FCP – Guidance needed

[Shane Ross]

[Bob Holbrook] ”
When Acquiring footage in Panasonic’s HD format, (DVC Pro 50 HD, 720 P) and overlaying graphics in AE, what is the best work-flow? Best CODEC into AE for graphics? Best Output from AE for FCP?”

For the record, it is DVCPRO 100…not 50. DVCPRO 50 is an SD format.

When I do work in AE, I export a self contained QT movie, using the sequence settings. Work in AE, then export as the same codec….DVCPRO HD. Because then I drop it back into my DVCPRO HD timeline and there is no rendering required. The best you can get is the native format. But you can also try changing your sequence settings to render as ProRes, and see what exporting to AE as ProRes does, and back. Check it out and see for yourself.

[Bob Holbrook] “When working with this same format, what works best for Green screen? AE, FCP, or a plug-in in either and again, using what file formats in and out?”

I use Shake or AE with a plugin called KEYLIGHT. It comes with both applications, actually…free. If you got the AE Production Bundle or AE 7 or later.

[Bob Holbrook] “I’ve noticed some FCP projects have better looking text graphics than others (all non AE). Are these from PS files, or is there a way to increase the quality of Live Type? Our live Type tends to look a step above poor.”

Depends what format you are working with. Titles in the DVCPRO HD codec will look much better than ones in the DV codec.

[Bob Holbrook] “The 4 GB transfer limit. Does this still exist? Is there a way around it?”

What 4GB transfer limit? Oh…you must have not formatted your hard drive properly if you are getting this. a FAT32 file format (a PC format) has this file size limit. MacOS Extended, the Mac format, has no limit.

Shane

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[Jeremy Garchow]

Hey Cajun Bob.

It’s hard to say what the best workflow for you is going to be, so the only I can really explain it is to insert my particular workflow and you can cherry pick/adapt what you need or don’t need.

If your system can handle it, I have been finding ProResHQ to be a really nice codec. Just started my first green screen project with it and it’s working great. It is also 10bit which makes a guy like me happy. AE seems to be able to handle it just fine. As far as rendering out of AE, that depends on what you need. If you need an alpha channel, then the only native way is the Animation codec, or you can render out an image sequence with alphas. If you want o spend a little money, you can buy the sheer codec which carries an alpha and also provides a small file size at an uncompressed quality. If you don’t need alpha channels, then I would suggest rendering out to whatever codec you are editing in. Be prepared for a slight color space shift as AE works in RGb and FCP works in YUV. If you can’t handle ProRes, then I think it’s best to go Uncompressed 10bit for keying, again if you can handle it. If you can’t, then DVCPro HD can work as well, although it’s a little harder to key I have found.

[Bob Holbrook] “When working with this same format, what works best for Green screen? AE, FCP, or a plug-in in either and again, using what file formats in and out? “

You can use either AE or FCP. I use both depending on the job. If you are going to use AE, I would suggest buying Automatic duck which will translate your FCP timeline to an AE timeline. IT’s quite handy. From there, you can use Keylight in AE to pull your keys. If you are going to use FCP, I have had great luck with Boris Continuum Complete’s Chroma Key, but there are others. As of right now, there’s also a bug in BCC v5.0 Chroma Key. It should be sorted soon. People often talk about dvGarage Matte blast. I have never used it, but it gets rave reviews around here. Probably worth checking out. There’s also dvMatte Pro

[Bob Holbrook] “I’ve noticed some FCP projects have better looking text graphics than others (all non AE). Are these from PS files, or is there a way to increase the quality of Live Type? Our live Type tends to look a step above poor. “

What codec do you usually work in? Uncompressed (or now ProRes) is the way to go for graphics, in my little opinion. ALso, using the Title3d plugin that comes with FCP has yielded great looking results for us as well.

Hope this helps.

Jeremy

[Bob Holbrook]

Shane and Jeremy,

Thanks for the input. Great info and insight.

Bob

Cajun Bob