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Importing JPEGs creates rendered media
I had not noticed this before, but when you import a batch of stills into an Event, FCP X creates corresponding rendered media in the Event folder. It does this even when you don’t copy the media into the Event. In my case, these are 2500×1400 JPEGs that vary from 2MB to 4MB per image. The corresponding render files are about 1MB each. My theory is that since JPEGs are RGB “full swing” level (0-255) images, FCP X creates Rec 601/709 images with “studio swing” (16-235) levels. These are the render files in the Event folder. Thoughts?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
6 Replies
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I think you’ll find the same thing happens with other formats like mp3. Jpeg was always problematic in 7 like mp3. Maybe there’s a few codecs it just doesn’t do well so it forces a transcode.
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[Bret Williams] “Jpeg was always problematic in 7”
How so? I’ve been using JPEGs in FCP since the earliest versions without any issue (except large sizes).
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Jpegs play soft in RT until they’re rendered. Some cards (Aja?) don’t display them from the viewer.
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[Bret Williams] “Jpegs play soft in RT until they’re rendered. Some cards (Aja?) don’t display them from the viewer.”
OK, I see. I never have seen that to be specific to JPEGs. I’ve seen that with all graphics files in FCP “legacy”.
The display issue is often related to the non-standard sizes of most photos and stills. Some of this depends on the Easy-Set-up settings you have picked. This affects FCP “legacy’s” interpretation of the file at the time of import. For instance, I was working in FCP 7 last night and imported a 1920×1080 PSD slate. My Easy-Set-up was defaulted to Xdcam 1080i/59.94, but my timeline and all other media was ProRes 1080p/23.98. As a result, the slate was ID’ed as using the Xdacm compressor and its appearance in the viewer and in the timeline was stretched and distorted. When I changed my settings to BMD ProResHQ and re-imported the PSD, everything was fine.
BTW – one reason I prefer JPEGs, is that I have often received CMYK TIFFs from the client. Those often will completely crash “legacy” the moment you click on them in the browser. Also JPEGs are a smaller file size and so are less taxing on the processor. At least in my experience.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “BTW – one reason I prefer JPEGs, is that I have often received CMYK TIFFs from the client. Those often will completely crash “legacy” the moment you click on them in the browser. Also JPEGs are a smaller file size and so are less taxing on the processor. At least in my experience.”
Back to FCP X for a minute, did you find any difference in using JPEGs or PNGs? Early on, it seemed the consensus was that FCP X preferred PNG as that is what it exports by default. I don’t imagine it’s much of an issue either way, but I’ve got a music video project I’ll be cutting photos to so I thought I’d ask before converting (or not) a bunch of images.
Thanks,
Dave -
I’m afraid I don’t have an answer. I’ve only used a few photos so far of various types and no issue of any sort. This is the first project with a couple of hundred photos. Might only use a handful in the actual final edit.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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