Does anyone else have issues with Compressor 3 when working with DVCPROHD 720p footage?

I have been having more issues when working with 720p DVCPROHD files recently than I have for some time. I suppose that's because I've been doing more and more with the 5DmkII in 1080. But, the aspect ratio seems to always go out of whack for me when I drop a DVCPROHD file into Compressor 3 for encoding (to h264, usually). I get both squashed vertically and squashed horizontally. Not sure if there's a rhyme or reason as to why I'll get one for one file, and the other for another, but that's what happens. Files will be affected by one or the other types of squashing, but only one. It's a per-file type of thing.

Now, my typical workflow when this occurs is a 2 step process. Convert the dvcprohd file to Prores, then run the prores file through compressor using whatever preset I want. It's as though Compressor picks up the aspect ratio flag when going from DVCPROHD to ProRes, but won't do the same thing going from DVCPROHD to H264. Strange.

Just wondering if this is something Compressor 4 fixes, and if so, I may need to bite the bullet and purchase it from the App store.

Anyone seen this or a similar issue?

Have you checked all the settings -- frame size, pixel aspect ratio, Sequence Settings? Because the thing about DVCPro HD is that most cameras that shoot this format are using anamorphic, non-full-raster HD settings such as 960x720 and 1280x1080, rather than the full 1920x1080 and 1280x720 that DSLRs usually get.

> Convert the dvcprohd file to Prores, then run the prores file through compressor using whatever preset I want.

Why go to ProRes in the first place? You get larger files but no better quality, except maybe in graphics. But if I were shooting DVCPro HD, I'd keep the clips in DVCPro HD, edit in DVCPro HD, and then go directly to H.264.


www.derekmok.com

Everything looks good in FCP and then when viewing the file in Quicktime Player. It's when I try to convert the DVCPROHD file that I've output from FCP to an H264 in Compressor that I get the squishing. Using the same preset in Compressor with some prores material gives me no problems.


derekmok Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why go to ProRes in the first place? You get
> larger files but no better quality, except maybe
> in graphics. But if I were shooting DVCPro HD,
> I'd keep the clips in DVCPro HD, edit in DVCPro
> HD, and then go directly to H.264.


I'm doing all my ingesting, editing and outputting in DVCPROHD native. I'm not even getting into Prores with this media until I have problems getting what I need out of compressor. If I convert the 'master' DVCPROHD file to ProRes before converting to H264, I'm getting what I need. It's when i try and go straight from DVCPROHD to H264 that I'm running into issues.

Set the output frame size in the geometry tab to 1920x1080 and set pixel aspect ratio to square.



www.strypesinpost.com