Nesting/Resizing Quality Issue

[Nick Meyers]

you could try using the Media Manager.

– use Create Offline mode
– set sequences to: your 1920×1080 sequence settings
– DONT delete unused
– base media file names on: Existing file names.

MM *should* scale up your motion fx in the new sequence,
and you’d just have to reconnect.
fingers crossed.

nick

[Paul Cummings]

Hmm…

That yielded some interesting results. For some clips it worked, for others it didn’t? Some it totally fit to the dimensions, but others still stayed locked into the spots they were.

For instance there is a scene with 9 small windows on the screen at the same time. Those ones didn’t really proportionately move and scale.

There might be something here though! Thanks you for your suggestion.

Any other tips??

[Paul Cummings]

I guess my followup question is why does Nesting result in quality loss? Shouldn’t it just be reference the original clips nested within the new timeline?

[Nick Meyers]

when you put the large content into the smaller sequence, you scaled it DOWN,

scaling the nested sequence backup is now like doing a blow up.
it doesn’t matter what the images’ original size was, you made them 1024×576 when you put them in that sequence.

you should make sure both sequences are set to BEST motion scaling (in the sequence settings VIdeo Processing tab)
but i don’t think it’ll get over the fact you are now trying to do a pretty big up-scale.

is there anything that differentiates the clip that DID scale with Media Manager and the ones that DIDN’T?
just taking a wild-ass-guess, do the ones that don’t scale not have a reel#?
you cold add a reel# and see if that helps.

or are they perhaps layered PSD files that themselves appear as sequences in FCP?

if your re-sizes aren’t key-framed, it might be simplest to just re-build them.

nick

[Paul Cummings]

So is there any way to nest the sequence and not do a blowup? Nest it to different settings?

I’m confused though..I don’t think I scaled it down. For instance…the opening shot has 9 small windows in the viewer. Those are all scaled down to say…30% of their original size (the motion tab confirms this). If I grab one of those and make it larger the quality stays fine..cuz I only scale up to around 50-60%. But if I make ALL those a nested sequence and scale them at once, the quality degrades.

How do I add a reel#?

Honestly…the project is SUCH a mixed bag. Some are clips. Some are photos. It’s hard to explain, but if you want to see the commercial, it’s here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0mzG06K3fw

It may help you to better understand what I’m dealing with. You can see the mass amount of content submitted from users in an online thing that the client was having (confusing, I know).

[David Bogie]

I bow, that was awesome, Paul.
I’ve been following your same thread over on apple.com and it would be helpful to post a link to your movie for Jerry to see there, too.

My approach would be to scale up everything in one simple operation and then go back to replace only the items that just don’t look right. Your footage goes by so fast that most of your audience (maybe not your client) will never notice the difference. It appears that much of the content is not full 1080 anyway.

However, someone has changed your delivery specifications without considering the impact on the work. Aside form the fact that’s not fair, it has a severe economic and stylistic cost. If you created to the spot to spec, you can hand it off to your client and say, “Now, pay me.” If the spec was changed after it was finished, you can hand it to your client and say, “New size? Not a problem, we start again and you must pay me again.”

bogiesan

[Nick Meyers]

cool ad, Paul, but a lot of work!

“I’m confused though..I don’t think I scaled it down.”

well you scaled everything to a frame size SMALER than what you now want to deliver.

“If I grab one of those and make it larger the quality stays fine..cuz I only scale up to around 50-60%”

yep.

“But if I make ALL those a nested sequence”….

as so n as you do that you are committing them to be limited by the frame size of THAT SEQUENCE

“and scale them at once, the quality degrades.”

yes because you are now doing a blow up.

that sequence has a smaller frame size – less pixels.
if you scale it up… well, you know what happens.
if you change the frame size of it in it’s sequence settings, the photos will adhere to the scaling they already have,
same as copy/pasting into a larger sequence.

“How do I add a reel#? ”

in the browser’s Reel column.
to do a batch, it’s best to have all clips in one place.
easiest way to do that is in the Find Results window.

do a search in the browser.
this works for me:
Find “Tracks” = 1V
Omit “Type” contains Seq

now find the reel column in the Find results,
click on it’s heading to sort by reel.
on the first clip to have no reel,
type in something… NO REEL, for instance

now select all other clips with no reel,
control click in the reel column for one of those clips, and chose “NO REEL”

i’m not sure they’ll all take. i think freeze frames might not.

good luck with this,
you may just have to bight the bullet and manually re-do the ones that don’t re-scale via Media Manger.

nick

[Marcus Smith]

Paul,

I recently wrote a program that will do this automatically with XML.

I can’t give you the program but if you send me the XML of your project I could do the conversion for you.

Cheers,

Marcus
marcusjhs@gmail.com