stabilization PLUG-IN for FCP5.1???

[David Roth weiss]

Just clone your system drive and upgrade either the clone or the original to 6.0.1 and test your project. YOu can always go back to 5.1.4 if the upgrade is problemantic. I have many huge projects that translated just fine after the update.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Peterson]

Good advice – does it make any difference that the client’s version is 5.1 & not 5.1.4?

Thanks –

peter

[Michael Sacci]

Note about stabilization in FCP6.

The analyze procedure analyzes the entire piece of footage. So if you are using a 30 seconds of clip at is 15 minutes long it will analyze the entire 15 minutes not just the part in the timeline. This is a slow process but the results are great.

The other thing you can do is buy Shake, since it is only $500 now and it would help with the upscaling also. This would/should give you a little better workflow since you can “Send to Shake” each clip you want to work on.

Also better quality always means more render time, in this case a lot more render time.

[David Roth weiss]

[peterallen] “does it make any difference that the client’s version is 5.1 & not 5.1.4?”

I don’t think so, and remember you can always go back to your clone if there are any surprises.

The idea about using Shake has some merit, but of course you’d have to learn to use Shake, which is a whole different critter from FCP.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Peterson]

wow, good heads up but gotta say that seems nuts… why in the world would it analyze anything other than what you want it to? if this really so, there must be a workarond for this, like breaking a clip in timeline into a separate file.
Also – do you export the clip outside of FCP and into Shake ( ie a render out and back in) or does it operate within FCP ( everything gets one final render pass…)??

Thanks!

peter

[Chris Poisson]

Peter,

Yes, the stabilize plugin is great, if you can wait for it. EXCEPT, that it can yield some strange effects when there’s a lot of motion other than camera shake, it is unpredictable. I agree with David about cloning, but you still have the clip length magilla to deal with even if everything goes okay.

Since you know AE, here’s what I would do if I were you.

Take every source clip that needs work and copy to another folder somewhere. Take them all into AE and stabilize, which, BTW takes about a tenth of the time FCP would. When you render the fixed clips, add a 1 or something to the original name, make sure you render with exactly the same length and spec as your original clips. Save them into the folder with your original clips. Then toss the originals and remove the 1 from the names, FCP will re-connect to the fixed clips.You can probably do all this in the time FCP would take to analyze one 15 minute clip.

Have a wonderful day.

[Peterson]

Thanks Chris-

reading another thread you participated in regarding converting DVmaterial to either 8/10bit for further effects/processing/color correction… does it then also make good sense for me to do the same ( convert to 8 bit timeline) before exporting clips to AFX for stabilization? Exporting an 8 or 10 bit file a good way to avoid some softness from the new stabilized clips( in which there will inevitably be some scaling) ?

best,

peter

[Chris Poisson]

Hi Peter,

Well, this issue gets a bit subjective. It really depends how you handle the workflow. For instance, on my system I have a choice of capturing DV material via FireWire or analog component. If it’s captured to 8bit via component it has a different look than via FireWire, a bit softer which can be nice. it also has 6 extra lines. These lines come into play in a few situations. If you put DV into an D1 timeline, it needs to be shifted up a pixel. Similarily, 8bit files with 486 lines need to be scaled properly or shifted a pixel to look good in a DV timeline.

But, let’s say you are just converting a DV project to 8 bit, which will make your graphics look better, all you do is change the compressor and render. I do this all the time, and because my playback is through the Kona, it plays in real time.

Does this help?

Have a wonderful day.

[Peterson]

Hi Chris,
thanks for taking up the thread again and offering your advice – it is certainly welcome.
And your reply partly answers my question… i am in the final storytelling phase of a long format project and soon must decide the best strategy to maximize client’s footage quality.
A mishmash of original dv ntcs 4×3 and 16×9 anamorphic shot at 24p… plus the usual suspects in terms of stock archival ( almost certainly all 4×3 29.97, from dv and beta sp & most likely to be delivered to me on BetaSP tapes). All of the original dv footage was ingested via firewire before i came on board. She wants the 16×9 look, so everything that wasn’t shot anamorphic has been scaled up to fit ( yikes: 33%) and so soft from the start. I may try talking her into something in between, but that’s another issue.
Anyway, after all of that preamble – a lot of the footage in interviews and so forth where i want to land on the character needs some stabilization, which was what my original post was about in this thread. I wanted to avoid a pass out of FCP to a third party stabilizer and then back in because this in theory degrades the DV material as opposed to doing the work inside FCP, where supposedly only one render pass will occur. But if do decide to go outside of FCP to After Effects, i have heard that sending out an 8 bit file will handle the journey better..?
Is this your experience ( and not only for graphics, but for the actual video file itself)?
Anyway, just plotting a good end game strategy for final output, which will no doubt be mastering to some SD tape format tbd.
thanks for bearing thru all this,
hope i can return the favor some day-
peter

[Chris Poisson]

Peter,

I realized after I posted I only partly answered your question. Regarding the round trip to AE, as long as you render exactly the same format in and out there should be no quality loss. Making DV material 8 bit to do this won’t add anything, except that some effects and keys may work better in 8 bit.

As a rule though, I export my AE work lossless, usually in the Animation codec, especially when there are alpha channel considerations. You have to render in FCP but it looks great.

Too bad about the scaling up of your DV to 16×9, if you have time, uprezing in compressor is an option, I like Compressor for this better than any of the 3rd party uprezers, it does a great job. ou would have to fudge one of the current settings (advanced format conversions) I don’t think there’s one specifically to scale the whole frame by 33%, but I could be wrong. In any event, it can do this.

Have a wonderful day.