Artifacts in HDV to .flv compression
 

so i'm using On2's flash encoder to make a .flv file from an FCP reference movie....captured in HDV, ouput as a reference file, compressed in On2 at 428 x 241.

and i'm getting this weird artifacting, in the picture below, in the lower portion of the video and can't get rid of it. does anyone know what is causing this? or how to cure it?

whoops, the sample pic did not upload. here it is...

also, i compressed this with proportions constrained and also without proportions constrained, thinking that might solve it, but it made no difference.

anyone can help?

Meryem,

I've been using that On2 flash encoder (from Vegas mind you) for a couple months now. I've seen some weird stuff come out but never anything like that. I'm assuming that this only happens with the On2 encoder, and not when rendering as an .mov from FCP.

I'm no mac dude but can you render from FCP as an .avi, then just convert the .avi in On2 (flixpro) to .flv. That's what I do from Vegas. I do get interlace artifacts sometimes if I don't set me project properties properly.

I do get what I think to be pretty good results from .avi to .flv.

Meryem, this may not cure your problem, but I've been told to always make your dimensions divisible by 4. So you might want to knock that 241 down a notch to 240. Has to do with the resampling algorithms.

I don't have the On2 encoder to test with.

-gb-

Good point Greg,

I always use 428x240. I'm running a test at 241 to see if I can replicate the artifact.

I tried encoding an .avi at 428x241 and I couldn't replicate the artifact. Came up with no visual difference between 240 and 241. Probably still worth trying on your end though.

the 241 oddity is their automatic re-calculation for custom dimensions--my usual is 428 x 240 with good results in 16:9. i did try to force 240, and it looks the same. i also converted in FCP to a DV timeline, thinking that it might be an HDV issue, and it seems to mitigate it a bit--but not eliminate it. and i get a much softer image, so that's not really the answer.

as i've been trying to work through this, i've figured out that it plays fine using VLC, but in both the quicktime player enabled with perian (for flash playback) and in the MPEG Streamclip window, it plays like this. i don't know enough about embedding flash to know if the client can control this on their end, through choosing the right player. can they?

ken, FCP conversions to AVI are heinous! and for some crazy reason, seem limited to 4:3 aspect ratios, can't seem to be tweaked to 16:9. (what's up with that???) unfortunately, or i wouldn't be even bothering with other cross-platform efforts.

thanks for trying to help me out, guys--keep em coming, i will try anything!

this is one of those issues that was supposed to be a simple, common conversion taking an hour or so, that i've done frequently, that i'm now 3 days into....going nuts, but learning a few things....ok, a lot of things, i usually see these snafus as learning ops, but this is getting ridiculous...

ken d. to the rescue! thanks. problem solved. instead of a reference movie from FCP, i coded in Sorenson 3 (instead of avi), then transcoded to flash. dunno why this solved it, but it did. i've output many times from On2 before without incident. in fact, their product is great. must have been gremlins. plays cleanly in all players. that's what i needed.

thanks, fellas....

Meryem,

Speaking of players for Flash, you might want to check this one out.

This note came from a webmaster who is playing my flash files. I also use it on my site. BTW, If you're using On2 FlixPro8, you can also export file with embedded player. (.swf)

'Here is the link to the player I am using- highly customizable: ' http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_Video_Player

Dreamweaver also has some built in players that work well. Just drag the flv into the html page, pick your player and controls, and yer done. I use them for my comps for clients and cheepo projects:-)
Jon

That's terrible! Fortunately you solved your problem. I was going to suggest the same thing as Ken since resolution requirements are common to many codecs.