Ripping DVDs to ProRes

ProRes is really great but it has some limitations you should know that can trip you up later.

A friend called me tonight saying they were getting an error in Final Cut they'd never seen before which was this:

"Codec not found. You may be using a compression type without the corresponding hardware card."

I knew this wasn't true after talking to them a bit so I asked from step one what they did and discovered a big gotcha when ripping DVD content to ProRes for use in Final Cut Pro.

They'd used MPEG Streamclip to rip video from a client's DVD of old footage. Since my friend wanted to use the footage in Final Cut they set MPEG Streamclip to export (transcode) the .VOB file to ProRes.

(No, I'm not sure why MPEG Streamclip lists ProRes twice in it's export options. They're likely HQ and non-HQ but I'm certain.)

When it was done the file was great, imported into Final Cut and they happily edited away. Until they needed to render something and saw the above error. Any kind of rendering produced that error which we knew wasn't true because they had used ProRes many, many times before. Something else was different.

Dissecting the project I started to jot down all the settings and media types in the project and ran across something not readily apparent unless you know to check.

The resultant ProRes file from MPEG Streamclip wasn't a compliant size for ProRes. It wasn't either:

1920x1080

or

1280x720

If it's neither one of those sizes Final Cut pro runs and cries in a corner. My friend had left MPEG Streamclip to create a file that was 854x480 because next to it, in MPEG Streamclip's options, it reads "(16:9)" which this footage was and their thinking was that since it's a DVD they didn't need to rip it as an HD file.

I suggested they re-rip the bit of video they needed with MPEG Streamclip set to "1280x720 (HDTV 720p)". They did and after substituting the file for the renderless one Final Cut behaved as expected and rendered away.

So if you rip something to ProRes make sure it's a size that ProRes and Final Cut are expecting.

For more info check out this page in the FCP 7 manual.

Audio Out of Phase

Without getting too much into the details as they're complex and vast sometimes (eventually) you'll receive audio that is out of phase, likely 180°, if the audio sounds like it was recorded with the mic in a plastic bucket. Another clue is that it'll sound okay when played back from whatever it was recorded on but be very low volume when played back in Final Cut Pro.

There are myriad ways this can happen but the most common is that the audio was recorded on two separate mic's that were improperly spaced apart so the audio they're recording reaches one mic later than the other and causes a comb filter effect.

One way I've experienced this is when on set someone has the brilliant idea of setting up a "back-up" mic close to but not along side the main mic's and rather than helpfully recording it to a separate channel they mix it in with the the main audio feed. I cringe when someone tells me they have "reference" audio as well on a multi-camera shoot because there's the risk the audio guy (or girl) mixed it all down.

One particularly bad case was when someone mixed in an off-camera (and off-set) "back-up reference" shotgun mic on a c-stand along with a TV host's lav. I know!

The out-of-phase audio you can monkey with is when there are two mic's recording the same audio source but those mic's are placed at unequal distances from that audio source and they're recorded to separate channels. Audio bouncing off a nearby wall or something into one mic can cause a similar problem.

The basic result is that one audio channel is canceling out the other (sorta, it's really just reducing the amplitude). The peaks of one meet the troughs of the other's waveform thereby reducing the clarity and volume of the audio. This page has some good visuals explaining it. You can get an idea of the effect by reversing the leads to one speaker on a stereo and playing a VO (Voice Over); it'll sound "funny".

Final Cut Pro doesn't have a way to fix this readily, but one quick check for phased audio (and a fix kinda) is to simply turn off one channel and listen to it to see if it sounds better. If it does: the audio sounds brighter, louder, clearer, it's likely the audio was recorded out of phase.

A quick fix (meaning if the client is there waiting when the audio sounded great when played back on their camera through headphones) is to turn off one of the channels, duplicate the one remaining above or below itself, and then adjust the audio level a bit. It'll be in mono but you can fake that by offsetting the duplicated channel by a few hundredths of a frame (in the Viewer via moving the In point while you hold down SHIFT).

I may post more about this later in greater detail but I thought I'd mention this since if it pops up it can be pretty flummoxing if you've never seen (heard?) it before.

Live Capture HVX-200 to Final Cut Pro

Just a quickie one.

If you have a Panasonic HVX-200 and a FireWire cable and a laptop running Final Cut Pro (an external HD doesn't hurt, even a USB one) you can capture 720 live.

I won a bet today setting it up which is really why I'm mentioning it now (it was -and I'm quoting here- "a free anything" at a nearby coffee house, btw which became a free French Press...'What's that?' the producer said pointing "You said 'a free anything.'").

The trick is to set the HVX to 720 24p (NOT 720 24pn) and set Final Cut to Non-Controllable Device and 720 24p.

Final Cut Server is teh dead?

Maybe. There are lots of rumors flying about but thinking about it wouldn't surprise me that much. It's complex, data hungry (meaning it works best when you have vast archives of stuff) and a little hard to get your head around. I know of only 4 places that actually use Final Cut Server (...not own it, or just installed it to test it out...but actually use it and rely on it daily).

My experience could be lacking though. It's hard to get reliable numbers on units sold et al.. but it's all just rumors anyway. I think Final Cut Server is pretty cool but its usefulness is limited to larger clients in my experience.

QuickTime Pro's "Conform aperture to" setting

In case you're not quite confused enough Apple has updated it's knowledge base article on QuickTime Pro's Conform Aperture To setting.

• Clean: The recommended setting for most video. Crops the video to the area of frame free from digitization artifacts and applies pixel aspect ratio correction. A 4:3 DV NTSC track appears as 640 x 480; a 16:9 DV NTSC track appears as 853 x 480.
• Production: Used for video production. Shows all pixels in the the video including the edges and corrects for pixel aspect ratio. A 4:3 DV NTSC track appears as 654 x 480; a 16:9 DV NTSC track appears as 873 x 480."

Got that?

Clean 16:9 DV NTSC is 853x480 while Production's is 873x480. Likewise Clean's 4:3 DV NTSC is 640x480 while Production is 654x480.

There. Hopefully you're a little more confused than before. I get confused over this stuff all the time. Don't even start thinking about what happens when a client plays these with something other than QuickTime Pro...just...don't. And don't think about Square vs non-square pixels either. Seriously. Don't.

Clients & Codecs

When your assistant sends off "master" exports to your client make sure that the client can actually play them so you don't get a call at 5:30pm that the video "won't play". And by that I mean explain to your assistant that FCP will export (Export QuickTime Movie) at the codec (yeah yeah I know) it was originally ingested as.

So, for example, if you've shot or ingested something that's DVCPROHD it's likely the client won't have that if they don't have FCP installed. And no, it's not really the best idea to send them a copy of the codec for legal reasons and because many client's I've worked with won't have that kind of access to their machine since IT people love to lock non-IT people out of everything that's actually useful on their computers so you'll end up wasting time trying to sort that out then discover they don't have Admin access.

So a tip: Export your masters in a codec that the client has that they can use and view. Animation, ProRes, Apple Lossless, etc...stuff that they're likely to have by default.

Also, keep in mind what they'll need if they need to do more than just watch. If it's just an approval copy go with H.264, it's small and looks great. If they're on a Windows Box I'd still go with H.264 (seriously, .wmv? No. .avi is dead, although I do like a good .mkv).

If they need to transcode it (ie...it's been approved) to DVD or something send them an Animation or ProRes so they can do with it as they see fit.

The Hidden "H" 50% Key

Here's one I'll bet few people know.

Place your cursor over either the Viewer or the Canvas then hold down the H key.

You should see the Viewer or Canvas pop out at 50% size no matter what it was originally set to. Why? I dunno, it's probably some function or preference or something I've missed all these years. But it's pretty cool nonetheless and could be handy since 50% gives a clearer representation of your footage than odd numbered percentages, although 50% won't reveal interlacing as 100% does. Man I'm up late.

iTunes, Gracenote and Client's Audio CDs

I get audio CD's from clients all the time which they've burned music or VO's or sound effects on to. The thing is unless you've told iTunes to:

A: Not launch when an audio CD in inserted.
B: Not to query Gracenote for CD/Track names

You'll end up with some pretty weird stuff as the name of the Disc and Track names. I find this pretty annoying which is why I've turned off all that stuff on iTunes here at the editing command center. But, when you are away from the Mothership and have to deal with this stuff you should be aware of what's happening.

Today, I was at a client's place and they decided rather than give me the audio cd they had in hand, one they burned off and quite likely the only copy, they decided they wanted to give me the tracks on a flash drive. Great! I love LOVE flash drives instead of optical discs. However...

When they handed it to me and I checked it right there and then on their computer the tracks were there, they played but there were named completely totally and bizarrely incorrectly. What had happened was that they had popped in the burned Audio CD, iTunes fired up, query'd Gracenote and decided it was someone's mix-tape CD (mix-CD?) from what was likely China. Whomever had made the CD originally, in fact, whomever had made the audio tracks, never named them I'm guessing.

Not a big issue if there's just a track or two but this audio CD had 40+ tracks of sound effects. The Finder had copied over the tracks as named by iTunes. I explained to them what happened, no, it's not a virus, no you haven't been hacked and no, they're not watching you on your webcam nor have they stolen your Facebook/Linkedin/Twitter/Whateverthehellsocialnetworkingcrapyouuse password (I should be as lucky). And you're right, I haven't "friended" you.

I told her I can't rename the tracks accurately. There are 40 of them and I don't know one from the other...yet.

So to fix this issue in the future I did a few things:

1. I hit Command + Comma in iTunes to bring up the Prefs.
2. Under General I unticked "Automatically retrieve CD track names from internet".
3. I went to username/Library/Preferences and deleted (emptied trash, my word was it full...had she ever emptied it?) "CD Info.cdib" which is where iTunes stores it's metadata on CD's it's looked up.

As an aside you can edit this file with something like BBEdit if you feel like it to remove the offending CD. You'll see a pattern to how they're listed but I wasn't in the mood and it was so large and Command + F (find) wasn't finding the misnamed names I didn't bother.

4. Eject the Audio CD.
5. Re-insert the Audio CD and saw that it was shown as "Audio CD" with "Track 01" etc...
6. Told her to (and showed her how) name the tracks what they needed to be named and to call me later. Yes, I'll leave the flash drive.

But what about the original audio files you ask? Surely they were named correctly? I imagine they would be if she could find them. I suspect they were in the trash I emptied. Go me!

Clients don't understand Container Formats

Once again a client asked me for "an avi" of a video. Avi was introduced in 1992 or so by Microsoft and has really been a positive and exciting boon to the pirated movie industry ever since. Aside from that it continues to cause headaches for "video people" and fellow "creatives" like myself.

.mov, .mkv, .avi and others are containers which mean they're like sandwiches, I tell clients. (Did you see that? I began a sentence with a period, hah! Mrs. Roberts was wrong!) Not all sandwiches are good, and asking me for "a quicktime" or "an mov" or "an avi" is like asking me for "a sandwich on white bread". You've specified that you want a sandwich (video file), with white bread (container format) but you have yet to tell me what kind of sandwich you want (codec).

This seems to be the only way to get through to some clients. "You're ordering a sandwich with white bread but I don't know what kind of sandwich you want. PB&J? Mustard and Lettuce? Cheese and Anchovies?" "What do you recommend?" is usually their response. I dunno. What kind of sandwich does the thingy that you're going to play it on ask for? In the manual. Yes, that one, the one you didn't read.

Today I literally said to a particularly ornery client, "I need to know what you want between the bread, otherwise we're going to have to try a bunch and see which works and looks good." See, I'm making a video in an outdated format, using outdated software for a client's outdated hardware. This is the kinda fun that only a college education can provide, kids.

Things like H.264 solve this problem. They're PB&J sandwiches all the time. And something known as a "standard".

The second most oft repeated phrase from me on the phone is "No, I wouldn't recommend a .wmv."

Reduce AVI's skipping in VLC

During a break editing today a client decided to show me some of their past projects. They were encoded by someone at some point as .AVI's but they were skipping. While we were watching them she apologized and mentioned that all AVI's seem to skip for her.

So that got me curious and I played the same file with Movist which played back without skipping but I mentioned to her that Movist hasn't been updated for about 8 months so don't rely on it forever. However, the skipping problem was still bothering me in VLC. Checking her console logs I found mentions of first frame isn't a keyframe over and over aligning with the skipping. Not much to do about that as far as I know but there were some delay errors listed as well.

So delving into it's complex array of preferences I found the Caching Value which was set to 300ms. You can get there by hitting COMMAND + , (comma) in VLC and then clicking on the "All" radio button, Access Modules > File. Whew.

At the top you'll see "Caching value (ms)" and some number, likely 300. I just bumped it up to 1000 (1000 ms = 1 sec) and hit save.

The skipping is a lot better but there still is the occasional glitch as well as some very brief audio skips. I'm still not sure what can be done about them since Movist seems to handle the same file on the same hardware without issues. It may be some bug in VLC, I'm just not sure.