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Final Cut Pro
Is there any way in which an inexperienced user can reset the Sequence settings from PAL to NTSC without intentionally going into Preferences>Easy Setup for instance – or Sequence>Settings ….?
Out of a class of 18 students (19 year olds and not particularly computer literate) nearly half have managed to do this in some way. I setup each student and all the material is imported from PAL miniDV cameras through input settings switched to PAL. On the offending projects the Sequence however has been switched somehow to NTSC and when I try to dump the video projects onto miniDV for storage and for creating copies to send to external examiners I find the recording machine will obviously only accept the sound.
As I am short of time to get these films off the computers, and I don’t have time to do a lot of research and experimentation I have reset the sequence setting to PAL and re-rendered – this still doesn’t produce a recordable copy – I then export as QT and reload the film into iMovie and then export to the recorder. Even for 6-8 minute films this take about an hour and a half. Is there a simpler immediate fix to get the films into a PAl format and is there any way and I can warn students about the dangers of unintentional sequence altering?
PS Two students on the same computer working from the same copy of FCP managed to do it right and wrong in the same term’s work. Neither knows what they did right or wrong – but hey that’s students for you -
3 Replies
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That’s wierd, if the video originated as pal dv it should remain so even on an ntsc project (until rendered otherwise). Select a clip and check item properties from the edit menu. Try creating a new pal sequence and copy and paste the timeline from the ntsc time line to the new pal sequence. It would seem as though the system defaulted to ntsc upon start up.
[Alun Lewis] “I find the recording machine will obviously only accept the sound.”
This also seems odd. You should see some form of signal like out of sync or stepped video.What version of FCP and what computers are you using?
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Rennie
Thanks for the help – though I still can’t work out how the students manage to get the programme to change – unless this is some bug.
The version is HD 4.5.
I am currently pasting and re-rendering and will see what happens.
It is odd that we get no signal. When the paly head is stationary we get a jittering picture that is OK – but put it into record to tape mode and the picture goes to pure black + sound. Then if you escape you’ll get the still back. -
Further to last message:
I forgot to add that the ciomputers are eMacs. The oidd bit is that two students working on the sdame machine with obviously different log-ins can get it right and wrong.
I haved tried copy and paste and it makes the video go to 5:4 instead of 4:3 no matter what sequence settings I choose. And the audio sync gets scrambled. Audio with video gets shifted – the timeline indicates by one frame though it turns out to be about 5 frames when resyncing by eye. Then the in points on the voice over tracks seems to be shifted back by about 2-3 seconds.
To recap: after your instructions I simply selected all the rendered NTSC sequence, copied, and pasted into new PAl sequence and rendered. Very quick but as you can see – I will have to spend a lot of time re-editing and fiddling.
But thanks for the suggestion.
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