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FCP rendering huge Quicktime files

L

Luis Ortega

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 10, 2007
1,198
386
We are doing some stop-motion animations using digital cameras to take lots of still images and then editing the projects in FCP.
Our digital images are prepared in Photoshop to be PAL DV in size (720 x 576 @ 72dpi) before being used in FCP, and our FCP projects are also set up for PAL DV.
The projects are only a minute to two minutes long but when we export the timelines as QT movies they become files about 1.5 to 2 GIG in size.
This is ridiculously large and we need to create smaller QT files without losing the quality of the material.
Can anyone please suggest the best way to keep the file sizes down and still keep the same quality when exporting from FCP?
Thanks for any advice.
 
Current settings more than likely equals DV setting which gives you 1GB every 5minutes of footage.

is that the filesizes you are seeing?
 
Sdashiki said:
Current settings more than likely equals DV setting which gives you 1GB every 5minutes of footage.

is that the filesizes you are seeing?
Click to expand...

I am seeing 1.5 to 2 GB files for projects that are 1 minute to 1m:30s long.
That sounds way too big.
 
xStep said:
Open the exported file in QuickTime and do a show info; Command-I. You'll be able to see the codecs used for video and audio.
Click to expand...

This is what it says.
It was exported just using file>export>quicktime movie.

Apple Animation, 720 x 576, Millions
16-bit Integer (Big Endian), Stereo, 48.000 kHz

This is different from the sequence, I think (I'm not at the computer at the moment).
Would it be better to use file>export>using quicktime conversion?
And if so, what settings should I use?
 
Ok, Animation Codec is not DV...

Those file sizes are correct for the Animation Codec. This is a codec to master to, use this file in Compressor to make smaller versions for web/DVD/whatever.
 
Another question is; what is the intent for the exported QuickTime file? If it is to be used in further editing, then leave it as is, or use another high quality codec that can be used in the next tool. If you are exporting to a final destination, then you have more homework to do.

Most codecs are lossy which by definition means that quality will be lost. In this case you have choices to make between file size and quality.
 
xStep said:
Another question is; what is the intent for the exported QuickTime file? If it is to be used in further editing, then leave it as is, or use another high quality codec that can be used in the next tool. If you are exporting to a final destination, then you have more homework to do.

Most codecs are lossy which by definition means that quality will be lost. In this case you have choices to make between file size and quality.
Click to expand...

Once the final projects are done and rendered to these rather large qt movie files, all we want to do is to put them on a dvd so that we can view them.

I have about 11 such files (each about 1.5 gigs in size as they are now)
for the projects and I would like to be able to burn them all to the same dvd so that all of the kids' projects are together.

Would you suggest using Compressor to change them to something smaller, or go back to the FCP timeline and export them there again in a different way?

The dvds will not be anything fancy- just each project able to play one after the other.

I don't want to create files that will not be useful for producing a simple dvd or so large that they won't all fit on one dvd. None of the projects are over two minutes long, so I am looking at a total of about 22 minutes for all 11 projects.

Right now we still have the animations saved as FCP projects and we can open them in FCP and export them in a different way if necessary.
I would like to keep them at dv size rather than turn them into little postage stamp size images at a 1/4 of the original dv size or something.

Any suggestions as to how to export from FCP or what to convert them to in Compressor would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

And, in the future, when creating the movie clips from the digital images in FCP, what sort of settings should I use to keep everything more manageable?
Is the animation codec the wrong one to use? Should I have used pal dv for rendering the original digital images into movie clips?
 
Simply go:

export to compressor

and choose a DVD setting. bam. done.

No need to render/print a movie to convert. FCP can do it from within.


Animation as a codec is ONLY useful for, well, animations. Which is more like saying, very colorful large swatches of non-gradient shapes etc. Like, animated text, or shapes which you do NOT want to have artifacts but smooth full colors.

Animation is an uncompressed codec, meaning its HUGE file size, but with it comes clear and clean video files of digital stuff that wasnt recorded in real life.
 
Sdashiki said:
Simply go:

export to compressor

and choose a DVD setting. bam. done.

No need to render/print a movie to convert. FCP can do it from within.


Animation as a codec is ONLY useful for, well, animations. Which is more like saying, very colorful large swatches of non-gradient shapes etc. Like, animated text, or shapes which you do NOT want to have artifacts but smooth full colors.

Animation is an uncompressed codec, meaning its HUGE file size, but with it comes clear and clean video files of digital stuff that wasnt recorded in real life.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I suspected that it was meant more for hand drawn/painted animation stuff than stop-motion photographs.

If I go to export> compressor and select one of the dvd presets, how should I use the resulting file when burning the dvd?
Will a program like dvd pro or idvd then compress it again or will it be recognized as ready for the dvd creation process without further conversions?
 
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