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FCP’s dirty little secret… a challenge for the experts!
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[Lee Berger] “if Apple monitors this forum (if they don’t, they should) then it’s good feedback (in addition to their feedback page).”
Absolutely they do read these forums.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html
Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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Walter,
I fully agree with your suggestions about the need to use hardware for conversions. But that’s the point of this entire thread – that OPEN FORMAT timeline is complete bulls**t – even after clips are fully rendered.
Apple’s marketing says, “Final Cut Pro 6 lets you mix and match source material in a wide range of formats and even different frame rates. Just drag your footage into the Timeline. Freely edit a combination of HD and SD, including NTSC and PAL, all in real time. ”
(and their graphics shows NTSC, 720p24, 1080i60, and PAL 25 all in the same timeline – they don’t show what format the timeline is in, though.)
I suppose, in fairness, they don’t actually claim that it looks good, so I guess they can’t be sued for false advertising! But come on, if you can’t drop an HD clip into an NTSC timeline? That’s a pretty common workflow, no?
So the claim that FCP 6 “mix and match formats” is VERY misleading at best.
But what’s so crazy about it is that it DOES scale quicktimes well, as long as your sequence is not interlaced. And it does scale TIFFs well – even if the timeline is interlaced – so why can’t it scale a QT? It’s maddening!
Certainly I always prefer to work in a progressive format and downconvert on output, but that’s not always on option. The reality is, we’re going to be stuck with NTSC 29.97 for much longer than we’d like.
Like I said on the web page, I love FCP, but these are the kind of issues that makes Avid & Flame users question FCP’s legitimacy as a PRO Platform. Apple is not doing themselves (or us) any favors by over-promising and under delivering.
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Well said, David. I have to say that I agree with you.
What you shouls try is fields kit from revision fx which will add proper pulldown for you and also interlace your content properly.
Jeremy
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[David Jahns] “I suppose, in fairness, they don’t actually claim that it looks good, so I guess they can’t be sued for false advertising! But come on, if you can’t drop an HD clip into an NTSC timeline? That’s a pretty common workflow, no?”
You said it yourself. They don’t claim it looks good, just that you can do it. It’s called marketing. Everyone does it. That’s why we have forums like these where real world people can tell other folks what is real and what is hype.
Marketing people will put whatever they want on paper. If you truly want to mix and match formats and do it well, then get yourself hardware.
Or pick up the proper plug-ins that DO truly work to mix and match various formats.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html
Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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[David Jahns] “I love FCP, but these are the kind of issues that makes Avid & Flame users question FCP’s legitimacy as a PRO Platform.”
Leaving FLAME out of this, as it is in a different ballgame altogether….have you done extensive testing like this on an Avid? Have you seen what it can do? How about Edius? Premiere? They all claim mixed format timelines…do they hold up as well?
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Shane,
as I?ve said before, I?ve done this test with Avid Media Composre software only.
It?s not only that I?ve done the test, it?s that I do it very often.
Let?s say you edit some dv clips in a sequence. Now, you edit a DNxHD clip in that sequence. You?ll see that your Hd clip keeps its original quality. No green bars, no previews, no need to render to see the quality.
This is, as you know, because in Avid the sequence itself doesn?t have a codec, the different clips stay there with their original codecs.
When you do this in FCP, when you render the Hd clip, it gets rendered to a Dv codec, and there is where I think the problem starts. Playing the Hd clip with the green bar is really depressing. It looks like a Offline to RT codec.
In Avid, you only choose if you display your sequence in SD o Hd, but you won?t see a difference in quality in the Hd clip.
You?ll have to resize before output, sure, but the resize has an incredible quality.
This is a very Apple thing, as we all know. Everything sounds amazing and superb. Now start working with it…
In some areas, FCP looks to everyone far superior than Avid, where Avid is really superior, but not everyone knows about it.
As an example… compare Optical Flow in Motion 3 (not even FCP), and Fluid Motion in Media Composer.
Compare workflow and results.
Media Composer is the winner, but now everyone is talking about optical flow in FCS 2, due to its popularity.
I like FCP and use it very often, btw…
Flavio.
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Walter,
with all my respect, you seem to excuse them a little.
Right, they don
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” the different clips stay there with their original codecs.”
That’s exactly the way FCP works, until output. In the timeline the green bar is due to scaling, but it’s playing back in the native codec on the fly. If you put put different codec media in a sequence with all the same resolution, which do require scaling, they will all be playing back in the native codec until you output.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop” -
This whole scaling and interlacing thing, isn’t that why Graeme Nattress had to write his standards conversion filter with an Image Well taht you had to drop the original movie into, explains very well on his website that FCP doesn’t do a good job with interlacing and scaling. I dealt with the same thing doignan NTSC to PAL conversion. Used FCP and Timelines to do it, and it looked horrible, i used the Nattress standards conversion plugins, and it looked as it should, maybe just a titch softer.
Just my 2 bits..
Matt -
Not sure I’m buying that. If I put HD in a DV sequence and play it back in real time, it plays out the firewire port in real time. Yes, ugly and scaled. But it must be scaled into the DV codec to even pass down the firewire to the deck.
I assume the same would hold true for SD SDI formats as well.
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