MPEG and WMV to DV for input to FCP woes…

[Mike Weber]

For the MPEGs, try using MPEG Streamclip:

https://www.squared5.com/

When I’ve used it to convert MPEG to Quicktime, audio is retained. Might have to play around with field dominance to get the video looking right.

[Mark Palmos]

Thanks Mike,
Im busy downloading that as i write! (it’s done…)
I will give it a bash tomorrow.

Any WMV freebies, it seems flip4mac is really a QT plugin, is that right? It’s performance is very slow since I guess it was flip4mac which was causing my 8core to be able to render the wmv (albeit at an incredibly slow rate)

Ta
mark.

[Mark Palmos]

Hello Mike, yep, thanks a lot, this works well, easy, flexible, fast and free!
Now for the flip4mac replacement.
cheers
Mark.

[Craig Seeman]

You could use Episode to convert WMV to whatever. It’s very fast. It’s very not free though. $399.

BTW with Flip4Mac (Player Pro and up) you should be able to import WMV right into FCP. I find they can play all right in the Viewer but will drag in the Canvas once in the timeline. You can also do a Save As in Quicktime with Flip4Mac and simply wrap the WMV in MOV. FCP handles that even better and there’s no loss since you’re just wrapping the file in MOV and it’s fast.

[Mark Palmos]

[Craig Seeman] ”
You could use Episode to convert WMV to whatever. It’s very fast. It’s very not free though. $399.

BTW with Flip4Mac (Player Pro and up) you should be able to import WMV right into FCP”

hi craig
yeah, i have looked at episode on the web, pricey…
as far as flip4mac and fcp goes, as i mentioned earlier in the thread, my 8 core said 78 minutes to render a 3 minute wmv to mov, and froze at 77mins, whereas my 5 year old pc laptop competed the same process in 9 minutes – so i may continue to use the old girl for relatively fast conversions!

if flip4mac could do what that mpeg streamclip does with mpegs, id be very chuffed.

till later
mark.

[Craig Seeman]

[Mark Palmos] “as far as flip4mac and fcp goes, as i mentioned earlier in the thread, my 8 core said 78 minutes to render a 3 minute wmv to mov,”

You can import directly into FCP or in QuicktimePro Save AS the the WMV as MOV. It wraps it in MOV. It takes seconds.

Yes, it will have to render to the timeline codec once you edit with it. Is that what you’re doing?

Like any other render that takes hard drive space and that depends on where you’ve set that in FCP as well as what codec it’s being converted to.

If you’re compressing the WMV to MOV first . . . Don’t do it. Save as Mov or import the WMV DIRECTLY into FCP. Wait until you’re editing to let FCP use the timeline codec to change.

[Mark Palmos]

Hey there again Craig, thanks for the help.

I did import the wmv to fcp but fcp was behaving very un-responsively, so i decided to render it to a mov from fcp… that is what took 78 minutes.

i will try convert the wmv to mov in QTPro on monday… I cant remember whether i tried that initially. It would be great if this could be as fast as you say, since often my clients give me wmv clips to add to the project = definitely not ideal, but hey, thats what the client gives, thats what i have to use!

till later
thanks again,
mark.

[Craig Seeman]

I’ve had client hand me WMVs also saying they have no other version. On some occasions I’ll Save as MOV in Quicktime Pro. Sometimes I’ll actually export from QuicktimePro to the codec I’m using in the timline. Yes it can be slow depending on source length and timeline codec.