Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

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Kionon
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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Kionon » Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:40 pm

Ok, I installed FCE 4.0. I figured out quite a bit. First a note about your rendering complaints: they are simply unwarranted. My process in Premeire has always been change, save, render, save, repeat. Why you feel (or why Castor feels) you should be exempt from this process, I don't know. When working with lossless for the best possible quality, this is simply the process. No way around it. Just accept that you have to press that render button a lot. Make peace with it.

Next, your initial setting is correct: DV-NTSC Anamorphic is a fine choice. However, once your HUFFYUV clips are imported, you need to go to item properties on each one, scroll down to anamorphic and click on the space next to it so a checkmark appears. Then when put on the timeline, your 720x480 will appear in the correct anamorphic aspect ratio.

When you are ready to export, choose use Quicktime Conversion, Quicktime Movie, Video Settings: None, Quality Best, Video Size: NTSC 720x480 16:9. Sound is immaterial at this point. PCM is fine.

You might lose the flagging when moving to AVI via MPEGStreamclip, but you can get it back with MP4 in Avidemux.
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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Kionon » Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:36 pm

ADDENDUM: skip MPEGStreamclip. Avidemux can open the uncompressed mov. Do an x264/mp4 encode from there.
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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Anicsi » Tue Jul 07, 2009 5:55 am

Oh, I didn't expect to get such a fast reply ^^ Well, of course I know that rendering is just part of the editing process. It is simply a bit irritating to have to render it also in the beginning even before knowing how it will go with the song. But well, I guess I have to put up with that ^^

Oh wow, I didn't know this checkmark-thingy. That's really great :) Okay, I just exported a short clip to check the steps you suggested. The uncompressed mov looks good and works fine. But I cannot import it to avidemux, it will look this way, same as the converted mp4 in the end. (Oh it says Apple Intermediate cause I tried both version, see below.)

You tried it, right? So I have no idea what is wrong with my avidemux. I can open the mov in Quicktime without any problem.


Image



Just one more thing:
To see if I'd have another deinterlacing problem I added some text to the clip.
It looks like this once exported:

Image


So I copied the clips to Apple Intermediate 720p but exported it the same way as the DV-NTSC: 720x480.
Now the text looks fine and I believe also the slight banding isn't as visible as in the DV version.

Image

1. MKV (without any conversion)
Image

2. DV-NTSC
Image


3. Apple Intermediate 720p
Image

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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Anicsi » Tue Jul 07, 2009 5:58 am

Oh right, just in case the deinterlacing is because of this feature you mentioned before: I still don't know how to turn it off, sorry. But still I've made the experience that Apple Intermediate Codec looks nicer in the end ^^

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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Kionon » Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:00 am

You know, I ran into a similar issue trying to move the resulting uncompressed video into an AVI file. There is clearly something about third party software that doesn't like uncompressed. Not sure why that is...

Let's see if I can find you an alternative without quality loss...
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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Kionon » Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:38 am

OK. I have a solution.

If you have x264Encoder installed, then you can encode directly out of FCE into the MOV container. Normally this is frowned upon, but the results I came out with worked well. You should see this screen:

Image

Options allows you to mess will all sorts of things. But for the successful test, other than using a 2500kbps rate and changing to multi-pass, I pretty much didn't really stray from the defaults.

Set Size to NTSC 720x480 16:9 just like before and audio to AAC.

Use MPEGStreamClip, save as to move your video into a more appropriate .mp4 format.

You should be done.

I have no idea how you are introducing interlacing, as I never encountered it at all.
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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Anicsi » Wed Jul 08, 2009 6:13 am

Thank you very much, I just installed the component and exported the clip again with the new settings.
The quality looks really fine, only that I encountered a little colouring problem.
left is the x264 compared to HUFFYUV to the right.


Image


However, as it isn't too visible I can keep that simply in mind when editing and take some slight changes.
*sigh* We just don't seem to come to an end, I am sorry. I can save it with MPEGStreamclip just as you suggested, but this flagging-thing doesn't seem to work. Now again I get the final resolution of 720x480 instead of the above mentioned. :|

Well... interlacing happens either if there are very fast movements presented in the clips (not always), if I use text in FCE (always!) or if I change the speed of a clip. It doesn't matter if it is slower or faster, it just produces interlacing.
But as I said, I don't have this prolem with Apple Intermediate Codec so I will probably work with that in the future.

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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Anicsi » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:46 am

Oh well, something just occured to me. I can set up the final size of the video manually, I mean the aspect ratio. This setting won't interfere with the quality, right? So MPEGStreamclip should keep the size, shouldn't it? Just in case it has something to do with my MPEGStreamclip that it won't keep the original size...

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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Kionon » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:51 am

Anicsi wrote:Thank you very much, I just installed the component and exported the clip again with the new settings.
The quality looks really fine, only that I encountered a little colouring problem.
left is the x264 compared to HUFFYUV to the right.
That's colorspace differences. I believe you can change that in options, and keep the YUV colorspace, but I didn't notice enough of a difference in my tests to personally care.
*sigh* We just don't seem to come to an end, I am sorry. I can save it with MPEGStreamclip just as you suggested, but this flagging-thing doesn't seem to work. Now again I get the final resolution of 720x480 instead of the above mentioned.
...what? *headdesk* If you play the resulting file out of MPEGStreamclip in QuickTime Player it doesn't have flagging? Keep in mind, MPEGStreamclip itself ignores flagging in its view window. This is not to be confused with how the file will be presented in actual players.

I am pretty sure I didn't have to tell it to reset the flagging, and I am pretty sure it just kept it.
Well... interlacing happens either if there are very fast movements presented in the clips (not always), if I use text in FCE (always!) or if I change the speed of a clip. It doesn't matter if it is slower or faster, it just produces interlacing.
But as I said, I don't have this prolem with Apple Intermediate Codec so I will probably work with that in the future.
That definitely sounds like you have the defaults set up to interlace. I'm working my way through the English FCE tech manual, and as soon as I figure out how to turn it off, I will let you know. As I said, I didn't encounter it at all. I know FCE has the annoying tendency to open each time with the same project settings (no, darn it, FCE, different projects mean different settings!) because of Easy Setup, so it's possible you initially checked something by accident, and FCE has just stuck with it.
Oh well, something just occured to me. I can set up the final size of the video manually, I mean the aspect ratio. This setting won't interfere with the quality, right? So MPEGStreamclip should keep the size, shouldn't it? Just in case it has something to do with my MPEGStreamclip that it won't keep the original size...
You mean manually resize the actual video to 848x480? You can, as a last resort, but you really shouldn't need to.
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Re: Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

Post by Anicsi » Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:58 am

Kionon wrote: That's colorspace differences. I believe you can change that in options, and keep the YUV colorspace, but I didn't notice enough of a difference in my tests to personally care.
Oh okay, maybe I can find that option. If I don't it is not too important.
Kionon wrote: ...what? *headdesk* If you play the resulting file out of MPEGStreamclip in QuickTime Player it doesn't have flagging? Keep in mind, MPEGStreamclip itself ignores flagging in its view window. This is not to be confused with how the file will be presented in actual players.

I am pretty sure I didn't have to tell it to reset the flagging, and I am pretty sure it just kept it.
Yes, I am very aware that MPEGStreamclip ignores flagging. But... yes, neither Quicktime Player, nor Mplayer or DviX Player show it with the right proportions ^^" Honestly .-.

I also looked through the settings in MPEGstreamclip but I couldn't find anything...
Kionon wrote: That definitely sounds like you have the defaults set up to interlace. I'm working my way through the English FCE tech manual, and as soon as I figure out how to turn it off, I will let you know. As I said, I didn't encounter it at all. I know FCE has the annoying tendency to open each time with the same project settings (no, darn it, FCE, different projects mean different settings!) because of Easy Setup, so it's possible you initially checked something by accident, and FCE has just stuck with it.
Yeah, right... Well maybe I am going to reset FCE once I have finished all my current projects. Don't know if this is going to help but it is worth a try...
Thank you very much ^^

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