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Lossless trimming of .Mov files
Sometimes, because of capture device errors, I am forced to capture 20 minutes of DV 24p anamorphic footage in one chunk. But there are only certain parts I really need.
Without lossing a hair of quality, what’s the best way to trim down these 20 min files and make a few smaller files of the content I want?
I would first bring the large file into a final cut timeline, then export right? Using DV 24p anamorphic(16×9) settings how exactly am I exporting to maintain ABSOLUTE quality?
Will Keir
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13 Replies
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Just a thought, but why not trim them in Quick Time player? You could make as many trimmed versions as you want, lose no quality and save an export path/time.
Off the top of my head – anyone see a problem with this?
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live broadcast.
OB Server 1 HD – Mobile FCP editing done right.
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QuickTime Pro is one of the handiest utilities ever. Especially for losslessly trimming .mov files. 🙂
Tim
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2 ways to do this in FCP:
1) Batch Export
open your captured tape in the FCP viewer,
mark up your selects, and make subclips of them.
gather your subs in the browser, and batch export -
you would NOT export from a timeline.
that will lose your original TC & Reel#2 ways to do this in FCP:
1) Batch Export
open your captured tape in the FCP viewer,
mark up your selects, and make subclips of them.
gather your subs in the browser, and batch export -
[NickM] “here is an MM mode called USE EXISTING.
this will automatically delete the master file for you,
but you don’t get a chance to check the results.
with a simple operation like this, it would probably be safe.
with a more complex situation like an edited timeline, it could be too risky
(even the manual warns about this)”It doesn’t delete the master file, it actually edits the master file. Hence the name, use existing. It doesn’t copy and delte. In other words, if your drives were completley full, you could delete the actual existing parts of the file that you didn’t use. Exactly what is desired. Yeah, it’s risky. But if you first make a copy of your project file, the worst that occurs is you have to do some batch capturing to fix.
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“it doesn’t delete the master file, it actually edits the master file”
i’m not so sure that’s actually possible.
even if you only needed one “edited” file,
i imagine if you were able to see the actual contents of the drive you’d find that the new “edited” version was in a different physical location on the diskso while on the surface it seems like it is affecting the original file, it is copying a part or parts of it to new locations on the disk, and flagging the original as “deleted”
or so i imagine…
and if your drive was really full, i think you;d run into some serious problems with the MM,
at any rate i think it’d take about 10 times longer than it should!nick
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[Will Keir] “Sometimes, because of capture device errors, I am forced to capture 20 minutes of DV 24p anamorphic footage in one chunk”
Let’s back up a minute.
What do you mean by that statement?
Jeremy
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It means that instead of “capturing now” 10-15 times to make 10-15 individual clips I only “capture now” once, for one big long clip that has the 10-15 moments I want, plus everything else.
Sounds like the best way is QT Pro, seems pretty simple. Can anyone else confirm that QT Pro editing of a .mov file will preserve orginal quality of the .mov?
Thanks for all the advice guys,
Will Keir
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Log and capture, it’s really the most efficient way. By the time you log and capture (not capture now) you will have exactly what you need and logged, rather than capture once for 20 minutes, then rename and export. Pretty pointless in my opinion. If you take the time to log and capture properly, it will save you tons of time in the long run. ALso, it will be much easier to capture. ALso, if you are removing pulldown on 24p material, there’s much less chance of errors, which is probably what you are seeing since you are seeing capture device errors. FCP is not really good at Capture Now, it’s much more reliable in log and capture.
Jeremy
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“Sounds like the best way is QT Pro, seems pretty simple”
deceptively simple, perhaps.
but if you do it that way, you have to do the same thing 15-20 times.
and accurately marking in/outs is not easy in QT
so that’s 15-20 operations instead of just one if you batch export.also, i’m pretty sure that if you do it from QT, then you will be re-compressing the shots,
losing qualitynick
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