Two questions about quality

1. I'm in a situation where I only have DVDs to work with as my source material. Am I better
off transferring the DVD to mini DV and capturing the tape, or am I better off extracting
the VOB file using MPEG streamclip and exporting an uncompressed QT file? Is there any
loss of quality either way from the original DVD?

2. A voice over talent I'm working with sent me his read via email. The file is an MP3. I'm
able to work with it in FC if I render after importing. Should I bring it into STP and convert
the MP3 to an aiff? Then use that in FC? The rendered MP3 sounds really good as is.

Shelley
MacBoo Pro 2015
16 GB Ram
OS X 10.13
Premiere Pro CC

> Is there any loss of quality either way from the original DVD?

There'll be loss of quality either way. It'll be faster to extract from the DVD with software than to dub to tape and then capture.

> The file is an MP3. I'm able to work with it in FC if I render after importing. Should I bring it into
> STP and convert the MP3 to an aiff?

Yes and no. FCP can't work with MP3s without glitches. But iTunes will do the job just fine, and you can batch-convert to 48kHz AIFFs. No need to use Soundtrack Pro.


www.derekmok.com

"Is there any loss of quality either way from the original DVD? "

yes.
DV is a pretty compressed format.
DVD > DV isn't a great idea IF you have an option.

so it all depends on your finishing & delivery format.
if you are finishing on DV, there's no point transferring to something better

if you are delivering a DVD,
then definitely consider DVD > ProRes,
and editing in a PRoRes timeline.


MP3.
well if it's working for you, it's working.
but MP3s dont always play nice with FCP.
you could come unstuck on an export.

you may find you finsh your project without a hitch,
but it's definitly a safer option to convert your MP3s to AIFFs.
QUickTime is good for one or two,
if you have a lot, iTunes is ok,
but Compressor is probably the best. (you wont get copies of your files in your itunes library)
quality is the same on all three.


nick

> you wont get copies of your files in your itunes library

You won't get that in iTunes either...if you turn off that option in iTunes. Which you always should do. Another example of the moronic nature of Apple's design on so many non-professional applications.


www.derekmok.com

Quote

am I better off extracting the VOB file using MPEG streamclip and exporting an uncompressed QT file?

Yeah, that one. Your footage has already been stepped on severely by being written out to DVD, but converting from MPEG-2 to uncompressed won't make it any worse. It's just a decoding process.

Be extremely careful, though, not to use the "none" codec. That's an ancient RGB format that's not suitable for YUV material. Use the 8-bit uncompressed 4:2:2 codec.

Quote

Another example of the moronic nature of Apple's design on so many non-professional applications.

If you're referring to the moronic feature of iTunes that lets it totally manage my music library for me so I literally never have to think about it ever again, then moron me up, because I wouldn't go back to screwing around with files and folders if you paid me.

> I wouldn't go back to screwing around with files and folders if you paid me.

But putting a big ol' "01" on every first track you import without the option of taking it off? Import 500 CDs and suddenly you have 500 files with "01" at the beginning. A useless feature -- specialty of iTunes.

And managing your library is just another word for "duplicate, useless files that clog up your storage space". Twice the number of folders (because of "album" and "artist" folders).

Okay, I'll shut up now.

> Use the 8-bit uncompressed 4:2:2 codec.

Not much benefit to that if you're going back out to DV tape. Depends on what your choice for the final master is.


www.derekmok.com

True enough, Derek, but if this is a general conversation about the best way to use footage that's only available on DVD, I think 8-bit uncompressed is probably the right choice. At the very least, converting it all to 8-bit uncompressed and then archiving the Quicktimes will save Shelley the trouble of having to go through the exercise again.

> At the very least, converting it all to 8-bit uncompressed and then archiving the Quicktimes will
> save Shelley the trouble of having to go through the exercise again.

True, except there are still many people whose systems are only optimized for DV -- in terms of storage space, drive speeds, decks, etc.

If she already knows she's going back out to DV tape (hence the idea of dubbing to DV tape), there's no point going Uncompressed 8-bit.

If there's a possibility of needing higher-quality media later, and if there's sufficient storage space, you could extract in Uncompressed 8-bit or 10-bit, then batch-convert them to DV files for easier editing. Not that many jobs I can think of where that's worth it, though, given the DVD source.


www.derekmok.com

best bet would be ProRes
for near-uncompressed quality, at a much friendlier file size.


iTunes:
yes, there is an option for not including the 01, but i cant think why you'd not want to.
track numbers on the files seems like a good idea to me.

i DO turn off "copy to itunes library", but many wouldn't.
i turn of "orgasnise", too.
that only stops iTunes overriding any thing i might choose to do,
but it keeps putting the tunes in Artist / Album folders, which makes a lot of sense to me.

> yes, there is an option for not including the 01, but i cant think why you'd not want to.
> track numbers on the files seems like a good idea to me.

Because the information is useless:

1. If you know which CD the track came from, it would take a real deficient mind not to be able to figure out which track it is;
2. The information is embedded into the metadata of any WAV, AIFF or MP3 file you make using iTunes, and that metadata translates even across platforms (Mac-PC);
3. If you're using a piece of music for a film, who cares which track it was on the original disc? And if it were library music, you should have entered the title of the piece as the file name in the first place.

So it's just an extra piece of junk that serves to clutter up the file name. Just like if you put the title of the entire film on every clip logged for the film, or if you put "Uncompressed 10-bit HD" on every file name. You'll get 500 files with the word "Uncompressed 10-bit HD" on it, which would be a nightmare to wade through.

Hope that detour didn't scare Shelley off.

> but it keeps putting the tunes in Artist / Album folders, which makes a lot of sense to me.

Album folders make no sense to me -- unless I have a live album or alternate versions (eg. Led Zeppelin's How the West Was Won or Pearl Jam's recent Ten Redux). Because those albums contain alternate versions of pre-existing tracks, and without some kind of file-name modifier, they will overwrite older versions.

Album names are, once again, embedded in iTunes metadata. No need to make so many extra folders to clutter up the file management. Besides, in this day and age, even if you don't know which album a piece came from, you can usually find out with a two-second Google search. And if the source disc is so obscure that you can't find it on Google, then having the album folders won't help a great deal; you would need to actually own the disc yourself, look up the publishing and songwriting information in the album art, etc.


www.derekmok.com

Regarding the converting VOBs vs. transferring to DV tape: I would be mastering to DVD so from what I gather here, my best bet is either output a 8bit uncompressed or ProRes QT file, right?

Regarding Itunes: I never liked working in Itunes, I always have a hard time locating my audio file once I import it. I've had better luck creating an Audio Folder within the FC project folder and keep all my working audio -- music, VO, SFX there. That way I know exactly where to find it.
My original question was should I convert the MP3 to an aiff? I'm hearing, that FC doesn't like MP3 even when it's rendered and I should should always convert the MP3 to aiff before bringing it in to FC. I think it's much easier for me to just make the aiff in SoundTrack Pro vs. Itunes.

Shelley
MacBoo Pro 2015
16 GB Ram
OS X 10.13
Premiere Pro CC

Did you know apple-R in iTunes and several other OS X places will "reveal file" for you.

Add your mp3 to iTunes.
Convert to 48/16 AIFF.
Select newly converted track.
Apple-R drag it to FCP or wherever you want to keep your editing media and then to FCP.
Done.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

> Regarding the converting VOBs vs. transferring to DV tape: I would be mastering to DVD so
> from what I gather here, my best bet is either output a 8bit uncompressed or ProRes QT file,
> right?

Yes, in your case, you don't have to deal with DV. If you go with Uncompressed 8-bit, make sure your drives are fast enough to deal with that media or you'll get choppy playback during editing.

> My original question was should I convert the MP3 to an aiff?

Yes. It's not a choice, it's a necessity.

> I think it's much easier for me to just make the aiff in SoundTrack Pro vs. Itunes.

Whatever suits your fancy! I don't think Soundtrack Pro does batch conversions, though. If I remembered that right, then if you had 120 MP3s, STP would be a very inefficient way to convert them. Compressor or iTunes would work far better.

> I always have a hard time locating my audio file once I import it. I've had better luck creating
> an Audio Folder within the FC project folder and keep all my working audio -- music, VO, SFX
> there. That way I know exactly where to find it.

Actually, you're talking apples and oranges here.

Even when a file is in a bin in your FCP project file, that has no bearing on where the file actually is. You'd still have to do media managing at the OS level, because a bin in the project file is not an actual disk location. It's just referencing the file, which could be anywhere in the system.

Digital Heaven's Loader could have what you need here. I don't use it myself because I'm very hands-on with my file management, but many people have sung its praises:

[www.digital-heaven.co.uk]


(The off-topic part)

> Did you know apple-R in iTunes and several other OS X places will "reveal file" for you.

Hmm, useful shortcut to know. I've just been right-clicking to "Show in Finder".

But there's another shortcut I love in Finder that the track numbers mess with. In a long list of 2000 files, I can fly directly to "Stairway to Heaven" by typing "STA" on the keyboard.

With the track numbers, you'd have to type "04 Sta" -- that is, if you knew your copy of the MP3 came from the original album Led Zeppelin IV. If it had come from the first Led Zeppelin boxed set, it would be "15 Sta". If it had come from Mothership, it would be "13 Sta".

See my problem with this feature?

If you kept the album folders, you would also have to wonder which album to navigate to -- if you had a track like "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", which is on every classic-rock collection on the face of the earth, you'd be plowing through folder after folder.

I don't have a problem with having this feature for those who do want it. I had a problem when the took off the option of turning this feature off in the iTunes 8 update. I'm still running iTunes 7 as a result.


www.derekmok.com

I love the idea of Loader, but it doesn't quite work for me right now. Instead of being able to specify a bin for the different media types, it puts all new media in its own bin called "Imports (3/30/09 1:22:02 PM)" or whatever. Which means as soon as I've "Loadered" something, I have to move the clips into the right bins and then delete the "Imports" bin.

It's almost there, but not quite. For me, anyway.

(Continuing the off-topic tradition)

Everything you say about file names and folders and stuff is totally valid, and makes perfect sense. Except for me, I use iTunes specifically so I don't have to mess around with that stuff. Different use cases, different preferences.

We did discuss this during beta and it could possibly be a feature if you request it from Martin.

I love Loader myself. Saves me so much time and trouble. What I do if I need to keep the audio in a particular folder in the browser is just dump the whole import folder into a 'music' folder.

Yeah, Jude, that's not an unreasonable way of working. It's just not my way. I'm anal-retentive about my bins. When it comes to my bins, I'm as nuts as Derek is with his music folders.

Yeah I'm kind of anal about them too. Just spent the last three weeks making the most tightly structured (and very tidy) hierarchical setup for this multiclip job, but the ease of dragging and dropping something right into FCP outweighs the extra folder name in the browser for me.

Horses for courses, like we always say.

Derek, your example is a perfect example of why it doesn't work for me.

there must be umpteen different versions or "Stairway to Heaven" .
in fact here in Australia, there was an album released where EVERY track was a cover of "Stairway to Heaven"

best way to find those tracks would be in iTunes.
type in Stair and you're close
maybe a smart folder

but for me i Tunes isn't an infalible database,
so having some sensible order to the files in the finder makes perfect sense.
Artist - Album - track#
simple

on top of that, ive got over 33,000 tracks in my iTunes.
i wouldn't want to put that many files into one folder!


nick

> there must be umpteen different versions or "Stairway to Heaven" .
> in fact here in Australia, there was an album released where EVERY track was a cover of
> "Stairway to Heaven"

This is why I use a system like this:

"Stairway to Heaven" (no suffix means original recording)
"Stairway to Heaven (Great White)" (Great White's cover)
"Stairway to Heaven (Live1)" (eg. from How the West Was Won[/i)

And I do separate artist folders in addition to that -- my iTunes library is around 50,000 files and I'd never let them be in one folder. I just get rid of all album folders. It's nearly impossible that one artist other than Led Zeppelin would have that many versions of "Stairway".

Using only artist folders to separate multiple covers of one song is dangerous -- under the "unique file names" principle we have in editing.

In the case of, say, Pearl Jam's 200 versions of "Corduroy", I'd have to put the entire live album's information in the file name:

"Corduroy (Live in Cincinnati, OH 01-01-2001)"

No choice there. I still wouldn't let 2,000 tracks start with "01", and I'd still find track numbers useless.


www.derekmok.com