Tutorials For Creating 16:9 Mpeg2 File

[Brandon Rice]

I thought this might be a helpful thread to have as the upload time is nearly upon us. I work with Avid, and Sorenson Squeeze, so I will give my method of creating a 16:9 file using that setup. I'll also get Jack over here to show us his method using Final Cut Pro (if he can) And if anyone is familiar with Premiere and Vegas, your input is requested as well. Thanks....




CREATING AN ANAMORPHIC 16:9 FILE USING AVID & SORENSON SQUEEZE


If you shot your film letterboxed 16:9 in camera, skip to step 2.

If you shot your film in squeeze mode, skip to step 3.


STEP 1
Masking the image

In Avid, you will want to find the 16:9 mask which is under the effects, under film.

Once you apply this effect to your video, you’ll see black bars on the top and bottom of your image.

STEP 2
Stretching the image

Now, we need to get our letterboxed 16:9 video into an anamorphic format.

Create a new video layer above everything in your timeline, including titles and graphics.

Find the resize tool under effects-image. Then place the effect in the empty video layer.

Now, uncheck the fixed aspect button and increase the height to 133.

Now your video looks stretched out and distorted.

STEP 3
Outputting and creating the MPEG2 file

Now, select the timeline you wish to output, and select a Quicktime reference file. Make sure that you select 601 colors, as this is what Sorenson squeeze likes.

Also be sure to select 4:3 Square Pixels on output.

Now save the file and open up Sorenson Squeeze

Select MPEG output and customize your settings. Your settings in Sorenson should look like this.

Now render the file. Sorenson will add the necessary flags to your film so it can be played both on 4:3 TV’s and 16:9 TV’s.

You can also use this method if you are not working in Avid, but are working in Sorenson.

 

[conrad_johnson]

Great work Brandon!

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

If I can get some time later I'll try to do an FCP version for MPEG 2's here.

in the meantime here's a cut and paste for how to get your h.264 in widescreen or cinescope with no black bars for higher quality in a smaller file size for the web.

yep. well if you mean one step as in set it up and hit render then yes.

if you mean one step as in a single button that does it already, then no, but there are a few simple settings.

here's the steps for the web version, you should be able to extrapolate how to do the mpeg 2 in terms of scaling from the following.

In Compressor choose
Web Streaming or Web Download Quicktime 7 Compatible

then
h.264 800 kbps

then under the "Geometry" Tab choose
Custom for the Frame Size
enter 400

then set "Constrain Display Aspect" to 16X9 and it will populate the second box under frame size with 225.

In the preview window, toggle into source view mode and you will see your 4:3 video with a read crop box which will initially be set to show the whole image.

You can either drag the top and bottom of the red crop box down to exclude the letterbox or you can enter crop values in the Geometry menu. I think the crop value is between 61-65 for each setting, top and bottom. In any case, providing you have chosen the correct letterbox setting in FCP you want to drag or enter values to crop the letterbox out.

Now toggle over to Output View mode on the Preview Window and you will see that your image is no longer too fat.


OTHER SETTINGS FOR WEB OUTPUT IN COMPRESSOR
Other than that go into the video compression menu and plat with upping the kbps setting from 800 kbps to 900 or 1000. This will take you up closer to the 50 mb limit for 6 min. If your film is 5 min, then play with upping it to 1100. But always check the file size on output as the estimated size is often off by 5 mb or so and can put you over the limit.

Also, you will want to go into the filters menu and adjust your Gamma from 1 to .7 or .8, because your image will look darker PC's and anyone that has their monitors slightly dark.

So that's for your 16X9 OR 2.35:1 50mb h.264




like I said, I will try to do the mpeg 2 version later ... but long story short you will need to download bit vice (free) because Jarred wants MUXED (sound and audio in one file) mpeg2's and compressor won't output that.

I think this is a good link for bitvice
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/19932
but not sure. Lost mine when my computer crashed ... see if we can figure out if this is the latest version or not

back to editing ... Oct. 1 looms large.

 

[Brandon Rice]

Thanks for that Jack!

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

no prob, but if someone can beat me to the MPEG2 turiorial, PLEASE feel free

 

[Ben Sliker]

Briceman asked me to put this tutorial up for y'all.

THIS IS A TUTORIAL TO GET A H.264 FILE FROM QUICKTIME PRO 7 OR STRAIGHT FROM FCP

MAC FOLKS, IF YOU WANT TO EXPORT STRAIGHT FROM FCP, IN FCP CHOOSE FILE>EXPORT>QUICKTIME CONVERISON>OPTIONS (ON BOTTOM) and you get the same thing, SKIP TO STEP 4.

I hate using compressor, cause it never works, and probably never will. I get that stupid "unable to connect" message no matter what i do. Regardless, this is for pc users, and for mac users that get this message whenever they try to use compressor.

THIS IS IF YOU SHOT LETTERBOX OR SHOT 4:3 AND LETTERBOXED IN POST.

STEP 1: EXPORT A 720x480 Quicktime or Avi from you NLE.

STEP 2: Open it in Quicktime

Everyone look at my nephew mason, isn't he cute. I shot him in letterbox mode.

STEP 3: Select "Export" from the "File" Menu

STEP 4: Click "Options" button to bring up the "Movie Settings" Menu

STEP 5: Click "Settings" under the Movie setting window to bring up the Standard Video Compression Settings. Choose "H.264" from the dropdown. This is the screen where you will be able to tweak settings for quality in order to make it under 50 mb, as per Jarred's order.

Notes: In order to get a smaller file, reduce the quality setting, and restrict your Data Rate.

STEP 6: Go back to the Movie settings box and Click "Size" Click the first pulldown and select "custom" and type in "400" and "225" respectively. (This is your 16x9 file size)

STEP 7: Select the Bubble next to preserve aspect ratio, and choose "Crop" from the pulldown (This will essentially crop out the black bars from the top and the bottom)

And that's pretty much it, give it a name and where to save, and presto, you are done! (That is, if you are under 50 mb.) I will post some settings soon, to give you guys an idea of where you should be at to get the highest quality/lowest file size.

Alright, I just finished exporting my first try - 54 mb!!!

Here's the only settings I changed from the tutorial:
Bitrate: 500 kbits/sec
Quality: High
Encoding Mode: Multi-Pass

I also adjusted sound to 24 kHz from 48.

It's not under 50 mb, but my film is 5:59:29 so anyone under that time should be fine.

 

[Dario Nieva]

You need Quicktime Pro 7 for the H264? You can't just do it through Vegas?

 

[Brandon Rice]

There's a way to do it through Vegas, but I just wanted hybrid to post the way to do it in QT Pro. Plus, it's a good buy IMO. A powerful tool, for 30 bucks.

 

[Dario Nieva]

Can anyone tackle rendering the web version in Vegas? :X

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I don't get it.

You have FCP, so why not just output h.264 from there. Why go into quicktime?

I never get as good of results in quicktime with as small a file size as in compressor.

But apparently QT sucks for some people and Compressor sucks ... go figure.

 

[Ben Sliker]

ah, yes, i am dumb, you can use my tutorial, but use export>quicktime conversion> From FCP

EDIT: OK, I think I fixed it, hopefully someone will get some use out of it.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I don't think you are dumb.

Wait are you being sarcastic

... I can't tell I'm so confused now ... argghhh head hurt ... brain aneurism ... go to stay focused ... must finish edit ... vision blurring ... loosing control ... can't breathe ... must ... maintain ... consciousness ... until ... Oc .. to .. ber .. sec ... ond ...

 

[Ben Sliker]

no, i just forgot you could do the same thing stright from FCP. But for users like B-man the QT tutorial worked for him, being on a PC and all.

 

[Brandon Rice]

Thanks for the tutorial there DUDE!

 

[Mark Harris]

All right, so I am doing this in Vegas, and think I have an easy solution. Vegas people, please feel free to weigh in. But here's what I did:


1) Original project template NTSC DV 24p (720x480, 23.976 fps) 4:3 cropped in timeline to 16X9.
2) Create a new project with Widescreen settings: NTSC DV 24p Widescreen (720x480, 23.976 fps)
3) Import my Original project into this widescreen project and lay it into the timeline
4) Go to pan and crop and crop for 16X9
5) Right click in pan/crop screen and select Match Output Aspect

That seems to do it. Then just render with NTSC DV Widescreen. DO NOT check the "stretch to fill" checkbox.

As I said, if anyone has anything to add, or sees anything wrong with this approach, speak up!

As for the encoding, I just use Sorensen and that's pretty problem free.

 

[Kyle Stebbins]

i need a premiere tutorial... :huh:

 

[greeches]

real quick, here's my take on widescreen, before the quicktime compression...

I shot letterbox


Take your letterboxed project

Event Pan/Crop

Select 16:9 (this will jsut take what's between the letter box

Render As

NTSC Widescreen

and DO NOT check the box for "stretch to fill"

This will give you the inside part of your letterboxed picture in 16:9 resolution

 

[Robert Eldon]

All right, so I am doing this in Vegas, and think I have an easy solution. Vegas people, please feel free to weigh in. But here's what I did:


1) Original project template NTSC DV 24p (720x480, 23.976 fps) 4:3 cropped in timeline to 16X9.
2) Create a new project with Widescreen settings: NTSC DV 24p Widescreen (720x480, 23.976 fps)
3) Import my Original project into this widescreen project and lay it into the timeline
4) Go to pan and crop and crop for 16X9
5) Right click in pan/crop screen and select Match Output Aspect

That seems to do it. Then just render.

As I said, if anyone has anything to add, or sees anything wrong with this approach, speak up!

As for the encoding, I just use Sorensen and that's pretty problem free.

When you say 'just render', what are you using to render and what parameters?

 

[Mark Harris]

Oh sorry, when you create a widescreen 24P project, it defaults to the Widescreen 24p Render, I think.

NTSC DV Widescreen 24p (2-3 pulldown) is the render template I use.

Then I compress in Sorensen.

Jarred said there was a bug in Sorensen's H.264 compresssing the mucks with the gamma, but I have had really good results with it myself.

 

[Ming]

I hate using compressor, cause it never works, and probably never will. I get that stupid "unable to connect" message no matter what i do. Regardless, this is for pc users, and for mac users that get this message whenever they try to use compressor.

FYI
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051017072758916
Like many others, I have run into the "Unable to Connect to Background Process" error when trying to submit video files to the Compressor utility. I've looked all over the net, including the Apple web site for a fix and found nothing truly useful. The best Apple seemingly can do is to ask the user to reinstall the software.

After many hours of reading and testing, I think I have found the fix for this problem. When you install Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 with Compressor, at the end you get a message box asking you if you would like to fix Qmaster. You would think that this would fix the Qmaster problem, but it doesn't seem to do so. This is the reason that you get the background process error message -- the Qmaster process is not running in the background, and this is what Compressor needs to work properly. What you can do to get it working again is run this command in a Terminal window (you will need your admin password): sudo /Library/StartupItems/Qmaster/Qmaster start This will only work until you restart your computer again.

To get the Qmaster working properly again permanently, what you can do is this ... I haven't tried these steps, but I’m sure they would work. Remove the Qmaster folder from the StartupItems folder and restart the computer. After the computer has restarted, put the Qmaster folder back in the StartupItems folder and restart again. This time you will get the message box to fix Qmaster. If that doesn't work, you can (I have done this and it works) copy the Qmaster folder from a computer that has Compressor working properly and replace it with the one that’s not working, restart to get the message box to fix the Qmaster again.

That’s all you need to do to get Compressor working again, and not do a full reinstall like Apple asks us to do.