Converting for FCP

[John Pale]

[Preston Orrick] “This clip is straight from a Digital Juice DVD. What would be the best setting to convert it to to have it play nice in FCP?
“

Generally, you should match it to whatever Easy Setup codec your timeline is. If you need an alpha channel, then you use Animation Codec or ProRes 4444 (FCP 7 only).

Use Compressor to do the conversion.

[Preston Orrick]

I’m still lost; even if I do convert it, FCP will still require me to re-render if I move it at all. And, what if I want to convert the odd dimensions into smaller dimensions and not preset dimensions?? I wish FCP was more lax on accepting files. I’m not big on the render every 5 seconds thing.

[Preston Orrick]

Even after I convert it to ProRes, it still has these settings:

Frame Size: 576×324
Aspect Ratio: Custom (16:9)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square
Field Dominance: None
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)

.. and it’s still being weird about rendering every 5 seconds.

[Preston Orrick]

MPEG Streamclip has solved my problem. It converted my 576×324 video to 1280×720 (HDTV 720p) without any noticeable issues. And it’s a free program, unbelievable!

[Kai Cheong]

Hi Preston,

If you’re using stuff from Digital Juice, you should be able to tweak the settings in Juicer to best match your sequence. Juicer is their free software available on their website for download.

I use a lot of DJ, too and it definitely saves a lot of time if I render out [from Juicer] a QT file that matches my FCP settings. This is especially so for background plates. Looking at your settings, I guess the issue was the dimensions. Good to hear it’s solved now.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
https://kai-fcp-editor.blogspot.com
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