Proxy Workflow

[T. Payton]

Actually FCP X has all this worked out for you already. Just import your h264 footage, and then choose “create proxy” while you are importing or select all your footage and right click and choose “transcode” then choose “create proxy”. This will take a little while to make proxy version of your clips.

Then while you edit, in preferences under playback choose to play “proxy media”. When you are ready for your final hires version, just choose “original media”.

No scaling, not nothing. Just change the preference.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[T. Payton]

Oh forgot to mention when you create your project, or timeline, just choose your delivery size and format there in your case PAL SD.

As far as letting you reframe without resampling the footage, just do a little math and you can figure out the max percentage of zoom before it starts resampling. I’m guessing it is going to be just under 200%.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[Jon Smitherton]

Hi Tim

Thanks, have done this…however I am using HD in a SD timeline (specifically for resizing and cropping features) and at the moment says 100% for a HD clip in a SD timeline (in FCP 7 it would say 53.3%). Wondering if this has something to do with the proxy size – 960×540 vs 1920×1080.

Cheers,
Jon

[Jason Jenkins]

[jon smitherton] ”
Thanks, have done this…however I am using HD in a SD timeline (specifically for resizing and cropping features) and at the moment says 100% for a HD clip in a SD timeline (in FCP 7 it would say 53.3%). Wondering if this has something to do with the proxy size – 960×540 vs 1920×1080.”

It says 100% because the Spatial Conform setting defaults to “Fit”. You can still scale the footage, you just have to re-figure the percentage. If you want the clips to act like they do in FCP7, you need select them in the Event Browser and in the Inspector change the Spatial Conform to “None”. Then put them in the timeline.

Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!

[Jon Smitherton]

Excellent Jason that’s what I needed to know.

Cheers,
Jon

[Michael Reiersgaard]

Just wanted to chime in at the incredible difference I noticed going for 4GB to 12GB of RAM for Final Cut Pro X. It’s such an inexpensive upgrade that there’s almost no reason to edit with 4GB of RAM.

[Dave Gage]

[Jason Jenkins] “It says 100% because the Spatial Conform setting defaults to “Fit”. You can still scale the footage, you just have to re-figure the percentage. If you want the clips to act like they do in FCP7, you need select them in the Event Browser and in the Inspector change the Spatial Conform to “None”. Then put them in the timeline.”

Jason,

So, based on our previous posts in this thread-
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/4357

…if working with 1080p files on a 720p timeline with the intention of being able to zoom and crop in, I should also change the Spatial Conform settings to “None” before I begin adding files to the Project timeline. Since you did say in that post, “In FCPX, I set the Spatial Conform on my footage from the default of “Fit” to “None”, before I drop it in the timeline.“)

Aside from doing what you explained, does changing the setting from “Fit” to “None” have any other affects on the project I should know about? (I’m just now starting to understand the big picture here and the terminology involved.)

Thanks,
Dave

[Jason Jenkins]

[Dave Gage] “…if working with 1080p files on a 720p timeline with the intention of being able to zoom and crop in, I should also change the Spatial Conform settings to “None” before I begin adding files to the Project timeline.”

If you set the Spatial Conform to “None”, then the clips will show up in the timeline at 100% scale and will appear cropped. To see the entire image, you’ll set the scale to 66.7%. Scaling anywhere between 66.7% and 100% is possible with no resampling.

If you leave the Spatial Conform setting to it’s default of “Fit”, the clips will show up in the timeline at 100% scale but will in fact be scaled down to fit the entire image in the frame. In this scenario, you can scale your video up to 133.3% to achieve the same view that you had at 100% in the “None” scenario. Scaling anywhere between 100% and 133.3% is possible with no resampling.

So, the same thing is happening behind the scenes in either scenario. The only difference is what the Scale parameter says in the inspector.

Jump in and play around, Dave! That’s the best way to figure stuff out.

Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!

[Dave Gage]

Jason,

Very cool.

Thanks,
Dave

[Jason Jenkins]

[Jason Jenkins] “If you set the Spatial Conform to “None”, then the clips will show up in the timeline at 100% scale and will appear cropped. To see the entire image, you’ll set the scale to 66.7%. Scaling anywhere between 66.7% and 100% is possible with no resampling.

If you leave the Spatial Conform setting to it’s default of “Fit”, the clips will show up in the timeline at 100% scale but will in fact be scaled down to fit the entire image in the frame. In this scenario, you can scale your video up to 133.3% to achieve the same view that you had at 100% in the “None” scenario. Scaling anywhere between 100% and 133.3% is possible with no resampling.

So, the same thing is happening behind the scenes in either scenario. The only difference is what the Scale parameter says in the inspector.”

Correction: When editing 1080p in a 720p timeline where the footage is set to the Spatial Conform setting “Fit”, the footage actually needs to be scaled to 150% (not 133.3%) in the timeline to be sized up all the way and see its full resolution. My math was wrong in the previous post. In the Spatial Conform “None” scenario, a scale setting of 100% represents all of the 1920×1080 resolution and scaling to 2/3’s of that (66.7%) will fit it into the 1280×720 frame. In the Spatial Conform “Fit” scenario, a scale setting of 100% represents 2/3’s of the 1920×1080 resolution and scaling up to 150% represents all of the 1920×1080 resolution.

Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!

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