Force QuickTime To Do My Bidding!

A property of QuickTime Pro 7.0.2 (and probably earlier versions) made a recent job much harder than it needed to be.

I wanted to import a 720:486 PhotoJPEG NTSC Movie and export a numbered still sequence. Piece of cake, right?

Actually, it's impossible.

QuickTime only exports the display resolution, which in this case is 648:486. You cannot get QuickTime to give you 720:486 stills.

Can you?

Koz

Kozikowski wrote:

> A property of QuickTime Pro 7.0.2 (and probably earlier
> versions) made a recent job much harder than it needed to be.
>
> I wanted to import a 720:486 PhotoJPEG NTSC Movie and export a
> numbered still sequence.
Import where? QT Player? FCP?
> Piece of cake, right?
You should be right.
>
> Actually, it's impossible.
> QuickTime only exports the display resolution, which in this
> case is 648:486. You cannot get QuickTime to give you 720:486 stills.
If you're in QT Player Pro it should give you the option to go to original size and then export.
>
>
> Can you?
Normally you, let me know what you did exactly.

Andreas

<<<Normally you, let me know what you did exactly.>>>

Somebody created a PhotoJPEG QuickTime from a DigiBeta capture on an uncompressed 8-bit timeline.

We got it and opened it up in QuickTime Pro 7.0.2. APPLE-I told us that the "real" frame size was 720:486 (NTSC D1 Television).

File, Export, Frame Sequence, JPEG, Best Quality [Enter].

There may be another step or two in there, but it couldn't possibly be more simple. We did need to change the filenames to conform to the show requirements.

If you inspect any of the resulting frames, they're all display resolution (648:486), not original resolution (720:486), and you can't change the export preferences--at least not those.

We have used this process to our benefit in the past. It's one of the very good ways to export HDV into frame sequences in the viewable (not original) size.

We ended up pulling the QuickTimes into a Final Cut 5 Uncompressed timeline, rendering, and exporting the frames from there. That pipeline does give us numbered 720:486 frames. Hopefully, there isn't too much damage converting twice--given that we were converting between top quality codecs.

Koz

I don't know if this helps, but the 648x486 size is one way to get square pixels from video. Like 720x540.

-Vance

<<<I don't know if this helps>>>

Thanks. I know what it is. The display resolution is always square pixels so the picture will look normal to a human. I don't want the conversion and there doesn't seem to be any way to turn it off.

Koz

Kozikowski wrote:

> <<<I don't know if this helps>>>
>
> Thanks. I know what it is. The display resolution is always
> square pixels so the picture will look normal to a human. I
> don't want the conversion and there doesn't seem to be any way
> to turn it off.
Display resolution actually is NOT square pixels with QT Player, but just an aspect ratio saved some time by somebody. Command-I (may) show the original size, which has nothing to do with the actual size - and the actual size is relevant for the export size.
So using command-J and setting the video size there is the way to go.

Andreas



Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

If you really want that exact size, there's always the "Custom" option in the "Size?" settings when exporting. Did you try that one yet?

Frank

<<<If you really want that exact size, there's always the "Custom" option in the "Size?" settings when exporting. Did you try that one yet?>>>

No, because there isn't one. Going from Photo JPEG QuickTime to JPEG Numbered Frames Export doesn't provide you with size options. Quality and file size options yes, but not frame size.

If you Apple-I on the QuickTime it will tell you:

Normal Size 720 - 486
Currrent Size 648 - 486

If you Apple-J, the properties windows open up (I didn't know about this) and they will tell you:

Normal Size 720 - 486
Scaled Size 720 - 486
[x] Preserve Aspect Ratio

The Aspect Ratio clicky doesn't seem to make the slightest difference.

--====[Time passes]====--

Twilight Zone Moment.

Today, different from yesterday, when I select View, Actual Size, the display on the screen swooshes to the short/squat verson and Apple-I confirms that the version on the screen (the display version) is now 720:486. I have not exported frames like this yet ( I lost the machine to an actual paying job), but I have no doubt they would come out corrrect.

Yesterday, when I tried that same trick, the picture indeed assumed the slightly distorted size one would expect, but it also loaded and launched a player and I couldn't escape from it. If I collapsed the player, I got sent back to the normal-looking 648:486 QuickTime Screen.

So we appear to be at the "Restart The Machine And All Your Problems Go Away" mode.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I know how to force it to work, but on the other, the tool started working 24 hours after the production needed it.

Anyway, thanks all who responded.

Koz