H.264 & MPEG-2

hi

i need to export a project - best possible quality. it's for a festival projection. i'm running FCP6 .compressor is busted. is my best option to export using quicktime conversion H.264? is the quality difference significant between that and what i'd get using compressor?

thanks

Are you going to DVD? Or to a file?

H.264 is a compression codec designed to make things small for the internet whilst still retaining some quality. It's not really a 'festival release' codec, unless it needs to be sent over the internet.

If you are going to DVD, just export a self contained quicktime movie at current settings (not a quicktime conversion) and drop this into DVD SP or iDVD (whichever you use) and let them do the encoding.

Mpeg2 vs h.264... I always figured H.264 would provide better quality at the same bitrate as mpeg2. Only issue is how they are going to play it. Especially if it's interlaced.

Why is Compressor busted? Have you reset background encoding?

Oh no! Don't use QT conversion! Exporting a self-contained QT file at current settings or uncompressed settings and encoding that file elsewhere (Squeeze, DVDSP, QTpro or any 3rd party apps) usually results in much better yield than QT conversion.

It's been our experience that the show will tell you specifically what to send. It's not up to you. Contact them.

One of the artists on the second floor talked to me in the hallway about the best way to tell people what to send to a very small show he was authoring so as to include the most numbers of posters and still not have thousands of formats represented. Over weeks we distilled a process and it worked fairly well, but the show told the producers what to send. It wasn't up to them.

Koz