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Activity Forums Apple Motion Bit Depth General Question

  • Bit Depth General Question

    Posted by Jm Knowles on April 29, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    I am new to motion. I notice on the project settings I have 3 options for bit depth. 8 bit, 16 and 32 bits with float … with a dither option I have a piece with a gradient that starts to look bad with 8 bit with and without dither. 16 looks ok. I want to import the project into final cut pro for editing with Pro Res 422. Are there any problems associated with this that I should be aware of?

    When I take it into Final Cut the bit depth changes doesn’t it? Or does it? I don’t understand this part – is there a good primer on this on the web – I have searched and haven’t seen much that was helpful but maybe I’m not looking in the right places.

    Mark Spencer replied 16 years, 3 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Joe Severino

    April 29, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    When you send it to FCP as a “filename.motn” file it is in motions proprietary codec, this is why you have to render it in the timeline. If your timeline is prores then you will be rendering it down to prores 8-bit, Prores HQ is a 10-bit codec.

    Are you planning on exporting your motion project to a QT file and importing that file into FCP or are you just bringing the motion file into FCP?

    What are your computer specs?

    Mac Pro 3.2 GHz Dual Quad Core
    6GB RAM (2x2GB top; 2×1 GB bottom)
    OS X 10.6.1 (Clean Instal)
    Final Cut Studio 2 (FCP 6)
    Logic Studio (Logic 8)

  • Jm Knowles

    April 29, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    I am exporting out to quicktime h.264 most likely for a presentation run off of a laptop. I have final cut Studio 2, Snow Leopard – not a clean install and there are many other applications on my computer (after this project I plan to convert to a dual boot system with secondary boot having clean install of OS and just dedicated to video)

    I have 2 x 2.8 Quad Core Intel Xeon with 8 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-Dimm

    Thanks for the quick reply

  • Joe Severino

    April 29, 2010 at 6:30 pm

    Export your motion project as a prores file ( File > export) and import the prores file into FCP and see how that looks.

    Mac Pro 3.2 GHz Dual Quad Core
    14GB RAM
    NVIDIA 8800 GT
    Blackmagic Intensity Pro
    OS X 10.6.3 (Clean Instal)
    Final Cut Studio 3 (Clean Instal)
    Logic Studio (Clean Instal)

  • Mark Spencer

    April 30, 2010 at 12:40 am

    Couple of clarifications here:

    1) A Motion project file is not a “proprietary codec” – there is no codec at all, all content is native until rendered to the FCP sequence codec

    2) ProRes and ProRes HQ are both 10-bit codecs


    Mark Spencer
    Freelance Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics Artist
    Apple-certified Master Trainer
    Author, Motion 4 from Peachpit Press
    https://www.applemotion.net

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