****DISCLAIMER This information is boring, not fun, and a lot of info. Later, if there is interest, I can make a more bullet pointed one but this video is for people that don't want to be lied to and told they will be a pro by "doing these settings" but rather really want to learn about what it takes to become your own master and therefore an actual pro. So don't read or watch this if you are not interested in that (as it pertains to cinematography/VFX/Photography)
Hey guys!
So I put this in a different forum but I should have put it here as there are more techys here anyway and people that want to be videographers and photographer and not just fly (which is fine, I love to fly and do often without recording, especially with the super fun to fly Phantoms).
So I've had a couple people ask me what my workflow is when I tell them that I take the not really useable (for editing and not losing a generation) but good h.264 deliverable which is what we get out of our Phantom 4s and that's also what you get from our P3P, P3A, P3S, Typhoon H, Solo, etc. In other words, most prosumer integrated cameras use a codec (compressor/decompressor) in their intigrated cameras, including the Inspire 1 V2 with the X3 AND the X5. The X5R gives you the ability to shoot DNG and needs the speed to do it which is a major reason you can't shoot RAW to a microSD card becasue it's simply not fast enough to write it.
The fastest we can get those microSD cards, for the very best ones, are at about a constant 50-80Mbps while the X5R Raw records at 1.6Gbps which is obviously a lot faster and requires an SSD drive (which average around 200-550MBps). The low end of an SSD speed is still WAY more than twice the speed of the fastest microSD card you can find on the market and a 550 is many times faster and therefore able to record raw 4K and above at data rate that works.
But we don't have that with our Phantom's because they are prosumer/enthusiast cameras and not professional ones. There is no way you can take the output of a Phantom 4 or 3 camera and deliver an h.264 codec as a deliverable for anything professional (hence it's not a professional codec). It's actually a preview codec in most circumstances.
Here is an example of how a professioal TV show would work with the codecs if you were the VFX artist on the show. So let's pretend we are going to add muzzle flashes (guns), a submarine on a underwater shot, or just a greenscreen that needs to be pulled a composited. Here is how it would normally be done.
The uncompressed version (they would be using a very professional camera), for example a Sony F55 which not only needs fast drive speed but has it's own proprietery flash drive for super speed. It's not even a very expensive camera at $30k just for the base, not to mention the lens, the batteries, storage, stand, etc so if you are upset that your $1400 flying machine doesn't shoot RAW, might want to think about that.
It would be shot uncompressed and probably delivered to you as the VFX artists (depending what you are doing and how you are recieving it) as a ProRes 422, Avid Uncompressed 8-10 bit, or I usually get the awesome DNxHD 75 or 150 which is a VERY good lossless codec but not uncompressed. Understanding the difference between uncompressed and lossless is a very important thing that even people that work professionaly in this business don't always understand perfectly. If it's uncompressed there is NO CODEC INVOLVED at all. You may convert it to another uncompressed format and lose nothing but you can't change it to a lossless codec like ProRes 422 and then recompress it and not have a generation loss (albeit small because of the very good codec and starting with Raw).
After we would recieve whatever we need to do, let's say pull a key and add a boat to a water back plate. We would pull the key and then deliver it back (either via a harddrive, ftp, or hightail/dropbox). HOWEVER, before we would send it back to the digital services of the show, we would send it to ALL THE PEOPLE that would need to approve it. Depending on the show, it can vary some but in general it would go to the director, creative EPs and anyone else who has a say whether it would pass or not. Then it would be send to Standards & Practices and Legal, and the Network to make sure that they will pass it all as well (this is all stuff that needs to happen for every VFX segment on a show). Everything is approved so it is sent out in a PREVIEW FORMAT (something that isn't extremely lossy and that is small). For me, and my company, and has been the go to codec for preview has been h.264. Sometimes an m4v for an even smaller one that can be seen on a iPad or something like that.
Once approved, we would render out the final deliverable and the digital services would color correct it, send it to the soundstage for audio mixing and then it would be ready to be added back to the final edit for air. This is how it's done. This is what we do. Why am I telling you all this? Because I want you guys to understand where we ARE STARTING. We are starting with the best image being what is normally the preview codec.
What is a codec? A codec is a compression algorithm that makes something small by compressing it and then when it is played back, that same codec decompresses it and you can then see your image again. Depending on the quality of the codec (and how much it compresses it) the liklihood or not of getting artifacts due to the compression exists or not. H.264 even in its first generation is not a lossless but it is a great codec. If you shoot right, you won't see that many artifacts but if you don't shoot right, the h.264 is what can give you weird looking imagery when moving to fast, or just digita chatter, and a few other things but it is not hard to get a VERY good image out of the Phantom 4 camera at 60Mbs data rate with the AVC hardware h.264 encoder that writes to out SD card as we shoot. This is why it's important to use a good, brand name, high speed card. It does matter.
Ok, so you need to know this: Editing software DOES NOT like h.264 (which by the way if you pick MOV or MP4, you are getting the EXACT same h.264 file wrapped in a different format container with the same codec). You cannot get anything out of this bird other than h.264 but you can put it in a QuickTime container (MOV) or an M-PEG 4 container (MP4). MP4 is more compatabile with PCs, MOV and MP4 both work fine on a MAC with QuickTime and they are the exact same file with the exact same codec.
The h.264 codec as I said, is not liked by editing software and makes it play choppy (even on super fast computers) and gives you less room to do things like add effects, or just the annoyance of the choppy playback. Also, if you use a better codec (by converting the h.264 files to another, more usable codec), you will find it easier to edit and you will also NOT LOSE A GENERATION when you re-encode.
Example: I have an h.264 and I don't convert it to something, then I edit, color correct, or whatever and re-encode it to h.264 or YouTube, or Vimeo, or whatever your final deliverable will be, if it's equal or lower, you will lose a generation and add grit, artifacts, etc to the video. You can still make it look good but there is a better way.
How do I convert all of my files? Well watch this video that I put together for you guys and it will show you. Basically, this video is to show you MY WORKFLOW for converting lesser files into better files like ProRes 422. If you have Final Cut installed on your MAC, you have ProRes. If you have a PC or don't have Final Cut, you need to find a way to install the codec. Google it. There are other codecs but ProRes 422 (not HQ and not 444) are quickly becoming codec standards when you want to deliver good quality without uncompression sizes.
Now the video at the bottom (the second video) is the one I made where I discuss the different formats and the one right below this sentence is the one where I explain how to convert your h.264 files all at once (using automation) into a useable and better codec that again, will be nicer to edit, easier to add effects to and will save you a generation of degradation.
Basically, take your files, drop them in and set it, forget it, come back and edit (I made that little rhyme up last time and I liked it).
I hope I didn't harp too much on ProRes 422 which is my most desired working codec (if I'm not using uncompressed) but there is already someone on the video that uses a PC that is saying they are having some problems exporting ProRes with their PC. I know it's possible, but it's not as easy as a MAC. Please google and look into it yourself as my eco-system is almost all Mac. When I get back to my studio on Monday, I will check my PC and see if I can export ProRes 422 out of Premiere or Avid from a PC.
So I hope I didn't talk too much and already lose you all but watch the videos if you are interested in learning to actually become a pro. These videos default to 1080P I believe but you can switch them to 4K. Please do if you can.
Finally, this is the video that discusses the different formats but I ruffled a couple feathers by making. This was the kinder second version.
Thank you very much for this great information. But, isn't there a chance to prepare and use ProRes 422 on a Mac without such an expensive equipment like Final Cut, let's say iMovie for instance?
Thomas. Posted at 2016-6-12 23:52
Thank you very much for this great information. But, isn't there a chance to prepare and use ProRes ...
If I am bring completely honest, I am not sure how you would get the ProRes codec without an installation of FCP.
That said, it can be played back, for example with VLC, which has the decompress part of the codec but to make it so that you can encode it, you need the whole codec (meaning the compressing part).
So yes, you must have the full codec installed on your computer to encode using the ProRes codec and I will look into other ways of installing it without necessarily using FCP. I have FCP X installed on most of my computers just in case I get a client that insists on it but I don't use it much but I know it at a minimum installs some very good codecs such as Apple Intermediate Codec, ProRes, but you can get files like DNxHD without Avid and I am sure you can get ProRes without FCP.
This will certainly help you not go nuts during the editing and effects stages of post! ...
I usually go nuts at the end when trying to learn new things. This is where I'm gonna need some inputs from the more experienced friends. I'll make sure I'll doit bit by bit this time. Thanks for the efforts once again bud!
Lacks some of the sexiness and the appearance of the ability to set variables for the codec but it certainly seems to work which is at the very least a sign that yes, it can be done (which I realized it definitely could).
As long as nobody is turned off by the terminal/console style looking aspect of it.
But if your end goal is to get ProRes out of a PC, is seems to have worked. Thanks for sharing.
I wonder if there is a way to do it in the Adobe ecosystem but either way it seems like at least a viable way to do it.
Between here and PhantomPilots and RCgroups, I'm getting tons of thank you for helping people with the speed of their workflow. Just goes to show you what people take for granted. I thought it was common knowledge that the editors don't like h.264 and bog it down but apparently I was wrong and people are finding out their systems are much more capable than they thought now that they are not editing in a terrine editing codec.
Glad you guys are such sponges for knowledge. Great stuff!!!
DJI have a transcoding tool for both Windows and macOS that will take the files your Phantom 4 produces and spit out ProRes files. It's available at http://www.dji.com/product/inspire-1/info#downloads
It should also be explained just why editing apps/programs hate H.264 so much, and why it's choppy and slow.
H.264 is VERY effective codec, effective in that it provides a LOT of compression (file size reduction) whilst still providing excellent quality video, good enough for 1080p broadcast and Blu-Ray. That reduction in file size doesn't come for nothing though, H.264 is computationally expensive, which is fine when all you're doing is watching a movie, but when it comes to editing these files even a modern, top of the range CPU is soon brought to it's knees.
Converting these H.264 files to ProRes will make life a lot easier for your editing program as it requires less CPU resources, but the trade off is that your files will now be MUCH MUCH larger. It's all about trade-offs.
Advocate Posted at 2016-6-19 05:36
DJI have a transcoding tool for both Windows and macOS that will take the files your Phantom 4 produ ...
This is all correct information. Didn't feel the need to bog down an already convuted bit of info with extra info about why it's choppy. It's not the only reason by the way. It's choppy especially for its nitrate. There are other more compressed codecs that editors don't "hate" but generally this is true.
I also didn't know that DJI had a piece of software for automated conversions of codecs but if possible you should always use a better piece of software like Media Encoder of AD instead IF POSSIBLE.
No worries fella, I wasn't trying to hijack the thread just add a bit more to what you'd already said. I've read your other posts and know you know what you're talking about, have been looking forward to more of your posts on editing etc so I can learn some more. Hurry up and post more tutorials1 ;)
First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to put together all of that information and the videos as well. They were extremely helpful for a newb like myself. I have been struggling to find the best workflow possible, and the struggle is on-going.
I have recently purchased a Phantom 4 Pro and have shot a few clips in 4k 60P. I have encoded/uncompressed/wrapped (after watching your video I’m not sure which one I have done haha) these clips from H.264 to Apple ProRes 422 using Compressor so that I can edit in Final Cut X. Unfortunately I’m noticing some quality loss (from the compressed H.264 to ProRes 422). After watching your video and reading your post, I’m not sure if Compressor is the best option, and Im not sure that I am using it to the best of its ability either.
My goal is to retain the best video quality possible. You mentioned that you use Final Cut X from time-to-time as per customer requests, so I was hoping you could guide me in the right direction.
-Do I need to get a different software (Media Encoder, etc) and only use Compressor to finish my project?
-Is Compressor sufficient for what I’m trying to accomplish? If yes, what settings are the best for my situation (The best video quality situation we all love)
I have just downloaded a Adobe Media Encoder trial so I will give that a go. I was hoping to use Compressor seeing that I already paid for it, but if that isn’t the right option then its spilt milk!
Phantom Pickel Posted at 2017-1-30 22:22
First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to put together all of that information and the videos as well. They were extremely helpful for a newb like myself. I have been struggling to find the best workflow possible, and the struggle is on-going.
I have recently purchased a Phantom 4 Pro and have shot a few clips in 4k 60P. I have encoded/uncompressed/wrapped (after watching your video I’m not sure which one I have done haha) these clips from H.264 to Apple ProRes 422 using Compressor so that I can edit in Final Cut X. Unfortunately I’m noticing some quality loss (from the compressed H.264 to ProRes 422). After watching your video and reading your post, I’m not sure if Compressor is the best option, and Im not sure that I am using it to the best of its ability either.
Hey man.
Forgot all about this thread. Yeah, happy to help and I believe I can.
First, let's get the confusion part of the "wrapper" out of the way. I was just making a distinction between codecs and formats (often called the same thing but one is a wrapper and one is not). H.264 i a codec (meaning it compresses and then decompresses as described in the video and OP), the .MP4 and .MOV part of the file is the format or "wrapper". So please don't let me get you confused. It's as simple as that and believe me, I was being honest when I said that there are professionals that don't get this very basic concept. So if you have an H.264 file wrapped in an MOV vs an MP4 format, they are EXACTLY the same BUT FOR the fact that MOV might not be compatible on a Windows system (less and less true) but still possible. MP4 and MOV will always be playable on a MAC.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the ProRes codec will only definitely be on your computer as a full codec if you have installed Final Cut which you have. Final Cut X which is a higher learning curve than Premiere and Media Composer and even Final Cut 7 which was the last one they had that they cut off for Final Cut X and left a whole industry of Final Cut users upset (not me). But if you are learning it, it is actually a very functional and excellent editor so stick with it.
I have a tendency on posting to go long, so stick with me when I seem to be heading on a tangent, I'm always heading to a place.
I used to use Compressor when I was forced to use the Final Cut Studio 2 on a gig for about a year (about 7 years ago) and I found Compressor to be quite capable. I am pretty much living in an Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem now and Avid Media Composer but there is NO reason why you should have your H.264 file, unconverted to ProRes using Compressor very easily and if your image is coming on the other end looking worse, it's 100% because you are putting in a bad encode.
Over the years, I have taken for granted the art of encoding and it is an art, albeit an annoying one. You should have literally ZERO quality degradation from a properly set encode from h.264 to ProRes and with that, I would need to know what your settings are and if I remember correctly, Compressor is modular (or node based) and you use setting, input and output nodes right? Well find your settings node and get me all the info and I will tell you what is wrong. My early guess based on nothing is you have it set to a incorrect bitrate or possibly resolution, or maybe you have it interlaced. There are so many possibilities that for me to tell you what to check would take forever but if you want to check something now, check your bitrate. Google what is the best settings for compressor for your 4K output. I AM SURE there is a preset, and I can tell you where it is but I would have to take a quick glance at the latest Compressor because, as I said, it's been almost a decade but I am sure it is similar if not exact. Go to where the Apple formats are and see if there is a 4K ProRes preset, and if there's not, I'll help you make one real easy. If you have Adobe Media Encoder, I'll send you my preset but it's better if you do it yourself anyway as you'll learn it.
This workflow, I know from the feedback I've gotten makes editing in Final Cut X from a misery to a breeze. Mainly because Final Cut X hates H.264 more than any editor (and they all hate it because of it's complexity. The CPU is constantly working to unravel the file) where ProRes is like silk to FCPX.
I see you said you downloaded Media Encoder so if it's pressing, I'll send you my preset and you can use it. Otherwise, let me know what you're setting are. If you really need my help, I'll PM you my number and walk you through the preset set up.
Hang tight, you're not far off. I know that sometimes encoding can be super frustrating and can make you feel like you don't know what you're doing because of all the buttons and settings. What does "Max Target Bit Rate Mean?", "What does CBR 5000 vs VBR 2 pass or 1 pass mean?" or even to someone that's brand new to digital media "What is progressive vs. Interlaced" etc etc. And then of course you need to know how it relates to your footage. They have made it a lot more idiot proof in that the interpolations are done pretty well for you but there is still an element of needing to know/learn to it.
Happy to help if I can. Let me know what your ProRes settings are out of Compressor please and let's get to the bottom of why your uprez isn't working.
Very informative.
Isn't FCP X supposed to convert to ProRes 422 at the import stage ? If yes, is it enough to wait for the conversion process to be done and start editing ?
This is how I work but maybe I'm completely wrong : import in FCP X, conversion to ProRes 422, editing, export Master, use compressor to produce the file for YT, Vimeo, ... ?
Ulysse Posted at 2017-1-30 23:51
Very informative.
Isn't FCP X supposed to convert to ProRes 422 at the import stage ? If yes, is it enough to wait for the conversion process to be done and start editing ?
This is how I work but maybe I'm completely wrong : import in FCP X, conversion to ProRes 422, editing, export Master, use compressor to produce the file for YT, Vimeo, ... ?
I do not use FCPX but I know how FCP 7 used to work.
It used to play back through quicktime and it would use QT as a proxy which is why I hated it because you couldn't ingest media into OMF like in Avid Media Composer.
However, with a quick look, there are two methods of ingesting media via FCPX.
Between the lines is from the manual.
__________________________
Final Cut Pro can play back many media formats.
Final Cut Pro also provides options for transcoding your media (converting it to a different format or changing its settings) to make it suitable for editing.
Create optimized media: This option transcodes video to the Apple ProRes 422 codec format, which provides better performance during editing, faster render times, and better color quality for compositing. If the original camera format can be edited with good performance, this option is dimmed.
Create proxy media: This option creates video and still-image proxy files. Video is transcoded to the Apple ProRes 422 Proxy codec format, which provides high-quality files useful for offline editing at the original frame size, frame rate, and aspect ratio. Final Cut Pro creates medium-quality (one-half resolution) proxy versions that increase editing performance. Video proxy files often take up considerably less storage space than optimized files, which can allow you to work on a portable computer instead of a desktop computer with significantly more memory and processing power. Still images are transcoded to either JPEG (if the original file doesn’t have alpha channel information) or PNG files (if the file has alpha channel information). Still-image proxy files facilitate faster processing and rendering when the original image is very large.
Now if you use the proxy settings that it discusses on the above, you must remember that it is playing back ProRes QT but while looking at the H.264 setting which is why it is choppy. I have about as fast a computer for editing and VFX as you can get and my computer doesn't like editing with h.264. When I used Premiere (instead of MC) it will give me a proxy as well (I believe it's a QT proxy of some flavor as well) but if I bring in a DJI H.264, it will give me stutters and problems.
If you have it set to "Create Proxy Media" as opposed to "optimize proxy media" you would be better off and more in line with what Ulysse's method is. I don't know if the optimized proxy media is something that is a full on blown up ProRes or not, I would have to dig deeper and read but it would seem like a good option if the ProRes proxy is as good as normal encoded ProRes media. I would imagine it probably is (or can be) and that's actually a nice function to have at your finger-tips as it would essentially be the exact workflow I'm speaking of but with it all done for you on ingestion.
In this method, ingestion of media would take a while (a la Media Composer) because it is essentially doing the encoding on the fly for you. My gut, since it says "proxy media" instead of just new media would make me think that for speed, and because they don't want to cannobolize their compression software, that the ProRes that it creates on ingestion is not full blown. Ulysses, you can tell me either way?
But if it in fact, does give you full ProRes (and it does say it will give you more color space for things like keying and compositing so maybe it does) then you would export from that and I think it would then use the original media which would in essence save you a generation but you would be saving a generation doing it the way I am saying as well. There are some codecs, or RAW footage where ProRes would actually be a step down and you would edit with it and then when it renders, it would render from the uncompressed file and in essence, actually save you a generation. ProRes is a master format but uncompressed is better.
In the situation that we are in though, you DO NOT want it rendering from the H.264 so even if it turns it to ProRes proxys, you don't want to have it render from the H.264 because the color space is less and you'll get, in this case, a better encode from the proxys.
I hope this is making sense. It's a bit all over the place, i realize, but at the end of the day, you want to make sure that there is a way to render directly from the "proxy media" if there is one and there probably is. I am sure it is no more than a check box or something in preferences.
Again, I don't use FCPX although I have been wanting to more and more lately. So it says that it is greyed out (the option to turn on "create proxy media" if the software thinks your CPU can handle the bandwidth but H.264 is a tricky codec for editors and I bet FCPX thinks it's just fine for editing but it's not. It's horrible for editing. So either create proxy media at a minimum, don't use "use optimized proxy media" because then it is having the problem of having to create a proxy out of your very compressed h.264 media.
Look at it this way. It is known that the more uncompressed something is, the easier it is to encode, and you are essentially encoding on the fly with proxys when you play back in an editor and it will do it slower than a codec like ProRes.
I'm going in circles but I will do a little more digging into the manual for you to see what the create proxy media is doing under the hood on output if you choose it. It will definitely, at a minimum, give you footage to play easier.
Sorry about the rambling.
I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the info Ulysses.
Forgot all about this thread. Yeah, happy to help and I believe I can.
I can't thank you enough for all the information/help you have already provided me. I have been searching for weeks and weeks and its often hard to find someone with the exact issue at times. I am a bit of a tech-guy and know a good deal about 4k home theater, and can work my way around a computer etc., but creating your own content is another animal. You are right about this whole codec and generation loss stuff being tricky and thanks to your help I have some hope. So please, "ramble on" as much as you want haha. Nothing worse than a guy(me) with nice toys thats doest know how to use them.. (insert joke here).
Below I have attached some images from Compressor (hope they display, if not I will try to fix it). Hope they are the settings you need to see in order to help me.
On another note, I have downloaded the trial of Media Encoder and used your settings per the video but would love to have your preset just to ensure I haven't missed anything. The ProRes 422 files i received when my batch completed look really good and much better than what I was getting our of Compressor (like i said probably user error). Media Encoder is a trial and I am willing to pay for Adobe just so I can use Media Encoder if I have to. So no matter the results, I am thrilled that you have gotten me this far, and If I can get the same quality out of compressor then great! If not I will use Media Encoder adn be just as happy (Just out $50..worth ever penny).
I will shoot you a PM to get your number etc. Thanks again!
****GO directly to the asterisk on the bottom of the page to get right to your question. Sorry :-X
It's totally my pleasure. Thanks for being so appreciative but I learn myself from trying to help others. For example, I wouldn't have known that FCPX has a complete conversion to ProRes option. In fact, because I was interested in checking it out, I popped open Final Cut Pro X which has been sitting on this particular work station for a year and I just popped it open for the first time tonight.
I imported an MP4 and then I created a new project. You see, this is part of the reason I have to get used to FCP because I know I will find myself in a position one day where I will have to use it and unlike other editors, it's not a hit the ground running learning curve on it. It is very contemporary in that other editors have always been a sign from past relics. Up until just recently, Quantel uses the term "cutting room floor (CRT)" on even it's most new hardware and software which is derived from of course when there was film and it was hung up in rooms of trippy film everywhere and with a device called a KEM, you would cut the film and the stuff that wouldn't be used would end up on the floor (the cutting room floor). Even the source and live monitor windows used in most editors, along with "bins" is terms from the past where we would have multiple tapes or whatever your source was (maybe live if it was an Ampex switcher) and you would have your source monitor and the TD would go live to the live monitor. Of course you still see this in live or live to tape situations but in an offline (or not live) situation, it's just a relic.
Why am I talking about the past and not about codecs? Because I type too much but the point is that FCPX represents a vast departure from it and Apple in their grand wisdom, did what they do best and that's not care what people think and let go of the past and make way for the future and in reality, I know that from the bottom of my heart that FCPX is a much more capable editor than Media Composer or Premiere but I can't slow my speed down as much as it would using FCPX, but I should really start learning it more. The auditioning, and the way it handles your media in the bins makes so much more sense than anything else, it's just hard to learn to drive from the other side of the car if you catch my drift.
Man, late night super ramble, on to your issue. The reason I opened up FCPX is to see what's going on and importing some media and then starting a project is ass backwards to me but the first thing it asks you when you start the project is basically how do you want it to handle the media. I am typing as I am using the software for the first time in years.
By default it says "use automatic settings" which I THINK would mean if you leave it alone, it will use the "create proxy media" vs "create optimized media" and again, if you are in this setting, that's when you will have trouble with H.264 video in the editor. I would explore the preferences of the ingestion of media and decide if I wanted to use the "optimize media" or the "create proxy media". If you choose the latter, you will definitely loose a lot of the problems associated with playback but I am, at the moment not sure if it's just a playback proxy created for only playback or if it's creating useable media that it will render FROM. It's important again to understand that the purpose of the proxy is usually doing the oppostie of what we are here. We are going from a smaller file to a larger file because of the nature of H.264. Proxys are created to take massive uncompressed files and be able to work off of real media that is relatively smaller even though ProRes does create some rather large 4k files but nowhere near if you were using 4k uncompressed so you see why it wants to create the proxys and then render from the oringal file but in our case, thats not what we want, we actually want it to render from the ProRes proxy, not the H.264 original. Very important to understand that.
I have to say, that just scrubbing through it, I haven't created a timeline yet, is bad but not near as bad as in Premiere if I don't transcode first. If you hit "use custom settings" it will give you a list of ProRes formats and a couple others that you can use as your playback and all the parameters that you would want to change in FCP. Personally, I would probably hit custom and leave the settings as is for now but make sure that "Use the first clip for project settings" or whatever. Basically that says whatever the first clip you import is, that will be your default project settings.
Of course we have resolution coexistence in FCP but you want your deliverable settings to be your project/timeline settings. For example, if you are going for 4k at 60fps (which judging from your compressor settings is what you're going for).
Well shoot. I was hoping I could get into a similar setting by exporting out of FCPX so I could see something similar to what you're looking at and get and find out what is not being set right but on export it immediately wants to go to Compressor.
So understand this fact. Compressor is not the problem here. It is more than capable of creating a perfect ProRes output exactly the same as Media Encoder. If I was using FCP, I would install Compressor because these programs use Adobe calls it Dynamic Link but a thread through the ecosystem of your editor (Premiere, Avid Media Composer, FCPX), Compression App (Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder, Sorensen Squeeze), and effects software (After Effects, Apple Motion, and on this one I would say use AE over anything, unless you are doing specific things like 3D, or tracking for example, you can find better trackers although the tracker in AE has got real good).
*****Man, this might be my worst ramble yet but you should have never given me the green light as I haven't even gotten to your very easy question "What setting is wrong from what you can see I did in Compressor".
Let me just move on to that. Let's go have a look. Unfortunately, I don't currently have compressor on my home workstation and therefore I can only guess what everything does because it's definitely not the same Compressor I used before. I actually liked the node based Compressor but it looks like in that regard they went traditional which is ironic considering how contemporary FCPX is.
I wish I knew what your original MP4s (or MOVs) were shot at as that would help. I am going to assume that you are using a P4P because a P4 doesn't shoot at 60fps in 4K (unless it does in some new firmware, I havent updated in a while since eveything was working nicely) which is what your setting is displaying.
So if you are not shooting with a P4P, then that is a major issue right there. So if you are shooting at 4K than you are good on the settings.
I also see that you are at 59.94 instead of 60 which is essentially the drop frame (DP) version of 60fps but the P4P I think shoots straight 60fps but that wouldn't cause you degradation issues. It's in fact pretty much 99.9999% 60fps and it would take twenty or more minutes before you even started to see audio sync issues if it was indeed incorrect.
I am confused by that break out box that says "Standard Video Compression Settings" box and in particular the box that says "optimized for download" which might be telling Compressor to do something to make the file optimized for DL which I don't know what that means exactly but it could possibly be the culprit. It's saying you are at Rec 709 color space which is indeed HD RGB color space unless you shot it in D-Log (which you should but that's a whole different conversation). Even if you did, technically, I think you are still in the 709 color space, but you would need to grade it or use a LUT to convert to proper color from the D-Log setting but from what I see, I don't have enough to figure out why you are getting a bad encode. It all looks okay from what I am seeing.
Well I was getting frustrated so I googled how to export directly out of FCPX and it's Apple-E and then the setting were minimal and I chose ProRes 422 in the minimal amount of setting it offered and then hit NEXT and it offered me a location for the source and it rendered out a beautiful ProRes file from a DJI mp4 with no problems. I was set at 4096x2160 at 24fps and it did it fine.
I don't know what I am not seeing on your Compressor settings and it's making me frustrated and I almost want to just buy Compressor for $50 so I can figure it out but since I don't think I'll be using it, I will refrain.
I'm afraid I don't see anything obvious that sticks out at me. I would offer this, uncheck "allow job segmenting" which has to do with hyper threading and ProRes is a threaded codec unlike H.264 which is a single thread. It's honestly just a guess shot. I would like to know what the screen that comes up in when you hit the button that says video and also under quality, where you have "fast" which is really about keyframing and shouldn't really effect anything you have going on but I would like to know what those options are.
Yeah, I thought whatever was wrong would scream at me but it doesn't. I'm sorry, I really looked but am not seeing the issue.
I will PM you my number and tomorrow mid day my time PST, if you want to give me a ring, I'll be happy to help you try and walk through it. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to do what you need to out of there and should if you are using FCPX.
Sorry for all of this and no conclusion.
I guarantee we will figure it out though.
PM coming now.
Good luck. Glad it worked with Media Encoder and I am just not seeing it from your screen shots but maybe there is something that i am literally not seeing. I am assuming the break out box was from when you hit "change" on video settings?
So then what screen happens when you hit video. Also, and I should have asked this immediately, what is the problem with the video it's spitting out currently? What is it doing that looks bad?
Good luck.
EDIT: Since I wrote this, I did a little more looking around on presets for ProRes in Compressor and this is where you want to be. Remeber I was saying there used to be nodes and there was one that said "apple devices" well that still exists (those presets) and there is one for all ProRes settings. You should start from there. It has your ProPres preset already under "Built In".
Click on the image and look at the presets on the left. If you are going to YT or Vimeo, you should look into "publish" settings which let you log into your accounts and render and send directly from the editor. Latest versions of CC Premiere Pro let you do that and it's fantasti but using that preset should get you to where you need to be with minimal if any tweaking. Try that and see what happens. Also, make sure you don't use anyting larger than the "ProRes 422". THAT IS ALL you need. I am betting if you use this preset, it will work just fine. It knows your project settings, assuming you set them up correctly from the get go.
Also if you look on the right, there is a plethera of information that you can choose such as "best quality" and bitrate targets and such. This is where you should be. This is also the same software, assuming you are using Compressor 4.
To be clear, from this location, you choose your codec preset (ProRes), your output module (wherever you want to send it on your computer) and then you drop all the files in that you want it to apply to, hit render and Bob's Your Uncle as they say across the pond.
Phantom Pickel Posted at 2017-1-30 22:22
First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to put together all of that information and the videos as well. They were extremely helpful for a newb like myself. I have been struggling to find the best workflow possible, and the struggle is on-going.
I have recently purchased a Phantom 4 Pro and have shot a few clips in 4k 60P. I have encoded/uncompressed/wrapped (after watching your video I’m not sure which one I have done haha) these clips from H.264 to Apple ProRes 422 using Compressor so that I can edit in Final Cut X. Unfortunately I’m noticing some quality loss (from the compressed H.264 to ProRes 422). After watching your video and reading your post, I’m not sure if Compressor is the best option, and Im not sure that I am using it to the best of its ability either.
There are several converters out there. The one that I've used in by brorsoft. they have a trial you can download to check it out. Workflow is pretty straight forward http://www.brorsoft.com
As far as a proRes codec to convert too, it doesn't really matter. You won't get any extra bit depth out of the conversion. In theory, if you were going into a broadcast chain, the HQ would survive multiple generations better, but given that the sources is 8bit 4:2;0, it's doubtful that there's much of a benefit to going with a higher bit codec.
Yeah, that would work but it's the exact same thing I am saying but using a much lower level conversion software offering,
It would work though. To each, their own.
I am not telling anyone WHAT to do, just what I do. I also find those "conversion" programs install malware on PCs.
The diference between what I showed and that link is that I reccomended using Adobe Media Encoder and that suggests "Broware Conversion Software". You choose. I'll stick with Adobe, especially when the link in that version has a link to the Broware software.
Unless i'm missing someting, I would reccomend sticking with Adobe over Broware.
christing Posted at 2017-5-17 01:27
There are several converters out there. The one that I've used in by brorsoft. they have a trial you can download to check it out. Workflow is pretty straight forward http://www.brorsoft.com
As far as a proRes codec to convert too, it doesn't really matter. You won't get any extra bit depth out of the conversion. In theory, if you were going into a broadcast chain, the HQ would survive multiple generations better, but given that the sources is 8bit 4:2;0, it's doubtful that there's much of a benefit to going with a higher bit codec.
The codec you want to use for anything that comes out of anything other than the X4S is ProRes 422.
444 is a unnecessary color space and HQ is unnecessary and will make the file size too long.
You want to convert to ProRes. As far as bit depth and not getting more or less, that completely depends on your settings. You can set a lower or higher bit depth so not sure what you mean.
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