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Targa Import
I’m working on FCP5.1.
My original media was DVCProHD 720p, exported out to TARGA sequences for color correction. After color correction we then exported new TARGA sequences.
Now I need to marry picture and final audio, and deliver Quicktimes to our DVD house. I had planned on delivering Animation codec quicktimes. And I had planned to import the color corrected TARGAS back into FCP, marry them with audio and make my QT exports.
My question is, what sequence setting do I want for importing 1280×720 targas? I stupidly assumed I could set up an Animation sequence and import into it, but there isn’t that option. So what would be the best option if I’m planning to make Animation QT’s in the end?
Thanks.
G
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8 Replies
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Either DVCProHD 720p or Pro Res will work just fine. If you happen to have a very fast raid array that can handle uncompressed use that, but otherwise you need to use a compressed HD format and the DVCPROHD and Pro Res are the ones.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Actually, I’ve now discovered this is more complex than I thought…
FCP (5.1 at least) does not support importing of an image sequence. I have to load it into Quicktime Pro and save it as a self contained QT, then bring that into FCP. That QT lists TGA as its compressor, since the image sequence is TARGA.
So, my best bet is to create a sequence with TGA as the compressor. That way nothing has to be rendered. I can’t play it back without stuttering, but I can marry the audio and then do my export from there.
The catch in this is that I have 23 image sequences totaling 117 minutes of material. Importing into QT and creating self contained QT’s is going to take a day or more. Then exporting out of FCP is another potential day long process.
I think my workflow plan was far from ideal. I should have just stuck with DVCProHD all the way through.
If anyone sees a shortcut to what I’m trying to do here, please let me know…
Many thanks.
G
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[Greg Newman] “FCP (5.1 at least) does not support importing of an image sequence.”
Sure it does. However, your best is to use QT Pro as you started to, but you went wrong along the way…
[Greg Newman] ” have to load it into Quicktime Pro and save it as a self contained QT, then bring that into FCP. That QT lists TGA as its compressor, since the image sequence is TARGA.”
No, you load it into QT Pro and then Export as any type of QT file you desire. So, export, don’t save… If you need the alpha channel you will have to export to animation millions +, if not you can just export as DVCProHD.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[Greg Newman] “I think my workflow plan was far from ideal. I should have just stuck with DVCProHD all the way through.”
You made more work for yourself.
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[Greg Newman] “deliver Quicktimes to our DVD house”
You really need to check with the DVD house to see which codecs they can handle. If they don’t have FCP, they won’t be able to accept ProRes or DVCPro HD, for example. Animation and P-JPEG are usually good.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Yes, this is all true.
I’ve confirmed that I will be delivering Animation Quicktimes to the DVD house. This was always going to be a time-consuming export stage at the end of this project for me, so I was prepared.
Also, the decision to export Targa sequences for color correction was based on quality. We used an AVID Nitris for color correction, and targa sequences were the most “raw” means for transferring media to that system. Then, coming back out of the Nitris, it made sense to make new targa sequences so that we always had the most un-affected image as our master master.
What then surprised me was that while FCP can export to targa sequence it can’t import it back. So I have to do this extra stage of importing the image sequence into Quicktime, exporting a quicktime, then using that in FCP to lay in the final audio elements, and then exporting back out to Animation.
All this would be one thing if this were a 30 second spot, but it’s a serious hassle with a two hour project broken down into 22 segments. More progress bars than you can shake a stick at.
The woes of high quality HD and poor planning…
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I’d like to see FCP handle image sequences natively, like AE, Shake and even Motion do.
Till then, You can open the image sequence in QT Pro and export to the codec of your choice (in this case animation).
Or you can set FCP’s default still duration to 1 frame, import the sequence & edit them en-masse into a timeline.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Because I have to combine my final audio with final picture, I have to use QT to convert the image sequences to QT just to bring them into FCP. Rather than export that image sequence as Animation at this stage, I’m simply letting QT make a TGA QT, bringing that into FCP and dropping it into a TGA timeline, editing in the audio, and THEN exporting my Animation QT.
And because I have 117 minutes of material, I really don’t trust FCP to handle bins with thousands and thousands of image files, or sequences with thousands of single frame clips. So I see no way around the extra QT step above, again because of the huge amount of media I’m working with.
And yet another step I have to take – I can’t play either a TGA or Animation quicktime on my system, so I will be exporting out of FCP another set of quicktimes, probably DVCProHD, just so I can sit back and watch the 117 minutes for QC.
I am officially married to my computer for the next, oh, seven days…
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