Offline codec?

We have some footage we are going to distribute as part of a training series but our contract with the stock footage provider requires us to both watermark the footage and not deliver full quality clips. They wanted us to compress to H.264 but our tests show that this is not really a playback codec.

So, I'm giving up the H.264 route and figure the best thing to do is to go to an Offline-type codec, which from my intial inquiries looks like Photo-JPEG. I know nothing about the offline process so I'm looking for a little help from the experienced.

Should I compress the master clips down in Compressor? Is this something the Media Manager can handle? Does Photo-JPEG even look halfway decent? Any suggestions are much appreciated.

BTW, this is all done on and destined for FCP6 machines...

Uh, if your contract stipulates that you provide H.264...you're gonna have to give them H.264. Taking it upon yourself to give them a "better" codec is not wise. Not if you want to continue a business relationship with the stock provider. Give them what they request.

And you can get h.264 to work in a timeline...just have to render it. Which is fine. When I get stock downloads they are either Sorenson or some other codec and have a watermark. I add it, render it, and it works. That really is all you need.

We just say that h.264 isn't an editing codec because, well, having ALL of your footage as H.264 and trying to edit that would be cumbersome. But a few stock shots...no problem.

Give what is in the contract.


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Contract only stipulates we don't distribute full quality. They suggested using H.264 like in their web previews, we don't have to use it.

The problem is playback for our users. 90% the footage is these stock clips and customers need to be able to interact with them, without rendering first. I turn off "Warn on Dropped Frames" but not everyone knows about that. Also, this needs to play on all Macs, not just our MacPros.

So that's why I'm looking for a new codec, one that plays well with FCP.

Yes, Photo-JPEG is a great codec. You can make it as pretty or as ugly as you like. Photo-JPEG with minimal compression is actually an online-able codec. You can also use Motion JPEG-A or Motion JPEG-B as an alternative. Your other FCP users wont have any problems with any of these three codecs.

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Yeah, photo-jpeg at medium or lower quality would be my suggestion. This will play on old machines, new machines, macs, pcs, you name it.

However, it will still require rendering if the sequence settings don't match the clip settings in anything lower than FCP 6, which can handle mutliple formats. The only way for them not to need to render is to provide clips that are exactly the same as the sequence settings they are using.

H.264 does better compression, though. Smaller files, prettier pictures.