mpeg-2 conversion time?

Hi, all

I am in the process of exporting an MPEG-2 from FCPHD, using MPEG-2 60 min best quality. I have a 2.5 gig G5 and my project is 22 minutes long. I used film look on most of this project, but right now it's estimating 7.5 hours to complete. This seems like a really really long time. I cannot imagine spending this amount of time on each project just to export an MPEG-2.

This is the first time I've used compressor - I usually export a self-contained movie. But when I burn the self-contained movie in DVDSP, it doesn't look good. (It looks fine in IDVD, but I'd really like to use DVDSP correctly)

Thanks.

-Elizabeth

Elizabeth,

I have heard that exproting directly from FCP to MPEG somtimes takes hours, but I have never tried that . I always export a self contained .mov file and open Comprssor and drag the icon into Compressor or open the .mov file in Compressor. The encode times are generaly 2x real time.

""But when I burn the self-contained movie in DVDSP,"" What do you mean by this?

Perhaps you might describe your workflow in more detail.

Using Compressor from FCP does take ages. You could die of boredom or despair Not just the compression stage, but also setting it up is quite unresponsive. it's related to the way FCP has to feed the information to Compressor.

The best workflow IMO is exportig either a self contained or reference movie, and then use Compressor to convert that into a MPEG-2 stream for video, and an AC-3 stream for audio. The technology Compressor uses is the same one DVD SP uses when you give it a Quicktime file, but the options are far more comprehensive (and DVD SP can't do Dolby/AC-3 on its' own).

Just by using AC-3 audio instead of AIFF/DV/PCM audio frees significant data space you could use for raising the quality of video compression and/or having better playback compatibility. Unlike what happened in the Compressor 1.x era, the Compressor 2 presets are designed/named assuming you will convert your audio to AC-3 (that's why the whole preset naming/duration scheme changed).



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

so if I use compressor as described and then import the mpeg2 into DVDSP, (a 22 minute piece) should I just burn it at bit default bit rate? And if i do, will it look any better than if DVDSP compressed it?

Before, I imported the self-contained FCP movie into DVDSP and tried burning it at default bit rate, I tried lowering the bit rate and also increasing the bit rate. Nothing gave me as good a result as IDVD. The DVDSP DVDs have artifacts all over the place (square pixels, muddy faces) - and the original footage is beautiful. So the client gets IDVD burned DVDs. I happen to like the menu in DVDSP better, but that's the way it goes.

At this point, I have made so many coasters that I'm considering DVD wall art. I just want to understand the burn process better. I'd take a class, but I assume, like the DVDSP book that came with the program, a class would be 90% making menus. I get that part. I have read in many threads that DVDSP4 has some flaws of this nature. I hope someone fixes this problem.

If you have time to answer my questions in the first paragraph, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks for your help.

-Elizabeth

""so if I use compressor as described and then import the mpeg2 into DVDSP, (a 22 minute piece) should I just burn it at bit default bit rate? And if i do, will it look any better than if DVDSP compressed it?""

What we have been trying to tell you is that whether you are outputting from FCP to MPEG or using Compressor to encode or even iDVD, all of the above are using Quicktime Pro do accomplish this task. While dragging a QT file directly into DVD Studio Pro is using Quicktime Pro, or dragging it into iDVD is using QuickTime Pro and using Compressor is also using QuickTime Pro.

When using it in the first 2 ways, you get a default bitrate and Constant Bit Rate encodes. Compressor allows you to choose Variable Bit Rate 1 or 2 pass or CBR and different bitrates to accomodate file size requirements.

Learning how to encode to MPEG is considered the "holy grail" of DVD authoring. You would do well experimenting with different encode types for learning purposes.

Hi, guys

just a follow up to let you know that I finally successfully converted the movie to an mpeg2, dragged into DVDSP and got a much better product than before. And making the mpeg2 from a self contained movie was a fraction of the time - under an hour. I could still play around with bit rate, and I'm sure I will in the future. This has been a huge learning experience for me. Thank you so very much for your help and your patience.

-Elizabeth

Elizabeth: Glad to read it worked for you.
Just in case: DVD SP's bit rate settings only apply to Quicktime files you import, so that DVD SP encodes them either as a background task or at build time (your choice).
MPEG-2 files are already encoded (with Compressor or your tool of choice) with the bit rate you picked there, and DVD SP's bit rate settings have no effect on them. I hope that's clear!
All the best.



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

I finally get it Adolfo! Now that I do, I can experiment a little more with the settings in Compressor.

One step I did have problems with that was kind of strange, I could only drag the mpeg2 and the audio files into DVDSP. When I tried to import them (import/asset) the program would crash. Everytime. But I could easiily drag and drop them into the bin. Took a while to figure that out.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to run Disk Warrior right now because after all those crashes my computer took a very long time to shut down.

Thanks again!
-Elizabeth

Elizabeth: Diskwarrior is fine, but not as important as it used to be. Don't abuse it. It's more like an emergency thing when you have a hard drive crash. Since Panther, Mac OS X uses a technology (journaled volumes) that's really good automatically mantaining drive integrity.
What you could do is Repair permissions in Disk Utility. Long to explain why it's needed, but trust me, it does help. You can do it once a month or something like that.



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

Hey,

<<<making the mpeg2 from a self contained movie was a fraction of the time>>>

That's good to know. We have been forced kicking and screaming into using Compressor instead of the good old MPEG2 export right out of Final Cut.

It's been painful.

Mostly because of the compression time. It's good to know there is a way around that. A 30 second commercial in FCP4.5 takes about a minute to compress using our custom settings. Using FCP5 Compressor Export takes five minutes. Same commercial, same settings.

Right away we started planning our retirement waiting for some of our longer reels to compress.

Now all we need is enough hard drive room to support a self-contained, uncompressed movie.

Why on earth would exporting from the timeline take so long? It's doing a bunch of work, too. The terabyte stack lights all come on and stay on for the entire duration of the compression.

Koz

Hey, Koz

It took me a week of insanity to finally somewhat understand this process. The first time I tried to export an mpeg2 of my 22 minute sequencein FCP, I cancelled when it got to the 5 hour point. I knew there must be an easier way. I have no idea why it takes so long from FCP, but I'll never try that again. And why is it that i can drag and drop the mpeg2 into DVDSP but importing it causes crashes everytime?

I used the same process today for a ten minute sequence. Took 25-30 minutes at 60 minute best quality. Looks great. I feel like I've been through the ringer, though.

-E

Hi all.


I have a question on the above described workflow.


Adolfo, I always have been exporting to Compressor from FCP. And yes, it takes a very long time.

Above, you mentioned to export footage from FCP as a self contained movie or reference movie. I assume you then open the self contained movie or reference movie within Compressor, choose your settings, and then let Compressor do its thing.

My question is this. Why would doing using the self contained movie or reference movie method be faster than exporting to Compressor from FCP? Wouldn't the same thing be happening? Or is it that coming from FCP introduces another software layer in the workflow that slows down the process?

I would really like to know the technical reasons for the speed increase by using the self contained/reference movie method. This would help me speed up my workflow drastically.

Elizabeth, thanks for sharing this information with the forum, and good luck.


Take care.

-DH

"Or is it that coming from FCP
introduces another software layer in the workflow that slows down the
process?"

Hello, DH.
In a few words, yes. That's exactly the reason. Actually you (and others) may be suprised to read that Compressor doesn't compress anything by itself!
Compressor is just an empty user interface for a system wide encoding service. FCP has to "feed" the source information to Compressor and that background service, and when you add to the picture the specific interframe/temporal nature of MPEG-2, you end up with what we know. Please notice that it's not only producing the final file what takes ages, but also the mere action of previewing in Compressor the material from an FCP timeline is almost unbearable slow.

If you want something even worse, try importing a "raw" Motion project file into Compressor or DVD SP and try scrubbing that (as you would have to do to set chapter markers or a loop point). Not nice

All the best



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

I think it's a lovely idea that they added the Compressor package with all of its bells and whistles, dogs and ponys, filigries, etc. etc, but why did they have to *remove* the old MPEG2 Export option?

The fast, quick export option that we now how to use, produced nice results, and didn't take forever.

We have the odd experience that nobody wants to upgrade from FCP4.5 to FCP5 because of this problem. You can't tell clients that you got a much better machine and are no longer going to make FedEx.

Koz

"I think it's a lovely idea that they added the Compressor package with all
of its bells and whistles, dogs and ponys, filigries, etc. etc, but why
did they have to *remove* the old MPEG2 Export option?"

Because, given you use the right workflow (as Elizabeth could check herself) it is much better. The old encoder was actually worse, not just in evident stuff, but also in the other things, for instance how reliable it was at "obeying" your specified bit rate.

"
We have the odd experience that nobody wants to upgrade from FCP4.5 to
FCP5 because of this problem. You can't tell clients that you got a much
better machine and are no longer going to make FedEx."

Nobody wants to upgrade? Are you sure? I would say few software releases have been as succesful as FCP 5.
I wouldn't say there is a "problem". Instead, I would say there are more efficient workflows and less efficient ones. Given the right workflows, it works very very well. It's not iMovie, it's not iDVD. Professional DVD authoring is a whole profession on its' own, and one really has to learn a lot of things!



Post Edited (03-17-06 18:26)

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

<<<Nobody wants to upgrade? Are you sure?>>>

Oh, I'm crystal clear about that. Once they heard that instead of one export key click they now had to export the whole show as a QuickTime Movie and then submit it to a slower encoder, I became a most unpopular guy.

That still doesn't excuse taking the old encoder off. Compressor violates each of the three laws. It's more expensive, it doesn't *seem* to work any better, and it's slower.

What's not to like?

I do understand very clearly why they also gave us the ability to spread the render across multiple computers. That ability is not optional.

Koz