Prores PAL to NTSC DVD via FCP and Compressor

[Geoffrey Cox]

Hi,

I've searched the forum and have mostly got to the bottom of this but not quite clear on some things, so if anyone can help I'd be grateful:

I need to make an NTSC DVD from a PAL HD Prores FCP6 timeline. Method:

1) export directly to Compressor and select MPEG2 template.
2) change video format under 'encoder' to NTSC, change frame rate to 29.97

3) And this is where I get confused: does enabling frame controls make any difference? I'm not de-interlacing (it's for DVD) or resizing but does rate conversion do anything here? When set up like this the frame controls is greyed out but 'on' (automatic mode?) and duration set to 100% - does changing rate conversion affect the quality of the frame rate conversion, so the greyed out 'fast' setting is in fact what is in operation, so changing that to best or better, will make a difference? What of the tick box at the bottom that says 'so source plays at 29.97'?

Or do I stick with the PAL settings in the video format box and use the frame controls to adjust the duration? But this seems to change the actual length of the film which I don't want, the manual is quite poor at explaining all this!

Thanks.

[William Hohauser]

You are resizing and rate converting. The question is how good do you want the video to look. Using Compressor, I would first make a SD NTSC file then make the DVD from that file. To make the movement flow better you should change the rate conversion menu in Frame Controls but understand that that will add considerably to rendering time.

Quite frankly, I always had better results with the Nattress filters (Standards Conversion | Nattress.com) then Compressor but that's if $100 is worth it to you.

[Geoffrey Cox]

Thanks for the response William. I think I did work it all out in the end and yes I understand now that I am resizing. But yes the processing time is enormous - it took 30 hours for a a 30 minute film on my oldish MacBook Pro and that was using the 'better' settings rather than 'best'. I have to say it looks pretty good though! Mind you the deadline for the submission is tomorrow and I ain't gonna make it as I now need to rebuild the DVDSP session for NTSC and am just too tired to do it and am committed elsewhere tomorrow. Ah well, at least I'm well on the way to producing an NTSC version for future use.

One thing - why do you think converting to SD first is a good idea - or do you mean creating an m2v SD file as I have just done, straight from Compressor? I always thought that was best as it preserves the compression / cut / edit markers that Compressor uses for best processing, whereas making a QT file first then transcoding in Compressor to m2v, does not.

[William Hohauser]

The reason is that I can check the quality of the conversion before making an m2v file that is sort of hard to spot check.

[Brian David Melnyk]

just a note. when using compressor, sometimes i have problems with blocking on some scenes, and weird kind of pulsating, as well as some transitions, mostly fades, not looking so great... why, i do not rightly know. transcode voodoo, likely.
if doing a 30 min film, because transcodes can take so loooooong, i break the film up into 3 or more sections, transcode each individually and then simply import and put on the same timeline in DVDSP.
this way if there is a problem, it is only the smaller sections that need to be redone (i also suffer power outages here in Africa that have occurred with 20 min. left in a 12 hour transcode....). and i think quality can be better, or more consistent with smaller exports. someone smarter than me could perhaps confirm and explain the reasons...

[Geoffrey Cox]

Thanks Brian - some useful tips there and yes William, you're right, testing the m2v file with any accuracy, is problematic.