Re: Motion problems in Compressor

Courtney, you are right.  Allthough not that many people seems to complain about it yet, there is a bug in compressor 3.5 which completely screws-up it's ability to output video with size transformation. This problem occurs regardless of the type of the source file (codec, interlace or pogressive, intraframe only or GOP).

It looks like the frame control setting is ignored which disturbs the result even for convertions from 1080p to 720p but the problem becomes even more obvious (and then I mean event for my dead grand mothers eye) when producing SD DVD. The result is basicaly single field output that is line doubled in a progressive mpeg2  which leaves us with a fantastic resolution of 720x240.  Btw any output codec will display the problem. Even h.264 mov. 

On compressor forums, people are starting to complain about the problem and reinstall from scratch (even Osx) didn't solve the problem. 

The only solution I found which would have offered a temporary workflow while we are waiting for the fix from apple didn't work completelly, is much longer and anihilate any chance of automation but I will still share it with you:

1- export from fcp with "export using QuickTime conversion". Make sure you resize the video to 720x480 right then using the anamorphic pixel setting for 16:9 content. Use the same codec as your origin or a flavor of apple prores of your choice. 
2 - use compressor to produce the DVD files. Compressor still does a great job when it doesn't resize. 

Now the main drawback is the following:  with QuickTime conversion, the edit markers and compression markers are lost. So when compressor takes the file, it doesn't have hints as to where to put the key frames. So some transitions and pans look bad. 

But voilà. Hope it helps. 

Eric