FCP7toMC Import footage in Media Composer/Subtitling/Create DVD

[Kim Bo]

I’m really confuse… I was really ready to make the move with Media Composer, specially that now I know what’s the best format to work with. And of what I saw in all the tutorial, it doesn’t seems to be to complicated for editing.
I heard everywhere that Media Composer is the best for editing… I mean, heaven if it’s a little bit more complicated than Premiere… after working more and more with it, I will get use to it…

What do you mean by: ”But when you need to layer footage, or add in stills and moves on stills…”composite” shots internally”

But yeah, I guess, the best is to try demo for both…

[Shane Ross]

[Kim Bo] “What do you mean by: ”But when you need to layer footage, or add in stills and moves on stills…”composite” shots internally””

OK…Let’s say I have a video track, and on that is either a scening background, or a computer generated backplate…just a video layer. Let’s make it simple…a battlefield shot from the ALAMO. Now, on that shot I want to have pictures appear of the major people involved in that. Fade in a shot of the American’s defending the Alamo, the Mexican General attacking it, a still of Davy Crocket. SO that’s a video backplate, and 3-4 stills. In FCP, and Premiere Pro, you simply drop the picture onto a track above the first video layer, and then resize and add keyframes to the move.

In Avid…this is far more complex. First off, you have the backplate. Then, you layer the imported still…but you can’t use that still because it isn’t full quality. Avid CONVERTS stills to match the project settings. You might have a 3000×2000 300dpi still, but once you import into Avid, it becomes 72dpi, and 1920×1080…quality is bad. Which is why Avid has a plugin called Avid PAN & ZOOM. You drop that onto the still, and then open that up in the Effects interface, and then you need to click on a box that then wants you to find the original still on your hard drive…you navigate to it, and then click OK. Bam, now your still is there, in full quality. So now you need to do your move on it…if you have one. Or just leave it full size.

But it’s now covering the screen fully…you cannot see the video track below it. SO you need to add ANOTHER plugin…PICTURE IN PICTURE. But you need to hold OPT while you drag that on top of PAN & ZOOM, otherwise Avid will Beep at you. To layer filters you need to hold option. OK, so now PICTURE IN PICTURE is on the still, so now you can keyframe the move. OK, now time for picture 2. Go through the same steps to get the real picture in the timeline, and now you need to add Picture in Picture again…only if you now do the move, you’ll notice EVERYTHING shrinks down to smaller…so you need to move the still up a layer…you might need to have one video track separating the stills…or you might not. Depends on Avid’s mood.

Do this again for another still…and you’ll note that this process is getting really slow. Because layering 3+ full quality stills is taxing on the interface. It’s like editing in molasses. OK, fine, you do it, and then render. Whew…it works. OK, hmm…they look a bit harsh, let’s blur the edges..oops, you can’t! Need to add another plugin to do that.

But lets say you want to do a move on a still that has ROTATION…meaning not just zoom in and out, but turns a little. Can’t use PAN & ZOOM, it doesn’t do rotation. You might need to use Boris Continuum Complete for that ($1900), or get a plugin called MOVING PICTURE ($200).

Layering 4 stills on a background can take me up to an hour to do in Avid. And I can do the same thing in PPRo or FCP in 10 min.

So it all depends on what you are using the NLE to cut…why type of editing you are doing. Avid is great software…fantastic, I love it. But I curse at it when I need to do certain things because they are a pain in the patoot. This is why i recommend people look at all the NLE options and see what works for their style of editing, for the project types they are doing.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Kim Bo]

Thanks Shane for the explication, this example you explain me really tell me that maybe premiere would be better for me, since we often work with png and animated images…

But still, I will put in application both to be able to compare and having the best idea which one would fit the best for me.

So with Premiere, I will still compress my video the same way as I use to do with FCP, which is compress in Apple Pro Res LT 422 and then import in Premiere?
And for the subtitling, working with the STL file, you know how it’s working?

Thank you very much for your advise Shane!

[Shane Ross]

[Kim Bo] “So with Premiere, I will still compress my video the same way as I use to do with FCP, which is compress in Apple Pro Res LT 422 and then import in Premiere?”

No need. Premiere Pro will edit the files without the need to convert. One level of compression skipped. Native editing.

[Kim Bo] “And for the subtitling, working with the STL file, you know how it’s working?”

Sorry, no idea. I’ve always subtitled manually.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Kim Bo]

Thanks you so much! I will make some search for subtitle but I think it should not be to complicated… seems to work like FCP.

For the audio, you told me later we can export the audio for Pro Tool, with all the separate track?
I only see the AAF, in export. How to bring the audio for ProTool with Premiere?

Thank!

[David Powell]

MC 7 Transcodes in the background. Watch some videos on the new feature. You can work while transcoding now. Shouldn’t slow you down any more than your current FCP workflow in which you wait on MPG stream clip to make Prores files. Also check out the dynamic folders which will automatically transcode to DNX (avid’s version of prores if you will) when you import them from the camera. This should be faster than how you are currently working. I don’t like Premiere’s timeline for cutting personally. Also FCPX will cut through native H.264 quite easily, so Adobe isn’t your only other option.