and send it out via firewire to a miniDV tape, it looks rockin', just how I want it to look. But when I try to compress it to MPEG2 so I can burn it to a DVD w/ Studio pro, it looks... like a third generation VHS dub: pixilated, grainy, almost out of focus. Certainly not something I'd want to show people who might be interested in hiring me for anything.

If my miniDV dub looked the same, I'd think that was just how it was supposed to look, but it looks so much better. I tried doing the MPEG2 in Compressor and Quicktime Converter. Zero Difference. Same result. Like a photocopy of a photcopy of a photocopy.

Also, in some of the tutorials for DVD Studio pro, the sample media was also MPEG2, leading me to believe that the problem is not with the format itself, but with the end user, namely me.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
 
Sounds like you might want to increase the bit rate settings, but increasing too much will make your DVD player glitch. Try using one of the MPEG2 Compressor presets that does 2 passes. They always look better in the end.
 
Okay,

Did a two pass and increased the bit rate to 7.5 (on average. I did a couple of different tries with playing around with the settings). It got slightly better, but again, didn't nearly match the quality of just sending it out via firewire to a miniDV tape.

Is there something I'm not thinking of? Maybe needing a de-interlace filter or something along those lines?

All insights appreciated
 
I do multi pass, at best and bit rate of 7.

Usually no problems. But to be honest QT is stupid sometimes and will give bad results for no reason.

Restart and try again. I was in compression hell for a while there and tried about 40 different settings to get a adecent compression.

good luck.

-rook
 
I think I might know what you're talking about.... are you having trouble with dark scenes, and a lot of flickering and blocking in the video? I run into this occasionally, and the best solution is to crush the blacks a bit before MPEG encoding. It can make a night and day difference between nice clean-looking footage and total crap that swims... and has a background that pulsates from lighter to darker about once per GOP. Yuck!

This doesn't show up in DV much, but something in the low blacks strains the MPEG encoder.

Just a slight tweak with the Proc Amp in FCP does the trick... give it a shot!
 
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