• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  involuntary random letterboxing

  Posted by Tom Landon on October 17, 2009 at 3:16 am

  I’ve been working on a longform documentary in small segments, and created an individual sequence for each one, then occasionally copy them all into one sequence to render out a progress disc.

  The footage was loaded in HDV and looks fine in indivdual sequences, but when I copy and paste into the longer sequence, some of the shots end up smaller than they were in the original – they look as they are thumbnails of the originals.

  Any thoughts on what might be causing this?

  Tom Landon replied 16 years, 9 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  David Roth weiss

  October 17, 2009 at 6:02 pm

  Ususally means that you didn’t start the project with the proper Easy Setup, or didn’t open that sequence originally with the proper seq. settings, but later changed the settings manually. So, FCP is setting the distort attribute in the Motion Tab to compensate in order to make your make your media match the improper original settings.

  If you haven’t used the distort on anything you can simply select all and remove the distort attribute on all clips when you paste them in.

  Since we cannot be absolutely certain what your precise mistake was in setting up the project or the sequence there is no way to be certain exactly what method to use to keep this from happening. However, you might try to open a new sequence, allow FCP to set the sequence settings automatically by dropping a single clip of HDV into the timeline and answering “yes” when asked if you want the settings to match the clip. Then test that sequence to see if it distorts material copied from another sequence as you present seq. does, of if behaves differently. Obviously, if it work without changing the distort parameter you can make that sequence your new master sequence. If it doesn’t work at least you tried…

  David Roth Weiss
  Director/Editor
  David Weiss Productions, Inc.
  Los Angeles

  POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

  A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
• 

  Tom Landon

  October 18, 2009 at 4:02 pm

  Thanks: I think you are right: I started editing before I knew what I was doing in terms of setup, and I think now, a year later, I’m paying for my ignorance, but I think I found a workaround – I’m exporting each segment as a quicktime file and bringing it back into a new sequence, which hopefully will solve my problem, and should also make my file sizes more manageable for DVD authorint. Thanks for the quick response.

  Tom Landon
  Lucky Dog Productions
  Roanoke, VA

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