[Adam Smith]

I seem to remember Andy’s Guides being right on, or at least close enough that it didn’t raise any flags with me. Not sure about the guide behavior in an SD sequence.

I used them for a bit, but like I said above I have 2 external monitors to use as reference. I’m out of the house right now but in about 4 hours I’ll be back and getting started on a project, if you’re still wondering I can compare between Andy’s, FCP7 and my monitors.

Or maybe Andy can chime in… and I second your opinion on his free filters – “Thanks Andy, great stuff!”

-Adam

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

Heh.. after re-reading that it seems like a silly question – I’m sure if you felt the quality was lacking I don’t suppose you’d use/recommend the process.

There’s certainly something to be said for viewing the true final image area right there in FCP.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

I’d assumed all the shots would be tweaked to taste before export. I use a combination of Andy’s Guides, guides & shading on my Panasonic HD monitor, and an SD monitor with my AJA set to downconvert with Crop.

Tom – how do you feel about the quality of downconvert within FCP? I haven’t tried that workflow as I’ve generally figured Compressor has much more control over the process.

-Adam

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

For a Center-Punch downconvert:

Drop your HD original into Compressor and dial in your settings as normal, but on the 5th tab “Geometry”, you want something like

Source Inset
Crop to: 4×3 1.33:1

Dimensions
Frame Size: 720×480
Pixel Aspect: NTSC CCIR 601/DV

This will crop your footage on the sides, resulting in a full-screen standard-definition movie.

Note that I’ve seen people recommend that you downconvert first to a production-worthy codec (ProRes), and then use that new standard-def movie as the source for MPEG compression. I do this when I have time or the final output is important, but I’ve not heavily tested the differences.

– – –
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

I’ve never used FCE, but here’s a few basic FCP things to try:

• Size the photo as close to what you need before importing.
• When repositioning the photo, use round numbers (250 instead of 249.6) for the center coordinates.

The DV codec surely isn’t doing you any favors, but I’d do some testing to narrow things down as well. Probably the easiest is to do the two steps above with a fresh sequence (set properly for your video), leave the photo centered and static, and export a quicktime movie without changing any export settings.

-Adam

– – –
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

I’m guessing you’re referring to the loss of quality when magnifying a clip in a sequence?

While the gurus around here may have some tips on how to get better results, there’s no way to enlarge the image and yet maintain the same image quality – the detail just isn’t there. High Def and progressive footage will be more forgiving, standard def and interlaced footage is less.

– – –
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

[Bob Zelin] “So, there is only one version of FCP ? Exactly what version is this ?”

I’m pretty sure he meant “only one version” to mean “only one software package to pick from” as opposed to say Avid, with it’s stratified product line.

But then I also assume he’s not considering Final Cut Express in that count.

– – –
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

[peter tours] “Oy, I am pretty confused. I just happened to read today that you cannot output the N native formats via 1394 but that’s just what I did. Any ideas?”

The pN formats are non-standard and do not play live out of the firewire connection while shooting, but of course you can use the firewire to transfer the footage afterwards. At playback the camera will be adding extra frames as required to pad up to 59.94 which is required by the 720p spec.

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Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

Ok cool… thanks much!

– – –
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Adam Smith]

Thanks Shane – what about shutter speed? Does 1/48 make sense if you’re shooting 60p but intending to use 24p?

-Adam

– – –
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor