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What is the best way to do format conversion using Compressor?
If you have one or more clips in your sequence whose frame rates, scanning methods
(interlaced or progressive), or frame sizes don’t match, you can use Compressor to do a
standards conversion of the mismatched clips. Compressor can use optical flow analysis
to create high-quality conversions, but you have to choose the appropriate settings for
your preset in the Inspector. With these settings chosen, processing times are high, but
the results are worth it.
For more information, see the Compressor documentation. To briefly summarize, if you’re
doing standards conversion, turn on Frame Controls in the Frame Controls tab of the
Inspector, and choose the following options.
• Resize Filter pop-up menu: For the highest-quality result when resizing smaller-resolution
clips to a larger frame size, choose “Best (Statistical prediction).” You’ll select the actual
frame size to convert the clip to (along with cropping and pixel aspect ratio conversion
options, if necessary) in the Geometry section of the Inspector.
• Output Fields and Deinterlace pop-up menus: If you need to deinterlace a clip or introduce
interlacing to a clip, choose the standard you require from the Output Fields pop-up
menu, and then choose “Best (Motion compensated)” from the Deinterlace pop-up
menu. Additional options, including the Adaptive Details checkbox and the Anti-alias
and Details Level sliders, let you adjust the way the final result is processed. If you’re
converting a telecined film clip with interlacing, choose Reverse Telecine instead to
remove the 3:2 pull-down.
• Rate Conversion pop-up menu: If you’re changing the frame rate, choose “Best (High
quality motion compensated),” and then choose a conversion method from the “of
source” pop-up menu, to the right of the “Set Duration to” field.
Reconforming Media to Online Quality
If you’re using an offline/online workflow to work on your program, you need to replace
the offline-quality media you used while editing with high-quality online media in
preparation for finishing, mastering, and output. This is known as conforming or
reconforming your media.
How exactly you accomplish this depends on the kind of source media you started out
with and the overall workflow you’ve been pursuing. Ideally, your final media should be
at least equal to the quality of the media that was initially shot, recorded, or otherwise
captured in the field. In practice, it’s often acceptable to reconform to a high-quality
compressed format that is visually indistinguishable from the source media, such as one
of the Apple ProRes codecs. For overviews of the most common reconforming workflows,
see:
• “Reconforming Offline Duplicates of Online Media”
• “Reconforming Tapeless Media”
71Chapter 5 Finishing