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Avi to Mov or Mov exported from PC
I’ve been scouring this forum for the last three days and have read every single thread and tried every single suggestion.
I have a client who works on Premiere on the PC – I work on FCP. I have tried exporting the avi files with several different programs. I’ve tried doing screen captures, recording the video while it plays on the desktop. He’s even converted everything to a .mov file using Premiere. I’ve tried converting that file to everything under the sun to no avail.
NOTHING WORKS. I can view the file in the Viewer and it looks GREAT – totally crisp! But when I put it on the timeline, it looks like crap. It’s blurry and that doesn’t work because the entire video is close-ups of a computer screen where you need to be able to read the words.
What the heck? I’m about to resort to filming the screen with my video camera and see if it’s useable. This is ridiculous. Does ANYONE have a solution that WORKS, because every thing I’ve tried (at least 10 different things) end up with the SAME EXACT RESULT.
This project is due TOMORROW, and I’ve already told him that he needs to find another editor, but he seems determined to stick with me.
I’ve attached two files: one is a screenshot of the video in the viewer, the other is a screenshot of the video in the timeline (rendered.)
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5 Replies
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The viewer is showing you Quicktime. The Canvas is showing you the file using the codec setting of your timeline. So, if you’re editing in a DV timeline, the image will be degraded. If you’re editing in uncompressed or ProRes, it should look a lot better. But, you can’t judge an image in the Canvas. If you set its size to 100% you’ll get close. You should always use an external broadcast monitor to know what you have visually. If the final product is a file that’ll play on a computer or the web, take a short clip, export it, encode it to its final form and then look at that result in QT player (or whatever player represents how it will be seen). That will show you the result of your workflow.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 2 (FCP 6.0.5, Comp 3.0.5, DVDSP 4.2.1, Color 1.0.3)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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Your post is a bit confusing. Can you please explain a few things first?
-What is the original video source? Screen recordings? If so, how were they captured?
-What is the resolution, filetype and codec of the source video?
-Was the source video created on a Mac or a PC?
-You mention that your client uses Premiere. Is the client providing you with files exported from Premiere? If so, what type of files? What resolution and codec?
-What are your project/sequence settings in Final Cut Pro?
Do this: In Final Cut Pro, once you’ve put the source clip in a timeline, double-click on it and look at the motion tab in the viewer. Is the original clip being upscaled to fit the frame size of your sequence, i.e. is the scale greater than 100%? In the samples you provided, the second image appears larger than the original, so I assume that the source clip is being upscaled to fit the frame size of your sequence.
Image quality of imported footage can be degraded both by the codec of the sequence (DV is notoriously bad for graphics) and by upscaling the original clip dimensions. You might achieve better results by both (A) not upscaling the source clips to fill the full frame size of your sequence (if that is indeed what’s currently happening) and (B) working in a sequence that uses a higher quality codec like Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2.
Also be sure to render your timeline prior to viewing playback. As a previous poster mentioned, you should ideally be viewing playback on an external broadcast monitor for the most accurate representation of how your video will appear on video (not computer) devices.
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Which version of FCP?
V 6 will ask if you want the T-L set to match the media. You’ll be able to go (or not) from there!Cheers
Alexander -
I did try exporting it, it looked the same. I did set the timeline to the same aspect ratio as the original clips (and I even tried doing lots of different settings) because they needed a lot of panning and movement – the problem occurred when trying to zoom in. What is strange is that I was able to zoom in with the .mov files he sent me and take a freeze frame of that, but if I tried to apply any movement, the entire clip freaked out and got blurry, even when rendered and exported. It just doesn’t make sense – I’ve worked with all kinds of clips and aspect ratios and quality, and I’ve never had an issue.
I just ended up doing it in Motion (which I should have done from the beginning, except it took at least twice as long to do each clip.) The .mov files that the client sent stayed at the same quality level in Motion.
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Actually, it never asked me that, and it normally does. I was surprised.
I should also mention that the quality was very low even when I wasn’t zoomed in – it was blurry even when zoomed all the way out (except for those .mov files that I mentioned,) which is what made everything so confusing.
At least I got around it, even if it doesn’t solve the problem of avi to mov. I have another project right now that also involve avi screen captures, but I don’t have to do any movement, and the client is okay with the quality loss because there’s nothing that you have to read in fine print …
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