From HD Video camera to MPEG-4 on a Mac

[Jeremy Hammond]

Hi Felicity and all,

Sorry for the lateness of the contribution but there is something else to consider here for making your archive copies. Some archiving institutions (DOBES for example) will generally not accept .MOV video files precisely for the reasons that have caused you problems. The .MOV is a very flexible container type and can take a multitude of different encoding options for both audio and video streams. It can have varying compression levels, from zero (like you FCP working files) to very high (think iTunes movies) as well. All of this means that archival stability is very hard to achieve as there is nothing even close to a standard (for example it is near-impossible to replicate the QuickTime 720p export settings using another program).

So my suggestion is to check with your institution's guidelines before using proprietary software like QuickTime or FCP for the final archive copy. Another option would be to export them as MPEG-2 streams but this will give much larger files which might be a problem for long HDV recordings (potentially up to around 16GB per hour). 

I personally archive two copies plus a 16-bit wav audio stream. A full MPEG-2 version which is in theory 100% quality. Secondly, a high quality MPEG-4 H.264 version for day-to-day use and e-distribution. With this copy I would suggest using .mp4/.m4v containers to go with the  MPEG-4 (H.264) AAC encoding. While not perfect, they are probably better than .MOV especially if you include the meta-data for the encoding process in your documentation. 

Regards
Jeremy 

-----Original Message-----
From: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au [mailto:r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au] On Behalf Of Felicity Meakins
Sent: Monday, 9 May 2011 2:33 PM
To: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au
Subject: From HD Video camera to MPEG-4 on a Mac

Hi everyone, 

This email summarises the process I have gone through from capturing my HDV
tapes through Final Cut Pro to producing good looking MPEG-4 files suitable
for archiving. Thanks very much to the people who emailed me with
suggestions, particularly Tom Honeyman.

So .....

When you capture your HDV recordings using Final Cut Pro (FCP), Apple
Intermediate Codec (AIC) files are created which are encased in the
Quicktime .mov format. They are very large but very high quality files which
are perfect for editing into subtitled edited DVDs for the language
community.

For the purposes of archiving, these files need to be converted into MPEG-4
format.

In order to create MPEG-4 files, export to .mov file from FCP (or Final Cut
Express) using Quicktime Conversion (File > Export > Using Quicktime
Conversion) and use the following formats:

Format: Quicktime Movie

*Codec for video: H.264*
*Frame-rate: Current*
*Keyframes: Every 30 frames*
*Data rate: 5000 kbits/s*
*Size: 1280x720*
*De-interlace: Yes*
*Sound codec: AAC*
*Sound Sample Rate: 44.1kHz*
*Audio Quality: 128kbps*

Regards,

Felicity

----------------------------------------------
Felicity Meakins
ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies
Bldg. 32 (Gordon Greenwood Building)
University of Queensland
Brisbane QLD 4072
AUSTRALIA

Mobile: +61411404546
Office: +61 7 3365 2877
Fax: +61 7 3365 6799
Email: f.meakins at uq.edu.au
http://www.slccs.uq.edu.au//index.html?page=127733&pid=124851

also Honorary Research Associate with University of Manchester
http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/subjects/lel/staff/felicity-meakins
felicity.meakins at manchester.ac.uk
----------------------------------------------