QT Export Squishing Picture?

[Tom Wolsky]

This is an HD camera. Are you shooting HD? Then why are you editing in an NTSC sequence? Why aren’t you editing in an HD sequence that matches your media?

You’d better start at the beginning and tell us exactly what you’re doing to get this media into your computer, and what format of sequence you’re editing in, because it really does not sound as if you’re using the application correctly with this device.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Billy Alberto]

Thanks Tom,

Ok here goes:

The Canon Vixia has four modes: FXP, XP+, SP and LP. I usually record on FXP or XP+ depending on how great I want the picture. Most of the time it’s XP+. Sometimes SP if I have something I want to get that’s not important enough to have a high def picture.

As for the picture once I download the camera into FCP, in the viewer, they all look the same in terms of size and dimensions of the picture. Just different in how grainy or clear they look. As far as I can tell, the Canon Vixia doesn’t let me choose picture size. It’s just a standard rectangle.

I import the files via the “Log and Transfer” option, which seems to be the only one that works for taking the mts files off of the Vixia’s hard drive. Log and Transfer brings up a box that has all of the clips listed, and then it tells me to drag and drop them into the box below, which then transfers it into the Browser window.

I will mention that while this is going on, what amounts to about 4 or so gigs of files on the actual camera, eats up about 75-100 gigs of space on my hard drive. Not sure why that is. But I know that’s a separate issue.

Once I have the clips into the browser, I pull down the ones that I need. For instance, I’m holding auditions for something now, and want to make a separate QT movie for each actor’s audition. So I drag their individual audition clips down to the Timeline Sequence. They don’t need rendering, because I’m basically converting them to QT as is. If I get fancy with it and do any editing, then I will, of course, render them prior to converting.

I choose the in and out points. Then I click on “Export Using Quicktime Conversion”. I read that this is the right option for basically burning archives to a DVD that I can be watched on a DVD player, watched on a computer – or in some cases, uploaded to a large file server where the actors can download their own auditions for reference. From what I read, the “create QT movie” option is only for creating files that will be used to edit in FCP or similar program, but not for watching.

Then the pop up box comes up and if I just let it do the conversion and create the file with the standard settings, I get the squished picture. The options that I mentioned in my original post, I chose because I had spent hours reading on the internet about what to choose for settings and file size, etc. And the NTSC 3:4, NTSC 16:9 (there are two options each – I think 480 and 486? Can’t remember), was mentioned because I’m in the U.S. and NTSC is the standard here. I tried a few of the other preset settings and got the same squished picture unless I clicked on “retain aspect ratio” and then letterbox.

I’d prefer not to have letterbox if possible – and like I said in my original posting, one of the settings I found on the internet did work and gave me a movie file that was a decent size (around 100 megs), looked good and wasn’t squished or cropped (at least not noticeably). My mistake for not immediately writing that setting down. But it’s been SO much trial and error – and it takes roughly two hours to convert a 10 minute movie into QT with the settings I’ve been trying.

Ultimately, I do want a nice quality and not a Youtube grainy quality. The Vixia is already not great with low light, so I’d rather not diminish the quality even further.

I hope that helps.

One last thing I’ll mention – is that I’ve used the official Apple Pro Training books to learn FCP, and I’ve found them wonderful and that they’ve given me enough specific information to play around with editing and make a decently edited project. But for the current situation, I’m not even editing. Just taking 4 or 5 clips of an actor’s audition and piecing them together so I can review them later with my casting crew.

Also, I’ve found that the mts files created by the Vixia MUST be transferred directly from the camera onto FCP. When I’ve copied them to a drive and tried to pull them into FCP, FCP doesn’t recognize the files. So as far as I can tell (from a LOT of reading about it on the internet), “Log and Transfer” is the only way to get the files directly into FCP. Otherwise, I have to use a conversion program with the raw MTS files, which degenerates the quality and takes a LOT of time to convert.

Thanks again for your help! SO nice of you to help a newbie! I know we’re an annoying bunch – and that a lot of “us” will post questions without doing our due diligence. I promise you that I use this as a last resort if I can’t find answers after a LOT of reading on the internet and the message boards.

Unfortunately, I know the answers are out there, and I may have even read them, but they’re so technically oriented, that they read to me as if they’re in Chinese. I like to joke that “I would happily use the gizinkdadoint feature, if I had any idea what a gaizinkdadoint is and where to find it” haha.

iMac OSX 10.6.2
3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 1067 MHz RAM
Final Cut Pro 7.0

[Tom Wolsky]

“I usually record on FXP or XP+”

That means nothing to me. What’s the exact specification of the media, frame size, frame rate, codec.

“Export Using Quicktime Conversion”

This is wrong if you’re going to DVD. You export to QuickTime Movie. You take that file to your DVD authoring application, either to Compressor and DVD Studio Pro, or to iDVD.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Michael Sacci]

Did not read the long story but skimmed it so if I’m off forgive me but we keep seeing the same thing.

The camera shoots AVCHD, 1920×1080, it is always 16:9. The different settings are low to high compression (as well full frame vs thin raster, I think)

AVCHD cannot be edited in FCP, it has to be converted. It should NEVER be converted to H.264 if you are editing it, NEVER! With log and capture you can convert it to ProRes, the files will be bigger since the compression is not as heavy.

You SHOULD edit in a timeline that matches you clips. This is always the smartest and easiest thing to do.

Once you complete the edit you export the timeline to a self contained QT, take to Compressor and encode to the needed SD m2v and ac3 (for audio) you bring these into DVDSP and author away. (and before you post there are a ton of answers to how to get good HD to SD DVD encodes in the DVDSP forum)

People seem to make this process a lot harder than it needs to be.