HD to SD DVD encode problems!
by Jenny Jones
on
Jul 1, 2009 at 12:48:53 pm
Hey guys,
hoping someone can help > have searched the web and asked fellow video friends, so far have not found a solution.
I shot a talking head on the Sony EX1, 1080 25p. Studio shoot, not much movement.
Edit in FCP 6.0.3
Out to DVD Studio Pro via compressor.
Now the problem is the flickering of the talents hands / eyes and mouth on screen. I have tried multiple "fixes" including ken stone's fix and also similar fixes of creating a 720x576 seq, rendering in proRes, progressive, as well as various settings in Compressor.
The thing that is weird about it all is that the encoded file is perfect. The mpg2 looks awesome on the computer, but once I burn the DVD and put the DVD back into the computer, there is pixelation on the talents eyes / hands / mouth ... just like on the TV.
So what im now thinking is maybe something is going wrong during the burning process, since the mpeg2 is fine but only on the DVD itself it looks crap.
Im on a macbook pro, 2.4 GHz, intel core duo, 4 gig ram OS 10.5.2
Re: HD to SD DVD encode problems! by Michael Sacci on Jul 1, 2009 at 10:05:54 pm
[Jessica Nosworthy]" I have tried multiple "fixes" " that is no help here, what exactly have you tried.
You should never be exporting anything but current settings out of FCP. Then take that into Compressor and convert to m2v but I always keep the same settings for frame rate and field order. NEVER use FCP to convert codecs, field order or frame rates.
No idea why your problem is happening on burn, DVDSP is just muxing video and audio together an there is no conversion. But the above states my thinking with dealing with downconverting. ALWAYS done in Compressor and never in FCP.
Re: HD to SD DVD encode problems! by Jenny Jones on Jul 1, 2009 at 11:35:08 pm
Thanks for your reply Michael,
well I have been doing the conversion from HD to SD in FCP based on other people's recommendations and also on the majority of my reading from forums.
I have tried:
• exporting xdcam ex 1080 p (native codec), quicktime movie current settings > compressor CBR 7.7
• exporting the above sequence as 10 bit uncompressed > compressor CBR 7.7
• copy and paste edit in to a DV PAL seq > exporting a dvpal seq, quicktime movie current > compressor CBR 7.7
• same as above but rendering the sequence first
• copy and paste edit in to a PreRes HQ seq > rendering seq > exporting current settings > compressor CBR 7.7
• ive tried a slight blur on the background (but really not an option for me now as I have 1 day until delievry and 4 hours of footage and motion graphics) this didnt really help anyway
the best result i had was the DV PAL with rendering seq first, purely because it compressed it so much, the image was softer and therefore less flickering.
im just super disappointed because Ive shot better looking stuff on HDV and my end result has always been DVD > if id known i couldn't make this work i would never have shot on the EX1.
I have 2 good friends who shoot and export to DVD off the EX1 all the time with good results but ive tried both their work flows so i have no idea what to do next!
Re: HD to SD DVD encode problems! by Michael Sacci on Jul 5, 2009 at 7:17:54 pm
Couple things 7.7 Mbps is too high, especially if you are not using ac3. I would never go above 7 Mbps.
Then are you keeping the m2v file progressive? make sure that has not been set to upper or lower (odd/even) fields in compressor.
Also if you want to do a test, in FCP from the timeline>Export>Using Compressor, this is a slower way to do it and it locks up FCP and Compressor but you get the best encodes doing it this way, so for me it is worth it.
Re: HD to SD DVD encode problems! by Jenny Jones on Jul 6, 2009 at 2:21:02 am
Hey Michael,
i ended up rendering all videos out at 7mbs but was always using ac3 audio created in compressor.
I have found that some of the audio was out of sync at the beginning of the DVD (for 1 second or so), then was in sync for the rest of DVD after that. I read that people said this was a problem with compressor and encoded using a.pack but I cant find a.pack on my computer or for download on web so not sure how to get hold of this .. do you know?
anyway, back to original problems - i found that the best results (after lots and lots of testing) was to render in dv pal with lower fields selected, render 8 bit normal > this gave me the least amount of flicker on screen. I know this is because it was highly compressed but it was the best result from all the tests.
i did try progressive before this but it was lower fields that rendered best! dont ask me why I have no idea.
Doing a test straight to compressor from FCP wasnt really an option, because even if it did successfully convert the files well, I had 20 hours of rendering via the export option, and with my time frame it just wasn't an option to render straight to compressor.
So i delievered the product. Not keen to shoot on the ex1 again though - unless going straight to web. DVD just not worth it.
thanks for you help > and if you know a.pack answer I would be very grateful!
Re: HD to SD DVD encode problems! by Michael Sacci on Jul 6, 2009 at 5:30:45 am
aPack come with old versions of DVDSP like verson 1.5,
I have never had sync issues with compressor but I know that PAL people suffer through more issue than us in NTSC land. As a habit I always have at least on sec of silence on the start of almost every video stream. I sound and pic start up on frame 1, I normally have 1 or 2 secs of black and silence.
Don't know why doing to interlaced is looking the best. but you got to do what you got to due.
You must have a really slow system, on my Mac Pro early version I get just over RT when using CBR encoding even when going from HD source, I don't use much HDV though.
