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Editing 7d native 23.98 on fcp 7 (image looks grainier and lo-fi after adding effect or rendering)
I’m working on my first feature, shooting on the 7d, and i’ve just been dropping the footage onto the timeline because I heard if you compress you lose some quality (i want to have top notch image quality for a feature). I understand that the footage only looks and plays back choppy when you’re editing and after exporting it looks fine, but I like to edit with ease. I don’t like the footage to look all jacked up as I edit, it bothers me.
Every time I add an effect and or have to render some slowed down footage (60p into cinema tools converting to 24p), the image looks grainier and poorer quality (for lack of a better word); as if it lost sharpness.
Also, I made the mistake of converting the 60p footage into 24p (in cinema tools for slow-motion) and not 23.98. I’ve mixed this in the timeline together, will this affect the video after its been exported? (i understand if this will affect it somehow, I can always go back and redo the conversion)
so bottom line..is there any way to edit with ease and not deal with all this!! ugh!! (and no i wont compress to pro res!!)
Thanks so much, sorry for the lack of professional terminology here, im self-taught and lazy to learn pro-terms!!
thanks again!
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6 Replies
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[ernesto roche] “and no i wont compress to pro res!!”
Sure you will Ernesto! You will have to transcode to a codec such as Pro Res if you want to have any hope of success cutting a feature-length project.
Unfortunately, you will not be able to edit more than a few minutes of native DSLR footage in FCP without it completely bogging down and becoming completely and utterly unmanageable.
Being “self taught” is great, but you can’t simply make FCP play like you want. It’s an old end of life program that has not had a significant rewrite in several years, so it does not work well with newer, processor intensive codecs, such as h.264.
If cutting native file formats is the “holy grail” you’re seeking, the only solution for you is Adobe Premiere.
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.comSales | Integration | Support
David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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Want good quality? Use 5DtoRGB…it does the best job converting. But it also takes FOREVER to do it…because it is retaining maximum quality.
But you MUST convert if you are going to edit with FCP. FCP is unpredictable when editing the native format the Canon DLSRs shoot.
Also…before you “CONFORM” media with Cinema Tools, you need to duplicate it, as this conform is destructive…it messes with the source file, and you cannot conform back. This is always the advice we give here…sorry that you missed that tidbit. And the tidbit that FCP doesn’t work with H.264.
As for this need for “every ounce of quality” attitude…sigh. Your focus should be on story…story is king. If all you care about is quality, your film will suffer. Two major motion pictures were up for academy awards one year…AVATAR and THE HURT LOCKER. Avatar was pristine and beautiful…but the story, IMHO, sucked. Stole directly from many kids movie plots and was just standard fare. The Hurt Locker was shot on super 16…grainy as hell…and a wonderful story. So good that you didn’t notice the quality.
I’ve also worked on 3 documentaries that were shot with the 5D or 7D, and played on big screens. Footage brought in via Log and Transfer on two of them, 5DtoRGB on the third. To be honest, I didn’t really notice anything huge in terms of quality between them.
Yes, as the editor, or the person responsible for the online or color grade, quality is your chief concern. Even with that, not one online editor or colorist worth their salt would EVER recommend editing H.264 native in FCP 7 (or 6 or less). Heck, even FCX wants you to convert it to ProRes. Because it’s a difficult format to work with…and FCP simply doesn’t do it right.
Do things right…convert it to ProRes.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
IMHO FCPX works flawlessly in FCP X. Especially on a newer sandy or ivy bridge iMac.
That said, this talk of keeping quality is pointless, especially in FCP 7. Why? Because when you’re done trudging through a buggy edit that renders with bugs and errors, or even if it works perfectly, you’re going to have to output a master. And what format would that be? ProRes. I guess you could make an h264 master but that will require the footage be run through the h264 ringer AGAIN. But if you’ve converted to ProRes originally, then you’ve already done the conversion. There will be no further recompression of any un-effected video. And pretty much lossless conversion of any effected video that is ProRes.
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“IMHO FCPX works flawlessly in FCP X”
It sure does.
🙂
But FCX does prefer that you “optimize” the media. That converts it to ProRes. And would you really edit H264 native on a feature-length project?
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
thanks for all the wisdom guys! i can be very stubborn and ignorant when it comes to things like these, but you’re definitely right Shane, it is about the story, i shouldn’t be worrying about image quality right now, what i need to worry about is how im going to edit the film and if the story is going to be conveyed properly!!
thanks again to all of you!
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Absolutely. I haven’t edited a feature film or anything. But I’ve done a few corporate DSLR multicam shoots that utilize 3 cameras, color correction and graphics, etc. for 45min to an hour. No need to render or anything for real time, full quality play back. Just as smooth and good as anything ProRes. Why would you need to convert 4 hours of video to ProRes just to take up 5x as much drive space and waste clients time and money?
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