Pan Zoom Pro plug-in: reports?

[Steve Ascher]

we’ve used stagetools extensively and love it. Once you get the initial settings to your liking, and learn the interface, it makes beautiful moves with a lot of control and flexibility

[Terry]

I just finished an 80 min project that was almost entirely made up of 4000×4000 stills… with complex moves and sometimes 5 layers (all stills). After much deliberation I ended up using Stage Tools Moving Picture Producer (with FCPHD 4.5 ram HUGE 800 U320r). I tried it first as a plug-in, but with the high res stills, it proved unusable as it brought my system down to a slow crawl. Producer looks just like the plug-in however it is a stand-alone application. I would create my moves and then export a QT movie to FCP, which would then allow me to further tweak the look (color correction, filters etc.) without bogging down the system memory cache when working directly with a still. The one flaw is that there is no way to import a scratch audio track for timing in Moving Picture Producer (windows version allows this). So if timing is critical, one has to flip between FCP and MPP and take accurate timecode notes (MMP utilizes timecode). The time it took to render out a QT movie (10 bit uncompressed corresponds almost directly with the length of the movie so 2 mins length = 2 mins render roughly) and then importing into FCP was miniscule compared to rendering out the same move within the plug-in version of FCP.

[Johnw3d]

Thanks for all the kind words everyone, I’m glad you are finding it useful.

Regarding, FCP-5, I now have a candidate update which is undergoing testing. There’s a demo version available here, https://www.lyric.com/downloads/LyricPanZoomProDemo1.33.dmg.bin, in case anyone wants to try it out. Feedback most welcome. Note that this version has an extra slider in the Display section at the bottom of the PanZoomPro control panel. This lets you adjust the size & thickness of the framing rectangles and label graphics, since FCP-5 has removed the ability for plugins to scale their on-screen graphics based on current Canvas resolution and zoom-level.

All the best,
John
Lyric Media

[Chris Poisson]

Andy,

Hands down, I’d go with PanZoom. It just seems easier, faster, more controls, but the number one reason is that you don’t leave FCP’s workspace. Stagetools forces the extra step of having to go into another interface. Number two, and this is HUGE, a PanZoom clip’s duration can change, and the effect moves with it. If you want to change the duration of an ST clip, you have to go back into the damn interface and re-do it.

[Andy Mees]

thanks for the info and insight on PanZoomPro & Moving Pictures ….
i have a couple of FCP suites that I’m trying to power up, both in hardware and software extras, so i’m building up a list of buy recommedations.

John, thanks for the link to the 1.33 demo … i’ll check it out, if all goes well then i’ll add it to the list.

best
Andy

[Brad Loflin]

John,

I wish you guys could create a similar plug-in that zooms ‘out’ instead. In other words, the target areas would be where your graphic would zoom down to. We do tons of that, with logos, books, tapes, text, etc. The current keyframing in FCP is miserable for smooth zooming and panning at the same time, because scale and center use different keyframe smoothing designs (ease in/out vs. bezier). I often have to jump out to Motion or AE just to get decent keyframe control on simple moves.

This is a huge defiency in FCP in my opinion and maybe you guys could improve the situation.

Thanks,

Brad

[Tom Wolsky]

Have you tried to use the Pan Zoom Pro plugin?

[Brad Loflin]

No Tom, would it do as I described? Thanks…

Brad

[Tom Wolsky]

Yes indeed.

[Johnw3d]

Has anyone downloaded the v1.33 demo and tried it with FCP 5? We think its ready to go live, but it would be great to get any feedback before we release it.

Thanks,
John.