How do I get good HD render with H.264 codec?

weaverfilms

weaverfilms

New member
I'm trying to render my 1080p .MOV files taken on my Canon T2i in FCP7. The film is for a festival/comp that requires the film use the H.264 codec. I was up until 4am Googling a solution, but can't find exactly what I need...

I set the video quality to Best and did all of the little specifics when saving (both Quicktime Movie AND Conversion to Quicktime and MP4), but I get a really blocky/pixellated blur except for brightly lit/contrasty scenes. To test, I did the same render on a short, dark clip and got EXCELLENT quality, but when I render the full 10 minute film, the quality sucks (and is about 1GB in size).

The original .MOV files play excellent in Quicktime and are very sharp so it isn't the source file OR the Quicktime player's settings.

I have a 5GB limit and wouldn't mind using all 5GB to get at least a decent quality version of the film. I just need to know how to take advantage of the h.264 codec.

This film will be projected in a theater and I really need help with this as the film is due now. Any suggestions, or do any of you guys know how to get good HD quality with the H.264 codec?
 
Nevermind, problem solved! My sequence settings also used H.264 and I changed it to the 10bit Uncompressed. Worked perfectly.
 
For one, you should be transcoding your footage to ProRes (or if your computer can't handle that, DVCPRO HD will do) before you edit, using Compressor (or MPEG StreamClip). And your FCP project/sequence settings should match that codec.

Once you're done, you should be exporting a QuickTime Movie, self-contained, at current settings. That will create a full-rez video outside of FCP using the same codec with which you edited.

Then, close FCP and open Compressor (or MPEG StreamClip) and convert to the h.264 needed for the film festival.
 
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