New to FCP_ Q about using photoshop in FCP re: image size & outputting

[David Bogie]

Here’s what I’d do:
1. Export your sequence as a self contained movie.
2. Bring it back into a sequence that is set properly for your output dimensions.
3. Render.
4. Add all of your graphics.

Your workflow procedures will not stabilize until you have many hundreds of hours on the application and by then you’ll look back on this project and wonder how you could possibly have been so,,,new.

bogiesan

[Nicole Haddock]

The answers to your questions are:
#1- The quality of your graphics will go down because they will have to be blown up to match your current seq settings, so don’t do it.
#2- Graphics always have to be rendered. Enjoy 😉
#3- I’m a big fan of exporting a self contained at your editing specs, or close to it, and compressing after the fact.

That being said, personally, I would
1- Export a self contained of your sequence using export/quicktime (not conversion)
2- Make a new sequence that’s at 640×360, but leave everything else the same.
3- Pop in graphics, render, export another self contained.
4- Then use Compressor to tweak the audio to those specs, de-interlace the video, make it an h.264, etc.

The rendering time involved if you make a sequence to match your output settings could be a long wait, depending on your computer. And it’s always been my experience that you always need to make different outputs of the final product, and if you have a quicktime that’s close to your original edit settings, you start with the best quality video that’s possible, rather than working from a compressed version.

Just my .02, YMMV.

[Colleen Fitzgerald]

Thank you both!

Now I have a few followup questions …

Is it standard practice to find out the dimensions of your final product before you begin a sequence so that you start off with your sequence settings at the correct setting? In my case 640×360? Or would you always just start bigger and then do like what you both stated above (or is that just the fixer upper technique?)

Also, I need to now create some titles in photoshop. Do you think it would be best to just do this once I export and and make the new sequence 640 x 360? Or do it in my current sequence.

Also, if I make them for the 640×360 sequence … in photoshop should I use those same numbers when creating my title? Or are there some other magic numbers to use?

Thanks so much for the help!

[David Roth weiss]

I started to write you yesterday about this Colleen, but got called away on a job.

The goal of digital editing is to edit once and then output to anything — but that only works well in one direction… i.e. editing at the highest resolution and frame size and then down-ressing and down-scaling from there.

Always begin with the aspect ratio of the finished product so that you can maintain the proper aspect ratio throughout the entire editing process, but you should always edit at the highest resolution and largest frame size, because you can always down-res.

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.

[Nicole Haddock]

Hi Colleen,

David just answered your first question- always start at the res and frame rate you shot in, because you can always go down, but you can’t go back up without huge quality loss. I get footage shot in HD all the time, but I nearly always deliver in SD, to DVD or for the web. I always edit at the native HD frame rate, do graphics at said size, export a self contained, then compress whatever outputs are required. This works most of the time.

To keep things simple, I would keep on trucking with graphics at that 640 size. I’m not sure what you mean by title, but just do all the graphics at the same size.

[Colleen Fitzgerald]

Hey Nicole,

So I finally got up to the output portion of my project and I tried to do what you said … export as a self contained …
I went to File, EXPORT – Quicktime Movie (not using compressor or quicktime conversion)
I used SETTING – CURRENT SETTING (should I have changed this and if so, to what? Custom?)
INCLUDE – AUDIO & VIDEO
MARKERS – NONE
And I checked off self contained. Now there is a black box around my footage in my new quicktime and the video looks like a bad tv signal with alot of horizontal lines appearing on the video (not sure if this is interlacing??)

Can you help me out?
Thanks,
Colleen

[Nicole Haddock]

Export your qt again, but check make movie self contained. You made what’s called a reference movie…but that doesn’t really explain the weirness you’re seeing. If it’s still weird after doing another export, let us know
your sequence settings
what program you’re using to view the file on
and if it’s the same computer you’ve been editing on

[Colleen Fitzgerald]

Ok this is what I did, exactly

EXPORT – Quicktime Movie (not using compressor or quicktime conversion)
SETTING – CURRENT SETTING (not sure if I should have checked something more specific)
INCLUDE – AUDIO & VIDEO
MARKERS – NONE
I checked off self contained.

The QT looks fine. When I look at its properties, its still 720×480.

Then I created a new sequence. Hit Sequence Settings and set the sequence as follows…

FRAME SIZE: 640×360
NTSC-CCIR 601/DV(720×480)
FIELD DOMINANCE – LOWER (EVEN)
EDITING TIME BASE: 29.97
COMPRESOR DD/DVCPRO-NTSC QUALITY 100%
AUDIO – 48KHZ, 16-BIT, CHANNEL GROUPED

Then when i go to drop this self contained QT into the sequence, I get a message that reads:

“FOR BEST PERFORMANCE YOUR SEQUENCE AND EXTERNAL VIDEO SHOULD BE SET TO THE FORMAT OF THE CLIPS YOU ARE EDITING” “CHANGE SEQUENCE SETTINGS TO MATCH THE CLIP SETTINGS?”

If I press yes, the sequence goes back to being 720×480

And if I press no, the sequence settings stay at 640×360 but the QT appears with a large black border and needs to be rendered. I saw the border when I stepped through the video in an unrendered state. Im rendering now but im sure the border will remain.

Im sure its not supppose to look this way.

I’ve been switching between a laptop and desktop to edit. Right now I’m trying to export on my
MAC OS X, VERSION 10.4.11 – Processor 2.1GHZ POWERPC G5 MEM 1GB DDR2 SDRAM.

But I also have been using my MacBook which is MAC OS X, VERSION 10.5.4 – Processor 2.4GHZ INTEL CORE 2 DUO MEM 2GB 667MHZ DDR2 SDRAM.

Thanks so much. Its been hours that im just trying to finish this up right! Very frustrating when you just dont know. So your help is much appreciated!

[Colleen Fitzgerald]

Ok this is what I did, exactly

EXPORT – Quicktime Movie (not using compressor or quicktime conversion)
SETTING – CURRENT SETTING (not sure if I should have checked something more specific)
INCLUDE – AUDIO & VIDEO
MARKERS – NONE
I checked off self contained.

The QT looks fine. When I look at its properties, its still 720×480.

Then I created a new sequence. Hit Sequence Settings and set the sequence as follows…

FRAME SIZE: 640×360 (Custom 16:9)
NTSC-CCIR 601/DV(720×480)
FIELD DOMINANCE – LOWER (EVEN)
EDITING TIME BASE: 29.97
COMPRESOR DD/DVCPRO-NTSC QUALITY 100%
AUDIO – 48KHZ, 16-BIT, CHANNEL GROUPED

Then when i go to drop this self contained QT into the sequence, I get a message that reads:

“FOR BEST PERFORMANCE YOUR SEQUENCE AND EXTERNAL VIDEO SHOULD BE SET TO THE FORMAT OF THE CLIPS YOU ARE EDITING” “CHANGE SEQUENCE SETTINGS TO MATCH THE CLIP SETTINGS?”

If I press yes, the sequence goes back to being 720×480

And if I press no, the sequence settings stay at 640×360 but the QT appears with a large black border and needs to be rendered. I saw the border when I stepped through the video in an unrendered state. And I just finished rendering and the border is still there.

Im sure its not supppose to look this way.

I’m working with FCP version 6.0.1

I’ve been switching between a laptop and desktop to edit. Right now I’m trying to export on my
MAC OS X, VERSION 10.4.11 – Processor 2.1GHZ POWERPC G5 MEM 1GB DDR2 SDRAM.

But I also have been using my MacBook which is MAC OS X, VERSION 10.5.4 – Processor 2.4GHZ INTEL CORE 2 DUO MEM 2GB 667MHZ DDR2 SDRAM.

Thanks so much. Its been hours that im just trying to finish this up right! Very frustrating when you just dont know. So your help is much appreciated!

[Nicole Haddock]

Ok, first thing’s first. Export/Quicktime and use the settings that FCP comes up with (Current audio video, no markers, etc) and KEEP THE MAKE MOVIE SELF CONTAINED BOX CHECKED! Alternatively… in the new sequence that matches your specs (see below for specifics) you can just grab your old sequence and put it in the new one, don’t choose match sequence to footage (or whatever that warning box is) but the QT route may be easiest since you’re new at this.

I have honestly never tried to plunk a reference movie in another sequence, so I have no idea if that’s what’s causing some of your problems. I suspect it’s not the problem however.

The second thing is that it’s unclear to me if the ORIGINAL 720×480 sequence was anamorphic 16×9, aka “widescreen” OR 4×3. The easiest way for you to find that out is if you have your original sequence open, hit command 0 to bring up the sequence settings. Next to the Pixel Aspect Ratio drop down box, there’s a box that says Anamorphic 16×9. Is this checked or not?

If it is, hurrah, once you export a self contained sequence, the rest is relatively easy. In a new sequence, bring up the sequence settings.
Frame size – 640×360 – and choose custom from the aspect ratio drop down box.
Pixel aspect ratio – square
Field dominance – none
The rest can remain as you set it (but you might want to flip the audio to 44.1 since you mentioned that earlier as one of the specs, I think).
Now, to see what’s going on, check out under the hood, in your sequence, double click on the quicktime file to open it up in the Viewer (and if you have sunk your old seq into a new seq, right click on the video clip and choose Open in Viewer). Click on the Motion tab. Under Basic Motion, you’ll see it’s scaling the clip to something like 88.89 percent and under Distort, it’s going to -18.something. FCP is squeezing your movie into this timeline. If it’s a video with a similar aspect ratio, aka a 16×9 aspect ratio movie going into another, albeit smaller, 16×9 sequence, FCP will usually do a reasonable job scaling the clip. If you are attempting to put a 4×3 sequence into a 16×9 sequence… well, you have some work to do and choices to make.

So, if 4×3 is the original aspect ratio (and I have no idea why it would be, otherwise why do you have widescreen delivery specs… but that’s neither here nor there) once you export the self contained sequence, the rest is a pain in the ass. You must both a) scale your movie up and b) choose what to crop off your movie. Fun, eh? Set the sequence to the above settings, and drop your clip (or sequence) into the timeline. So, let’s get back to the Motion tab (see above) and you’ll see scale is set to 75% and distort is set to 12.5% and that you have black “pillar” bars on either side of your movie. Lovely, n’est-ce pas? Chance the scale to 100% and your picture fills the screen, but cuts off the top and bottom. You can start fiddling with the distort handle bar, but it distorts your film, which may be defeating the point.

So hopefully your original sequence was an anamorphic/widescreen sequence and you don’t have to make choices. If it is 4×3, I suggest asking about the delivery specs and making sure they can’t take a 4×3 video (fairly standard for web delivery).

There’s this little doodah that might be helpful (only works on 10.5) https://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/27401 It’s a nice little aspect ratio calculator. It’s got alot of aspect ratio’s to choose from and I use it fairly often to hammer out unusual web sizes, graphics, etc.