In an earlier blog entry I alluded to using Apple’s Compressor software to encode your Fraps footage to a more Final Cut Pro-friendly codec and size for editing. This is an important step of the machinima production process, as using raw Fraps footage or other non-FCP native codecs eliminate many of the software’s real time features. The constant need to render while editing – or almost as bad, having the canvas drop frames or resolution while playing - disrupts the flow of an edit and can make the process become a chore, diluting the satisfaction of watching your piece come together in the edit suite.

Choose Your Codec Wisely

If you have access to Final Cut Studio 2 then the codec that you should be editing with is a no-brainer: Apple’s ProRes 422 codec is only available to those that purchase this software suite, and is a high-quality, relatively lossless codec that, in Apple’s words, has “Quality indistinguishable from the most pristine sources. [It] Maintains superb quality even after multiple encoding/decoding generations.” Aside from the quality, though, what is important with ProRes 422 is that its data rates allow for real-time, multistream editing without the need for RAIDs and other expensive storage solutions that are required for a typical uncompressed video workflow.

And if you don’t own FC Studio 2? If you have the drive speed (a RAID, most likely) an uncompressed codec will deliver the best results (note that I said an uncompressed codec, of which there are many flavors – selecting “none” to encode to is rarely a good choice for editing - “none” is not a codec!) For those of you who aren’t shelling out big bucks for high-end storage, you may want to consider encoding to something like Photo-Jpeg (nearly lossless when set to 100% quality, but taxing on drives and thus not an ideal “real time” option for FCP) or DVCPro50/DVCProHD (a popular choice for video work but one that I’ve never gotten great results in with machinima). Animation set to 100% is also a lossless codec and great for archiving, but not so great for editing. H.264 is a popular codec, but is NOT an editing codec, but rather a delivery codec – don’t edit with H.264-encoded footage!

For the purposes of this article we’re going to stick with ProRes 422 and assume that if you haven’t already upgraded to the newest edition of FCP, that you will soon.

Don't Ignore Frame Size

FCP is fairly resolution-independent and able to work with sequences of various sizes. Like using the wrong codec to edit with, non-standard sizes can require rendering at almost every turn, which makes for a frustrating edit. For this reason I find it best to use a “native” sequence size when working with standard def footage. Nearly all of my SD work is cut using a sequence size of 720x480, as it compresses proportionately to the square pixel 4x3 web sizes that I use most often. (We won’t get into square vs. rectangular pixels here, as it is a lengthy topic, but check out this link for some great info on that subject.

As mentioned in my prior article, it is best to should at resolutions larger than 800x600 for the Perian Quicktime component to be able to properly decode your footage once you have it on your Mac. There are two schools of thought here: shoot at 802x602 and trim the “extra” pixels off using Compressor as part of the ProRes encoding process (a little more complicated, but makes for smaller file sizes) or shoot at 1024x768, which is proportionate to the 720x480 size that we are shooting for. Again, even though those two resolutions don’t seem like they are the same ratios, remember that 1024x768 is using square pixels, the only option with Fraps, and 720x480 is using rectangular pixels, which are native to FCP. Here I will walk you through the settings to use to compress 1024x768 to 720x480, but if you have questions on the 802x602 process feel free to drop me a line.

Setting up a Preset in Compressor

Now lets walk through the steps necessary to enable Compressor to process your footage:

First, import your footage into Compressor. Next, you’ll need to tweak one of the presets to the settings that we need. Do this by duplicating the preset called “Apple ProRes 422” that is found in the Settings Tab > Formats > Quicktime. The new preset called “Apple ProRes 422 copy” will appear in the Custom folder of your Settings tab. Double click the new preset to open its settings window and then we can go through the buttons at the top of the settings window.

The first button gives you a summary of the settings, so we can skip that. The second button brings up the Encoder Settings. With this button selected, click the Video Settings button. This will bring up the standard QT compression dialog box. By default the compression type will be set to Apple ProRes 422 HQ. There are actually two flavors of the ProRes codec – both are 10-but, but HQ has a slightly higher data rate. It’s your call whether you’d like to use HQ or not, but to save file sizes I typically work with the non-HQ flavor unless I know that the piece is going to broadcast or to be heavily composited or effected, for example.

Keep frame rate at “Current” (assuming that you are shooting at 30/29.97 fps), set key frames to Automatic, make sure “Interlaced” is unchecked, and keep “Enable 4:4:4 chroma filtering” checked.

Change “Pass-through” for Audio Settings to “Disabled,” as we aren’t dealing with audio here. Streaming should be set to “None.”

The next button is for Frame Controls. By default it will be turned off and the whole panel will be ghosted, but we want to tweak these settings as well, so click the button next to “Frame Controls – Off”, and then turn Frame Controls to “On.” This will un-ghost the rest of the panel. Most of these settings are probably OK set to their defaults, but since there are so many variables that could arise in shooting (especially when this is being read by an audience that could be using different methods to acquire their source footage), let’s make sure we are all on the same page: to do so, use these settings:

• Resize Filter – Better
• Output fields – Progressive
• Deinterlace – Better
• Adaptive Details – checked
• Anti-alias and Details Level – sliders all the way to the LEFT
• Rate Conversion – Better
• Set Duration to 100% of source (this setting will vary if you have not shot at 30/29.97 fps – drop me a line if this is the case for the lengthy explanation)

The next button is for Filters. We won’t adjust anything for the purposes of this conversion.

Next the Geometry button. All of the “Crop-to” fields (left, right, top, bottom) should be set to zero (0) – this is where we’d be cropping pixels off if we had shot at 802x602. Next to “Frame Size” where it currently says “100% of Source,” adjust the popup to “720x480.” Pixel aspect should stay at default for size (1.1250) and all of the “Padding” fields should remain at zero (0).

The final button is for Actions, which we won’t address here as it doesn’t have a bearing on how the footage will be compressed.

Save the new preset, and rename it if you’d like. Once all of your footage is imported into Compressor your can select all of the clips in the Batch window and drag the preset over one of them – it will apply it to all the clips in the batch, then Submit, and when the dust settles you’ll have a folder full of gorgeous ProRes-encoded 720x480 clips that should play in real time in your FCP sequence, making for an enjoyable edit session.

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