• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Exporting Footage from Final Cut Pro

  Posted by Jared Jacobsen on March 5, 2011 at 2:34 am

  Basically, I have some HD footage from a short film that I shot. When I view it in the Canvas in FCP it looks great. However, if I enlarge the Canvas (so it fills the screen) the footage looks streaky (for example if something makes a sudden movement the image gets blurry/pixilated and the quality suffers). This same thing happens when I export to a quicktime movie using the current settings.

  When I export to a DVD the same thing happens but the quality is much worse (even when exporting using the best quality settings in Compressor).

  How can I get my outputted movie to look the same as it does in my original video clips I imported into FCP? What is causing this deterioration in quality of the image? I haven’t had this problem with previous editing projects…what I see in the original clip is basically same quality as what I watch even on a large screen.

  Any suggestions??

  Thanks!

  -Jared

  Jared Jacobsen replied 15 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Walter Biscardi

  March 5, 2011 at 3:48 am

  [Jared Jacobsen] “However, if I enlarge the Canvas (so it fills the screen) the footage looks streaky (for example if something makes a sudden movement the image gets blurry/pixilated and the quality suffers). This same thing happens when I export to a quicktime movie using the current settings.”

  What’s the frame size of your image?

  What’s the resolution setting of your screen? Larger than the frame size of your image?

  Also, the Canvas looks the best at 100%.

  Also, the Canvas does not display interlaced footage cleanly.

  Also, the Canvas is definitely not the way to judge video clips at all. You need an external reference monitor.

  Sounds like you’re viewing interlaced video in a Quicktime movie, therefore your image will get streaky / blurred during pans and motion.

  Your DVD will not show you full HD quality, you need to make a BluRay disc to see full HD quality.

  Walter Biscardi, Jr.
  Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
  HD Post and Production
  Biscardi Creative Media

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• 

  Jared Jacobsen

  March 5, 2011 at 8:59 pm

  Thanks so much for your help!! I de-interlaced all of the clips and it fixed the problem. The video in a Quicktime movie now looks great!

  Could I now pose another question that’s been troubling me for some time…?

  I have a project that I edited in FCP and exported as a quicktime movie. The clips in FCP (and in the exported movie) don’t fill the entire window. Their is black space at both the top and bottom of the screen.

  Apparently I edited the clips into a timeline that didn’t match the format of the clips. I’ve tried everything to get the clips in the project to fill the entire window so that when it is exported the movie fills the entire screen. I’ve made sure the project timeline has the same settings as the video clips. To test the original footage, I imported some of the raw footage again into a new timeline and there is no problem – they fill the entire window. The problem is how I can get my already edited project to fit the window properly. I don’t want to re-edit the entire project. Do I need to cut and paste the project into a new timeline and save as a new project?

  Any suggestions??

  Thanks!!

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