Final Cut Pro to Flash

[David Roth weiss]

Joanna,

Although it’s not perfectly clear in your post, it certainly sounds as if you’re compressing the video twice. It sounds to me like you’re compressing and scaling the video once with QT Conversion, then compressing again in Flash. Is that right? If so, that extra compression step is more than likely a killer. And, what codec are you you compressing to with QT Conversion?

I use a dedicated Flash encoder, Flix Pro, from On2, and I would certainly never use an extra compression step.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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

[Joanna Banks-morgan]

Hi David,

It’s entirely possible that we are compressing it twice because I’m so unfamiliar what happens during the Flash process. I was trying to provide our web guy with exactly the dimensions which he needs for the site, but it sounds like you’re saying just go ahead and export it as a straight self contained QT file and let him resize in Flash?

I was using H.264, 29.97 FPS, DV NTSC 48kHz. None of these samples are HD, but I just can’t get over how bad they look compared to the ones I’ve put on our blog through Motionbox…

Thank you for taking the time to respond!

Joanna

[David Roth weiss]

[Joanna Banks-Morgan] “it sounds like you’re saying just go ahead and export it as a straight self contained QT file and let him resize in Flash?
“

If he’s capable of doing it, that is your best bet.

BTW, if you’re originating on DV, you might want to try editing as normal, then when your edit is completed, go into Sequence Settings, change the compressor to ProRes, then re-render. That will not improve your video quality, but will keep your text and graphics pristine so it will not be ravaged by DV compression. It will hold up much better during Flash compression too, but the downside is that the file will be substantially larger. And of course, you’ll need to make sure your Web guy can handle ProRes. There is a free Windows decompressor available if he doesn’t yet have the latest version of Quicktime.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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

[Miodrag Ristic]

When you mentioned Flix Pro, David, what’s the difference between Pro and Standard?
I mean for someone that only needs occasional transfer to flash for his/her website,
would Standard do the job? (I was on their website, but it’s still not completely clear to me)

In addition to that, with recent Adobe’s use of H.264 is it now any easier than before
(read somewhere about makoing a mp4, or .m4v video in QT then just changing the extension to
.f4v and that would allow the video to be opened by flash)?

Mio

http://www.digitalvideovault.com.au

[David Roth weiss]

[Miodrag Ristic] “what’s the difference between Pro and Standard? “

If I am correct, the biggest difference is that Flix Pro has 2-pass encoding, which is one reason why it’s the best in the business. It also comes with several player skins that can be used to create .swf files that can be embedded directly into webpages without any further tinkering or processing.

[Miodrag Ristic] “s it now any easier than before
(read somewhere about makoing a mp4, or .m4v video in QT then just changing the extension to .f4v and that would allow the video to be opened by flash)?”

That has made creating Flash files easier, and for those who know .h264 encoding well, it has taken some of the steam out of dedicated Flash encoders. Honestly, when I update my website in the next few weeks I’m going to do some serious thinking on this subject. I will tell you however, the progressive download controls in Flix Pro are really powerful, allowing for smooth playback of very large and very long video files, which is good for me as I make long-form documentaries and prefer to exhibit long scenes on my website rather than the typical fast cut 1-minute reel favored my most.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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

[Miodrag Ristic]

will tell you however, the progressive download controls in Flix Pro are really powerful, allowing for smooth playback of very large and very long video files, which is good for me as I make long-form documentaries and prefer to exhibit long scenes on my website rather than the typical fast cut 1-minute reel favored my most.

Thanks David. That’s very important for me as well.
I need to upgrade my website within maximum 2 weeks, but I don’t think I can afford Flix Pro at the
moment (just bought HPX 170 and a MacBook Pro is in the pipeline alongside few cards for Pana…).

I’d love to see if something is possible to be done for less money… it’s so frustrating, like I’m running in circles fro some time now looking for the solution (I’m in a specific situation with my website… long story).
Actually, currently I’m experimenting with .m4v, video for iPod and it appears that mostly latest PCs can watch them, probably only because they’ve got iTunes installed (which means QT as well).
Then I’ve read that about m4v and f4v… and got excited…

Mio

http://www.digitalvideovault.com.au

[David Roth weiss]

Mio,

I will soon be updating my website as well and I’m not sure what approach I’m going to take this time around. I might even embed video I upload to Vimeo. Let me know what you decide upon, please point me to your site when you’re done. I’d definitely like to see your finished effort.

Good luck,
David

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[David Briner]

David, Do you know if I can edit a flash website with Final Cut Pro 7 suite? A company wants me to do this…but don’t I need CF4 (Flash 10) and all the .fla files to do this? Please reply. You seem very smart. Thank you.