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External H.264 encoding box for Final Cut
Looking for an external encoder that can handle S-Video/RCA Audio input and will encode to H.264. I’ve been using an old DV deck to encode my video for my Final Cut Pro projects, but files are huge and rather unwieldy. I’m creating very small videos for streaming purposes. Hoping to drastically cut down on the video file size.
Any suggestions on where I could find this kind of external encoder?
Thank you so much!
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11 Replies
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If you are wanting to capture footage as H264 and then edit that in FCP you are going down the wrong path. If you are wanting to encode your final video as H264 take a look at
https://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/Accessories/Turbo264HD/product1.en.html
or
https://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mac/max/ -
I’ve got one of these and I love it, but it has no input capacity. I need to feed an S-video/RCA audio signal into a box (or card) that will then encode it in some format that Final Cut can use. The files for DV are too big. Looking for a smaller size file.
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You understand that Final Cut can’t use H.264 files, right?
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Actually no! I didn’t know that! So I guess I’m going for MP4s if I want them smaller?
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“The files for DV are too big”
DV is about the smallest file size editing codec there is. And its also fairly crappy quality, that is why most editors don’t use it. Many nowadays prefer prores.
You need to get more hard drive space is what you need.
Hindsight is always 1080p
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You missed the important part of my post, you cannot use H264 to edit with in FCP. That is the delivery codec.
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“So I guess I’m going for MP4s if I want them smaller”
Most mp4s are h264, and even those that are not are not suitable editing codecs.
The codecs that you can ediit properly are all listed in the easy set up part of FCP and none of them are going to be any smaller then DV.
Like is aid before you need to get more hard drive splice.
Hindsight is always 1080p
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If you think DV files are too large, you have a lot to learn. A 2TB hard drive will cost you around $130. You can fit days worth of DV footage on it.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Hi Dave! Great to see you again here.
I’ve got lots of disk space but the problem I have is dubbing. We have to do quick turnaround on this projects, sending drives out via fedex. I have to dub a back up on this end and a typical project can take 4 hours to dub. The person watching the project does not need quality, but a basic video image. If I can digitize in a smaller format, it would really speed up the process.
Is DV the smallest I can get?
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Combine all your drives into a mirror RAID? Write to all of them at the same time.
(Just thinking out loud.)
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