Hi, I'm trying to find the best settings to export 1080 24p footage shot on a Canon 7d. I converted all the footage to Apple Pro Res before importing into FCS, and now my project is done. I see compressor has a h264 setting, would this be the ideal setting to use to get an identical copy of the original video?
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Exporting Canon 7d video from FCS
- Thread starter mikeheenan
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Absolutely not if you want an identical copy. H.264 will compress it big time! If you want a nice clean HD copy to have export it at Apple Pro Res 422
The user stated they imported at Pro Res so that is why I suggested exporting at Pro Res.
ah but which ProRes? 422 (LT, normal or HQ) or even 4444???The user stated they imported at Pro Res so that is why I suggested exporting at Pro Res.
although its fair to assume he used ProRes 422 (LT) as its a Canon 7D, so he wouldn't gain much (bar the extra hdds
) by choosing other 422s (normal or HQ) or 4444.
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I chose Pro Res 422 Normal when I originally converted the footage for editing. It made the file sizes about 2 and half times as big. I know that Canon 7d footage is h264, and that converting it back to h264 would incur some quality loss. Should I just output it at ProRes422 Normal, or is there any other settings that would get the video back down to it's original file size with minimal quality loss?
If you're exporting a master, then stick with prores. If this is for delivery, then you'll be fine with h264.
Here's the thing, you're dealing with two different beasts here. Getting small file size with minimal quality loss is a balancing act. You're going to lose quality if you tone down the file size but you're going to gain file size if you increase the quality. With my T2i footage I tend to stick to Apple Pro Res 422 LT which saves a bit of space...You can see in the Final Cut Pro 7 Manual here:
http://documentation.apple.com/en/f...ws/index.html#chapter=10§ion=2&tasks=true
"Roughly 70 percent of the data rate of Apple ProRes 422"
Taking the footage back down to H.264 will get your file size down by a lot and the footage won't be terrible depending on the settings however, you have to realize that at that point you've gone from H.264 to Apple Pro Res and back down to H.264 so you're essentially killing the detailed information and if you ever plan on editing or using it again you're going to end up with a lot of artifact when you have to convert it yet again to be able to edit it. So I guess it really depends on what you want to do with the footage after you compress it back down. If you want to be able to edit it again, don't compress it. If you want to just keep it to have then by all means compress it. One option you might consider is if it's in 1080p bringing it down to 720p. It'll help you save a little bit of file size and it's still in HD. Anything looks better than standard def IMHO