Clip Properties

[John Rofrano]

[Greg Ball] “1. How can I check the clip properties that a client has sent me to determine if it’s 1080P or 720P? In FCP 7 you used to be able to see it in the browser.”

You can see this in the inspector. Select the clip in the browser or timeline and open the Inspector window (⌘4). Press the (i) icon and you will see the resolution and frame rate in the top bar. Also if you change from the Basic view to the General view you will get even more clip properties.

[Greg Ball] “2. Pan and zooming video clips and images. I’d like to pan or zoom clips and images by starting the move before I cut to the clip. In other words I’d like to cut to clips that are already zooming or panning. In FCP 7 we used to just drag the first keyframe BEFORE the portion of the clip we were using. But I don’t see how to do this in FCPX.”

Create a Compound Clip from the clip and double click on it to open it in it’s own timeline. Then apply any cropping and panning keyframes you want on the entire clip. This will add motion to the source clip regardless of how you trim it. Then when you return to the timeline you can trim the clip to start at a point where the panning is already in motion.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Greg Ball]

Thanks John! I have around 80 clips and photos that need moves. Is there a better way than creating 80 compound clips? That seems very time consuming.

Greg Ball, President
Ball Media Innovations, Inc.
https://www.ballmediainnovations.com

[Michael Hancock]

I use Alex4D Smooth Move for all my pan and scan. It’s a brilliant little plugin, and it’s free.

https://blog.alex4d.com/2011/08/04/smooth-move-fpx-effect/

I assume you want the zooms/scans to already be going when you cut to them so the speed is constant? If so, just set the Curve to Linear in the Alex4D plugin.

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[John Rofrano]

The bigger question is why do you feel the need to start the motion before the clip when no one can see it? I assume you are trying to compensate for the motion being non-linear with some ease-in/out curve but I believe it is linear by default so it makes no visual difference if you start the motion when the clip starts or if you start it earlier. The motion will look the same both ways.

Try it and see. If this is not what you want then please explain how having the motion start before the clip does makes it somehow look different? (again, assuming the motion is linear, which it is)

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Michael Hancock]

[John Rofrano] “I believe it is linear by default”

FCPX is not linear, and cannot do linear scaling. It always has an ease function. With X/Y movement you can make the keyframes linear, but it’s not well done and is cumbersome.

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[John Rofrano]

[Michael Hancock] “FCPX is not linear, and cannot do linear scaling. It always has an ease function.”

That’s not the behavior that I am observing. I just used the crop tool to zoom in and pan and the movements were linear. Here is an example:

That looks linear to me (you may have to click on the image to see the gif animate depending on your browser).

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Michael Hancock]

I never thought about using the crop tool. I use scale and position, which default to ease in/out, and you can’t change the scale to linear. You can to the position keyframes, but it’s difficult and not worth the time.

Do you know how the crop tool does in regards to oversampled footage? If you drop a 4K clip into a 1080p timeline, scaled to fit, then do the crop animation, does it reference the 4K or does it just crop and zoom in on the scaled down 1080p clip (in effect, softening the image)?

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[Jeff Markgraf]

Yes, but still a little cumbersome.

If you trim the in point of your clip back/left (say, 10 frames) and set up your move, then trim it forward/right, back to where you really want the in point, the keyframe stays put and the move will start 10 frames before the clip. Same process for the outpoint.

If you’re just doing push in/push out (similar to KenBurns effect), try Alex4D’s Grow/Shrink plugin. You can set a start percentage, end percentage, rate and start/stop delays, plus adjust the target X,Y location. I believe it will start the motion at the very first frame, so the clip will be in motion at the start of a dissolve from the previous shot, as well as floating through to the end of the “out” transition.

[John Rofrano]

[Michael Hancock] “Do you know how the crop tool does in regards to oversampled footage? If you drop a 4K clip into a 1080p timeline, scaled to fit, then do the crop animation, does it reference the 4K or does it just crop and zoom in on the scaled down 1080p clip (in effect, softening the image)?”

I don’t know for sure (I would have to test this) but you would think that the purpose of Crop is to maintain the full resolution of the footage within the cropped area. Many people claim that one benefit of shooting 4K for people who still deliver HD is that you can reframe the shot, from let’s say a wide shot to a medium shot, with crop and still have great looking footage so I have to believe that crop does not downsample to HD and then scale up and loose resolution but rather crop from the original 4K footage in an HD project.

BTW, I didn’t realize that Scale uses ease-in/out. You have taught me something new. Thanks! ????

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com