Getting quality GoPro outputs through FCP X/Compressor
For a couple years I have struggled getting crisp HD output from FCP. My source files are pretty good and I work with the colors and contrast in FCP to get them the best I can. They look great while I am still within the FCP editor. Once I export via Compressor, the quality is pretty bad. All the crispness is gone. The result is something that is good enough for facebook uploads, but anyone that has appreciated a crisp HD profresional video, can tell the difference. It's grainy. I see people getting good output, who are not pros, so I'm looking for tips.
In the past I was told that I should convert my GoPro Hero3 Black footage to an apple friendly format, like H.264, in the GoPro Cineform Studio App, and then import it into FCPX. The thought is that extra step will yield better results since GoPro takes better care with the conversion of their files than FCP would. I ran several tests and didn't notice a significant difference other than color varitations. I would take two 15 second clips...one raw 2.7K foorage from the camera, one converted to 1080P by Cineform, put them in movie, sent to compressor. Both videos were grainy. I have also trying to use the FCP "create optimized media" selection when I import the files. That does not seem to alter my completed export significantly, what it does is take up a lot of hard drive space.
However I did find something that worked...
By default, my Vimeo settings are exporting with a "high" setting (Compressor Standard Video Compression Settings/Compressor/Quality/HIGH)
This 30 second movie yields a 24MB file.
I then tried changing this to the "best" setting.
This 30 second movie yielded a 660MB file.
The quality was great! Finally I had the crisp image that I see on many other HD uploads, but the file is huge! Most of my videos are about 3:30 in length, which would mean I'm looking at a 4.6GB file. I think I'm usually around 200MB in size.
Is there a way of improving the image quality without such a signficant jump in file size? I think Vimeo will end up downconverting/compressing the file anyway if I were to upload something that large. The thing is, I do see GREAT HD quality videos on Vimeo, from amateurs, so somehow people are doing it. When I last asked for help from Vimeo, they said that I shouldn't need a file size in the gigabytes to get good results.
Appreciate any tips. Thanks!