Working with .h264 in Final Cut

[Tom Brooks]

Sorry, I failed to think clearly before. Your problem is that you are using DV/DVCPRO in a 1280 sequence. DV is designed for standard def only. It won’t work in RT at 1280. Convert to ProRes instead.

[Gonzalo Gagliardi]

Compress to quicktime .mov same frame size, use stream clip. compressor etc. Im having the same problem ill be trying too. Very sure it work.

[Iulia Rugina]

Hi,

sorry if this is the wrong thread, but i was wondering if anyone knows what the issue might be in this case and help out to find a solution. I have been editing a H264 material in Final Cut Pro 6.0 and there did not seem to be any problems. But when i try to export an uncompressed file, i get terrible errors (dropped frames, green frames and all kinds of weird frames 🙂 Could it be be because of the codec in the material? And if so, what’s the best way that i can export it and work wound it?
if anyone has any thoughts on this, please share.

Thank you!

[Tony Colella]

Step 1: Before Editing in Final Cut Pro 7

Use Squared 5 Mpeg Streamclip (it’s FREE) Make sure you also have the playback component installed.

FILE: EXPORT (your footage) TO QUICKTIME:

For HD: Set Compression to either “APPLE PRO RES 422” (Files may be 1 gig per minute) or “Apple Intermediate Codec” (maybe 500 MB per minute)

For Standard: Covert to “Apple Motion Jpeg A”

Check your other settings.

Primarily: Crank the quality to 100%

Frame Size: Unscaled / or match the footage

In Most Cases: Un-check Interlaced Scaling or Click De-interlace

Click: MAKE MOVIE

Step 2: Open Final Cut Pro 7

Drag the converted footage into a new timeline (it must be empty). Final Cut will Ask you if you want to match your sequence settings to the footage. Click Yes.
(Or you can manually set up your sequence in Final Cut.)

If you did it correctly, everything will be rendered already and editing will be like slicing hot butter.

Step 3: When you are done Editing Click File EXPORT: Quicktime Movie.

name it “Tony Colella Rocks – Edit 1” and then SAVE it.

Don’t COVERT IT YET!

Keep this file the same format in case you need to make re-edits later.

You can pull it back in Final Cut and make Edit 2,3,4…12

Step 4: Bring your Finished Export back into STREAMCLIP to covert.

FILE: EXPORT TO MPEG-4

Check your setting again (usually they should match before)

Click LIMIT DATA RATE

(Set this depending on file size VS Quality)

For a High Quality HD MPEG-4 set it to 24000 Kbps
For Smaller File Sizes, aim around: 3000 or 5000 Kbps

You might want to play around with the Data Rate and convert small sections of your video to see what they will look like before converting the whole thing.

You can do that by setting In (press I) and Out (press O) points in Streamclip.

Step 5. Read Your Bible Every day (KJV), lest you fall into sin 😀

– Tony Colella

[Hannah Clive]

Hi. In urgent need of help. Editing damsel in distress and up against deadline.
I am using Final Cut Pro HD version 4.5 (ancient I know) and I am trying to convert h.264 files the details of which are: Frame size 1920×1080, 23.98 fps and at 48.0 KHz with a data rate of 5MB/sec, pixel aspect: square, audio integer: 16 bit
Sage advice in thread says I need to convert using stream clip for use in FCP but to which DV format? Having tried various conversions to DV Pal (including anamorphic) it still doesn’t look right in the viewer in FCP 4.5. Can get it to look un-stretched and fill the viewer and get frame rate to 25fps but it doesn’t sit within title safe. (For this I converted to DVPAL1920x1080, 25fps).

The only available option I can see in FCP thats close to HD & 16:9 is called DVC Pro HD 1080i60 with a frame rate of 29.97. However stream clip doesn’t seem to like to convert to this.
Can someone (Tom Brooks?) PLEASE tell me what DV format I need to convert to so that it looks right in the viewer in FCP Pro HD (4.5) and sits within the title safe options?

**Please see screen shot for file types my FCP 4.5 DOES like. Thank you.
NB HD not essential, uber quality not essential. Sitting within constraints of title safe is! FCP handling H.264’s fine when codec is DV 😉

[Mpigott]

If you have AVI container AND H264 Codec in said AVI, you have about a 0% chance of importing into FCP6.

My solution is to use Adobe Premiere (on a PC)