Thin black line in H264 output from Compressor

Which Camera did you use?

Have you checked your source footage??

I had a Canon HDV camera that had a bad sensor once and all the footage had a thin black line on one side.

John

John,

One problem is that your output size 853 x 480 is not an exact 16:9 ratio.

--ken

Hi Bob,

You need 854x480 to completely fill the 16:9 frame.

But first and above all you should check the original video in QT player to see if the line isn't already present in the master file. DV, HDV and many long-GOP codecs are not full frame formats, and blank vertical lines can appear when exporting or converting such footage to full frame codecs. If the line is in the master you will first have to crop the line out in Compressor, then export to 854x480.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Bob,

If you let Compressor calculate a custom 16:9 setting you will see that it will automatically enter 854 for the width when you type 480 for the height. And as you miss only one line wide I think this may be a plausible explanation.

The question is not if the missing line is present in the source footage, but if it is present in the master file that you are sending to Compressor. Even if the source footage is OK you still can introduce blank lines when converting to another codec. So I suggest you first check the Sheer master file in QT player to see if you have the phenomenon in your master file or not..

Best wishes,

Ronny

Strange, I have just tried it myself and it says 854. I guess it is because the correct value is somewhere between 853 and 854.

A truly correct size would be 864 x 486, as this is a perfect 16:9 square pixel size. It is always beter to choose a size in which both width and height can be divided by 8 or 16 in whole numbers.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Robert,

I have just encoded a piece of SD anamorphic content with Compressor to H.264 854 x 480 and 640 x 360 and I don't see any blank lines. So it's definitely not Compressor.

If 853 x 480 does not work, why not try 854 x 480 instead ? If you just encode a small part of the movie you will be able to quickly see if this helps or not.

Best wishes,

Ronny