Macintosh, Final Cut Pro and my Vega... oh my!

[Guest Splik]

I recently bought my Vega as a platform to present near completed video productions to clients.

All edited in full HD in Final Cut Pro, I want to put my videos through the Apple Compressor and convert them so they display as best as possible in 720p.

I've tried a few standard settings but the video keeps presenting itself in squished 4:3.

My Vega is running the latest modoco mod (and looking forward to Honeycomb after the Beta!). It's a long shot, but I was wondering whether anyone can help.

...if you are wondering. I did think about using an iPad, but come on, no SD card slot to transfer my videos from my Mac to the iPad. I don't want to use iTunes...

Edited May 25, 2011 by Splik

[Guest Muzzz33]

hi you should try realplayer as this has a screen resize option and works well with videos converted with handbrake m4v's .i had similar problems and this was the best result for me rather than re-encode everything.

[Guest simonta]

I recently bought my Vega as a platform to present near completed video productions to clients.

All edited in full HD in Final Cut Pro, I want to put my videos through the Apple Compressor and convert them so they display as best as possible in 720p.

I've tried a few standard settings but the video keeps presenting itself in squished 4:3.

My Vega is running the latest modoco mod (and looking forward to Honeycomb after the Beta!). It's a long shot, but I was wondering whether anyone can help.

...if you are wondering. I did think about using an iPad, but come on, no SD card slot to transfer my videos from my Mac to the iPad. I don't want to use iTunes...

Don't use the Apple codec and/or Final Cut. There are several threads on here with detailed discussions on formats, search for "high profile". I'd go for H264:16:9. MPEG-2 HDV, high profile. I believe that you can choose MPEG-2 rather than the Apple Codec which. guess what, is kind of "Appely".

[Guest elmunkee]

I use final cut pro at work and do alot of HD editing. Although Apple compressor is great I tend to use 'MPEG Streamclip' to convert my footage (usually Apple HDV or ProRes422) to and .mp4 using the h264 codec @ %70 quality. This results in a high quality mp4 version which will is comparable in quality to the original footage

[Guest tony barnes]

There should be ratio settings in final cut pro? Do you have it set to anamorphic or something like that?

Sorry, I don't use it, I'm mainly posting to add a different point - I honestly wouldn't use a Vega to showboat video footage to clients. It does an ok job, but if this was a business decision, I would seriously go invest the extra couple of hundred in a Xoom, the screen shits all over the one the Vega has, and will give clients a far better representation of the end result - especially and dark sections, which to be frank, massively highlight the poor viewing angle on the Vega.

[Guest Splik]

I've tried a few settings suggested above.

Thing is, I have to use Final Cut Pro as it's my main editing platform, so my finished pieces are exported in 1080p quicktime. I then want to put them on an SD card in a format that will display the footage in it's best quality for the Vega. It might be cheaper than a Xoom, but I'm not going out to buy another tablet. It was certainly a better option than an iPad for flexibility.

I'm pretty close with this help. Elmunkee's suggestion came up with excellent looking footage but the playback was a little bit speed up and slow down, so I've reduced the bit rate to about 5mb/s. Compressor does a good job of reducing the size but keeping the quality to work on a DVD, but Streamclip didn't, but it seems it works better with the HD footage.

As well as for preview on the Vega, the final HD footage will be burned onto a data DVD or presented on a memory stick for the main client to do as they wish.

I'll post my full process when I get the footage to a good standard. Thanks.

[Guest tony barnes]

Fair enough mate.

This is worth a look - http://www.cgm-online.com/eiperle/workshop...workshop_e.html - basically you just do another copy of the project in a lower res setting via copy/paste, and export that. Looks pretty straightforward, though obviously adds another render to the workflow