Making MP4's in Compressor at DVinfo.net

Steve Lewis · March 8th, 2009, 12:33 AM

Hi MacHeads!

When I go to make an mp4 in compressor, it limits the bitrate at 2Mb/s! What gives? (It's like this little slider thingamabob that wont let me get past 2000kbps) When I make h.264 MOV's in Compressor, it lets me enter in any amount for the bitrate. 2Mb/s isn't enough for HD video, so why does Compressor do this for mp4's. Am I missing something?

-Steve

Steve Lewis · March 8th, 2009, 10:46 PM

El Bumpo!

-Steve

John C. Plunkett · March 9th, 2009, 09:55 AM

Apple hates MPEG.
HA.
Seriously though, export your MPEG-4/h.264 files through FCP. It will do the bitrates you want.

Robert Lane · March 9th, 2009, 11:53 AM

Unless there's a specific reason you're using MP4 I'd try Flash instead. Higher quality output for very little data size.

Andrew Stone · March 9th, 2009, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John C. Plunkett

Apple hates MPEG.
HA.
Seriously though, export your MPEG-4/h.264 files through FCP. It will do the bitrates you want.

Yes export to > Quicktime movie right in FCP will allow you to set a high bit rate and have a complete list of codecs in a pull down menu.

William Hohauser · March 9th, 2009, 02:36 PM

Aside from the speed which mp4 files render, there are no advantages over h.264 either in size or quality.

Steve Lewis · March 9th, 2009, 11:43 PM

The reason I like MP4s is because I can play them on my Playstation 3 and the PS3 wont play MOVs. Also, I like compressor because then I can utilize all my cores on my Mac Pro and compressor lets me do simple gamma corrections. (also, the image tends to be better when i use Compressor vs right out of FCP, maybe that's just a flawed perception on my part)

-Steve

Andy Mees · March 10th, 2009, 04:41 AM

Steve, export your movies as ProRes then push those intermediates through MPEG Streamclip to make them into MP4's ... MPEG Streamclip's MP4's are so much better than FCP/Compressor that its just not funny.

Steve Lewis · March 11th, 2009, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

Steve, export your movies as ProRes then push those intermediates through MPEG Streamclip to make them into MP4's ... MPEG Streamclip's MP4's are so much better than FCP/Compressor that its just not funny.

Should I just export "movie" and just let it export as a an uncompressed HDV reference file? If not, then how do i export as ProRes, QT conversion?

Thanks for your help Andy!

William Hohauser · March 12th, 2009, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

Steve, export your movies as ProRes then push those intermediates through MPEG Streamclip to make them into MP4's ... MPEG Streamclip's MP4's are so much better than FCP/Compressor that its just not funny.

I have made mp4 files with MPEGStreamclip that will not play on client's Windows PCs. No idea why but Compressor's mp4 files work.

I tried to make a better mp4 with Compressor by setting the frame rate to 29.97 / 640x480, keyframe every frame and constant bit rate at 2048. Two and a half minutes made a 75mb file but visually it didn't come out that great. h264 would have done better but the PS3 doesn't recognize those I guess. Does the PS3 recognize Divx? That might be a way to go.

Make a reference movie file for import into MPEGStreamclip. Self-contained shouldn't be needed.

Steve Lewis · March 12th, 2009, 11:52 PM

But I still have the problem of having to do gamma correction, and I don't think MPEG Streamclip has gamma filters...does it?

David Knaggs · March 13th, 2009, 06:27 AM

Steve, I haven't actually tried this myself, but I've recently heard that if you export a reference file in the animation codec, the gamma might remain "true" when you later make it into an H.264 with Compressor and not need any gamma correction. I don't know if this approach would apply to MPEG Streamclip and the mp4 files but, if you are really worried about not being able to do gamma correction, perhaps animation codec might be worth a try.

Aric Mannion · March 13th, 2009, 12:36 PM

Keep a log of what mp4 settings work for a specific length of video to playback on the finicky PS3. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to convert a video for the PS3. There is NO help online anywhere, so I'd appreciate if you would share your findings. It's not as difficult as the PSP though, that thing is an absolute nightmare to encode for.

Steve Lewis · March 13th, 2009, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aric Mannion

Keep a log of what mp4 settings work for a specific length of video to playback on the finicky PS3. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to convert a video for the PS3. There is NO help online anywhere, so I'd appreciate if you would share your findings. It's not as difficult as the PSP though, that thing is an absolute nightmare to encode for.

MP4's for the PS3 are very easy. Just go with Quicktime conversion, then choose just plain mp4, then choose MP4 (not MP4 ISMA, i think) and then go with h.264 encoding. The rest of the parameters are up to you.

-Steve

David Knaggs · March 17th, 2009, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Lewis

The reason I like MP4s is because I can play them on my Playstation 3 and the PS3 wont play MOVs. ... compressor lets me do simple gamma corrections.

Hi Steve.

I just found this great tip (from Stu Maschwitz) about how to take an H.264 .mov file and turn it into a .m4v file which PS3 will then recognize and play - all without re-encoding!

ProLost: Convert H.264 Quicktime to PS3

This means that you can encode in H.264 using Compressor (at a much higher bitrate than 2 Mb/sec!!) and also make your gamma correction in Compressor (to counteract the usual H.264 gamma washout) and then simply use QuickTime Pro with the "Pass Through" formats to turn it into an .m4v that should play in PS3.

I'll probably test this myself in the next couple of days.

March 8th, 2009, 12:33 AM	#1
Steve Lewis Major Player Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Goleta, CA Posts: 233	Making MP4's in Compressor Hi MacHeads! When I go to make an mp4 in compressor, it limits the bitrate at 2Mb/s! What gives? (It's like this little slider thingamabob that wont let me get past 2000kbps) When I make h.264 MOV's in Compressor, it lets me enter in any amount for the bitrate. 2Mb/s isn't enough for HD video, so why does Compressor do this for mp4's. Am I missing something? -Steve __________________ www.spreefilms.com - Give me a museum and I'll fill it!

March 8th, 2009, 10:46 PM	#2
Steve Lewis Major Player Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Goleta, CA Posts: 233	El Bumpo! -Steve __________________ www.spreefilms.com - Give me a museum and I'll fill it!

March 9th, 2009, 02:36 PM	#6
William Hohauser Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: New York City Posts: 2,650	Aside from the speed which mp4 files render, there are no advantages over h.264 either in size or quality. __________________ William Hohauser - New York City Producer/Edit/Camera/Animation

March 9th, 2009, 11:43 PM	#7
Steve Lewis Major Player Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Goleta, CA Posts: 233	The reason I like MP4s is because I can play them on my Playstation 3 and the PS3 wont play MOVs. Also, I like compressor because then I can utilize all my cores on my Mac Pro and compressor lets me do simple gamma corrections. (also, the image tends to be better when i use Compressor vs right out of FCP, maybe that's just a flawed perception on my part) -Steve __________________ www.spreefilms.com - Give me a museum and I'll fill it!

March 12th, 2009, 11:52 PM	#11
Steve Lewis Major Player Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Goleta, CA Posts: 233	But I still have the problem of having to do gamma correction, and I don't think MPEG Streamclip has gamma filters...does it? __________________ www.spreefilms.com - Give me a museum and I'll fill it!

March 9th, 2009, 09:55 AM	#3
John C. Plunkett Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Jacksonville, Illinois Posts: 130	Apple hates MPEG. HA. Seriously though, export your MPEG-4/h.264 files through FCP. It will do the bitrates you want.

March 9th, 2009, 11:53 AM	#4
Robert Lane Go Go Godzilla Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ USA Posts: 2,823 Images: 15	Unless there's a specific reason you're using MP4 I'd try Flash instead. Higher quality output for very little data size.

March 10th, 2009, 04:41 AM	#8
Andy Mees Major Player Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Posts: 645	Steve, export your movies as ProRes then push those intermediates through MPEG Streamclip to make them into MP4's ... MPEG Streamclip's MP4's are so much better than FCP/Compressor that its just not funny.

March 13th, 2009, 06:27 AM	#12
David Knaggs Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 826	Steve, I haven't actually tried this myself, but I've recently heard that if you export a reference file in the animation codec, the gamma might remain "true" when you later make it into an H.264 with Compressor and not need any gamma correction. I don't know if this approach would apply to MPEG Streamclip and the mp4 files but, if you are really worried about not being able to do gamma correction, perhaps animation codec might be worth a try.

March 13th, 2009, 12:36 PM	#13
Aric Mannion Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 616	Keep a log of what mp4 settings work for a specific length of video to playback on the finicky PS3. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to convert a video for the PS3. There is NO help online anywhere, so I'd appreciate if you would share your findings. It's not as difficult as the PSP though, that thing is an absolute nightmare to encode for.