Resize video in FCP

[Tom Wolsky]

Are you looking at the rendered output on a video monitor?

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Vanessa Shaw]

Thanks for your reply. I haven’t looked at it on a monitor, but when I export it and view it on my computer it still looks terribly pixelated. The final product will be projected via a DVD played from a computer, if that helps… That is, not for broadcast.

[Nicole Haddock]

I answered this on another forum –
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/200/882910#882911

Make sure the positioning on the Center point is in EXACT numbers, not decimals. I would also check your render settings in the RT tab in your sequence and that you’re rendering everything fully in the timeline.

[Vanessa Shaw]

I wish it were that simple. I am using exact numbers, no decimal, and everything is rendering at full quality. thanks!

[Shane Ross]

Set the Canvas to 100%…now what?

But still, the COMPUTER MONITOR is not the best way to judge quality. External TV or Production monitor only.

#2 Blurry Playback

Shane’s Stock Answer #2: Blurry playback

ONLY JUDGE THE QUALITY OF YOUR MATERIAL ON AN EXTERNAL BROADCAST MONITOR, OR AT LEAST A TV.

The Canvas shows you what happens after the codec you are working with has been applied. The Viewer shows you the material in its native format. Once you drop the footage from the Viewer into the timeline, it inherits the attributes of the sequence. If it is a DV sequence, the footage will render out as DV.

1. Disable overlays on the Canvas.

2. Make sure you’ve rendered everything (no green bars at the top of the timeline).

Video playback requires large amounts of data and many computations. In order to maintain frame rate and be viewable at a normal size, only about one-fourth of the DV data is used in displaying the movie to the screen. However, the DV footage is still at full quality, and is best viewed thru a TV or broadcast monitor routed thru your camera or deck.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Nicole Haddock]

In your sequence, check the Sequence Settings/Video processing tab, and check that Motion Filtering Quality is set to Best. Also, check (I know you said it is, but I like double checking) Sequence/Render All/everything is checked for video.
What’s the Compressor setting in your Sequence settings?
In the sequence itself, check the RT tab on the upper left and make sure you’re on Safe RT, Playback Video Quality- High, Playback Frame Rate – Full.

Assuming all that is set, in your Canvas window, are you looking at it 100%? Not 99 or some other weird number (50 and 25 not being weird)?

If it looks bad in FCP still, and it looks bad on export, how exactly are you exporting your file? And once looking at it in QT, are you putting the video quality on “high quality” in the Movie Properties/video track area?

[Nicole Haddock]

And here’s my dumb follow up question-

What does ONE clip scaled down and tossed in your timeline look like? Just popped right in, no repositioning. Good or crap?

[Vanessa Shaw]

One clip looks great! Why can’t it look that good with all 4??

[Nicole Haddock]

We’re entering boggling territory, thus, let us start from the beginning.

Let’s get the:
System specs
FCP specs
Footage specs
Sequence settings

And a screen grab of how terrible it looks may also be helpful.

[Vanessa Shaw]

OK.

System: 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad Intel, Memory – 4 GB 800 MHz
FCP: 6.0.6
Footage: 720 x 480 DV/DVCPRO
Sequence Settings: 720 x 480 NTSC DV (3:2), Pixel Aspect Ratio: NTSC – CCIR 601 DV(720×480), Field Dominance – Lower, Compressor – DV/DVCPRO-NTSC at 100% quality

The footage is for a video artist’s installation, so it’s not so straight forward to look at (i.e. no faces or anything recognizable). So a screen grab wouldn’t tell you a lot… hope that makes sense.

Thanks so much for all your help!