Kodak Play Touch video and Final Cut Pro

[Steve Eisen]

Do a search on this forum and you will find out that you will need to convert your footage to an FCP friendly codec such as ProRes.

As far as quality, that has many definitions. Being a consumer camera, the quality of the picture from that camera can be sub par compared to professional HD cameras.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Megan Brown]

Is ProRes a converter?
I don’t know what settings are compatible with Kodak Play Touch even when I try converting… That’s my main issue.

I’m wondering what converting software I should use and what settings are needed for the Kodak Play Touch before converting… It’s HD video.

Does that make sense?
Thanks!

[Steve Eisen]

It makes sense to me. ProRes is a video codec. Download MPEG StreamClip from the web and use that to convert the files from your camera to ProRes.

The other alternative is to use Compressor to convert the files.

If this is over your head, find someone with editing experience to do this for you.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Mark Suszko]

Megan, the easiest thing for someone withotu a lot of expereince is to use the free utility program called mpeg Streamclip, by Squared Five, to change your Kidak’s footage into something that’s easy to edit in Final Cut. If I was going to have another child, I would name him or her after MPEG Streamclip, and not care if they got beat up on the playground:-)

Download a copy of that program and open it. You get a large icon pictuer on your desktopn that looks like one half of a pair of dice. Open your video drive or wherever the Kodak’s footage is on your desktop, drag and drop the footage icon onto the dice logo, and it starts to work. Go to the top menu and use the export meun dialog to select a suitable high def format to edit with, as indicated, plain Pro Res would be a good choice, pro res HQ would be 4more than you need. givve the exported file an easy to recognize name, let Streamclip work, and use the new file for your edit without fear.

Later on, you can learn to use Compressor, it is not as hard to use as the somewhat intimidating interface may suggest. Like Streamclip, it has an image “well”, a little box you can drag and drop files into, and a huge dropdown menu of choices for what to convert it to. You drag and drop that choice as well, name the files, hit the go button and you are on your way.

[Megan Brown]

Thank you so much for your help!
So, within the last couple of hours, I found this tutorial where someone explained how to do it through Streamclip.

I downloaded Streamclip and followed the instructions… and my vid is now good to go editing wise in Final Cut Pro.. but my initial problem still remains, the quality factor!

The quality of my video is SO poor… It doesn’t look like it’s HD whatsoever. I was thinking converting it would improve the quality. I know it’s not just the fact the camera was $130… I’ve been looking on YouTube and there are several videos posted that were shot by this same camera that look AWESOME!

So really, I’m now wondering why my quality is still so poor, even after using Stream Clip. Do I need to convert it to something different again?

[Mark Suszko]

Megan, this camera is capable of 10280 P and 720P, both of which are High Def settings, but it also can be set to shoot in 480 P…. which would be very thrifty on card storage space, but it is not HD, it is standard definition. WIthout seeing a sample of the footage or clicking on a clip and using a properties dialog to show what it is, my first guess is the picture is “bad” because it was shot in the low resolution setting.

When you say the picture is poor, can you be more descriptive? Is it fuzzy, pixelated, grainy, what?

Do you know how to select/highlight a clip, then use the menu choices in Final Cut to click on “properties”? If you can, do that, write down what the stats are on the original footage, and on one of your converted clips. Tell us here what it is we’re dealing with.

[Megan Brown]

I know for a fact it was shot in 1080p.

After clicking properties, here’s the info. I’ve gathered:
Vid rate: 30 fps
Frame size 1920 x 1080
Compressor : Apple ProRes 422

Basically, I’m just wondering if there’s some step I’m missing when loading Kodak Play Touch video into Final Cut that would sharpen things up. I work for the Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa and we discussed holding some interviews we want to film and play during a meeting on a projector screen…I don’t know if the video will ultimately be clear enough to do so. Typically, would the Play Touch HD video look good on a larger screen…? or is it going to look pixilate no matter what because of the size of the actual camera?

Thanks so much for your help!!!

[Mark Suszko]

Would you post a still image here so we can see what you’re talking about? Use the mac’s “grab” tool to snap a picture of your canvas, then, in this thread’s message box, see the little icon, third from the right, supposed to look like a still camera, but looks more like a washing machine?:-) click that, upload your grab, then copy the text to the right of that window that has the embedding code, paste it into your reply, bam, the picture will show up here so we can diagnose it.

like this:

[Mark Suszko]

I still think you may be in SD mode in the original footage, before you converted any of it. What setting does the camera say it is on?

[Megan Brown]

I wasn’t. It was HD 1080p.

Maybe that’s just the way it’s supposed to look.