FCP to Flash – workflow suggestions?

[Rj Thomas]

You could give this a try.

https://www.on2.com/index.php?387

It’s easy, it’s cheap and it works fairly well. I’ve been using for a while and although it may be limited if you’re doing a ton of compression, it works great.

[Santiago Gutierrez]

Whenever I need to do this for a client, I export a Quicktime out of FCP using the sequence settings. It can be a reference movie if you want. Then I bring it into After Effects CS3 and use that to encode my FLV files. You can configure the output module in AE to customize the settings if you need a specific bitrate, etc.

You can use AE’s tools to do your cropping for you, or change your composition settings to eliminate the widescreen matting, i.e. change from 720×486 to 720×343.
Hope that helps,
Santiago

[Barrett Ross]

Thanks Santiago,

Unfortunately, I don’t have AE CS3. Only AE 6.0. I should have mentioned that I’m somewhat new to FCP, and very new to Flash.

Santiago, when you say you export a QT using the Sequence settings, which settings are you referring to? I am working with DVCPRO NTSC, but I don’t seem to have that as a QuickTime export option, though I do have DVCPRO PAL… which I find odd. If I leave it at “Current Settings” will that use the Sequence settings??

Are there any particular settings/codecs that anyone has had good luck with keeping text looking really sharp?

Thanks!

[Santiago Gutierrez]

Hey Barrett,
You’re right, it’s the dialog box that says “Current Settings”. Sorry about that. Your text should look sharp in the DV codec. If you open up the quicktime movie that’s been exported and look at it in Quicktime player. Click on “Show Movie Properties” in the menu and go to the video track. Under visual settings you’ll see a checkbox that says High Quality. For DV, make sure that’s checked. DV will look really lousy unless the High Quality box is checked. From there, you should be able to see how your text really looks.
As you’re not using this for broadcast, you don’t have to worry about looking at the output on an NTSC monitor, so in THIS case it’s important what it looks like on a computer screen.

I’m no expert on Flash unfortunately, so I won’t be able to provide too much help on that front.

[David Roth weiss]

Barrett,

Flash Video Encoder uses an old an very inferior Flash codec, this is at the heart of your problem. The On2 Flix encoder or better yet, Flix Pro, use the ON2 VP6 codec now used by all of the major software manufacturers (Adobe, Sorenson, etc.). I use Flix Pro, which allows you to create very high quality .swf files with very small file sizes, and with built-in players and controls that can be easlily used in most web design apps.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Barrett Ross]

Thanks David,

Though on the Flash Video Encoder, I can choose from On2 VP6 or Sorenson Spark. I have been using the On2 as I read good things about it (and you just confirmed).

I think I’ll give Santiago’s suggestion a try with using the DVCPRO settings that the project was created with as the export method, then try encoding again.

Thanks,
Barrett