[Alan Okey]

You edited in a 4:3 SD sequence instead of a 16:9 anamorphic SD sequence. When you dropped your HD source clips into the timeline, FCP automatically letterboxed the source clips.

Try the following: Create a new anamorphic SD sequence (I’d suggest creating an NTSC DV 29.97 anamorphic sequence). Drop one of your HD source clips into the timeline. FCP should apply the proper scaling and distortion automatically. Select the clip in the timeline, and copy it (command-C).

Next, go back to your original sequence and check the anamorphic button in the sequence settings dialog box. Then highlight all of your clips in the timeline, right-click and choose “paste attributes.” Check “basic motion” and “distort,’ then click OK. This should apply the correct resizing and distortion settings to all of the clips in your original sequence.

I’d also sugest that you change the sequence compressor setting to ProRes 422 (if it’s not already). You definitely don’t want to apply DV compression to your XDCAM EX footage prior to compressing it for DVD.

In the future, you’ll get better quality if you simply edit in a native 1080p30 XDCAM EX sequence, export a self-contained quicktime and use Compressor (with frame controls enabled and resizing set to Best) to create your DVD assets directly form the HD source file. Compressor’s scaling algorithm (when set to Best) is much better quality than that of FCP.

[Alan Okey]

[Robb Albrecht] “I really want to like Autodesk apps but the interface kills me……
“

Thats funny, I always loved Combustion and hated After Effects in no small part due to their respective interfaces. I absolutely love the pen/tablet-centric UI in Autodesk’s applications. I appreciate the way the UI gets out of the way and lets you get to the task at hand, rather than forcing you to manage an ungodly mess of palettes and windows. AE must be the most popular app in the world with such an atrocious UI.

Of course, I’ve also heard that to really be fast in Smoke, you need to have a thorough command of its keyboard shortcuts…

[Alan Okey]

[David Roth Weiss] “I have no idea what super-secret alien technology Apple used to smush all of that content onto those installation DVDs, but they clearly use something nobody else is using, because the Apple apps notoriously take so much longer to install from disc than any other apps on the market. “

Which is exactly why the first thing I do with any optical disc -based suite of software (Apple, Adobe, etc.) is to make disc images of the installation discs on a fast hard drive and install from the disc images instead of the optical discs themselves. Sure, it takes a bit of time up front to image the discs, but any subsequent installation takes a mere fraction of the time to complete, and no disc swapping is necessary.

Of course all of this goes out the window should the software become only available through the Mac App Store… That is, unless it’s possible to store the downloaded packages in a permanent local directory. I’m not sure exactly how App Store installations will work. Anyone know?

[Alan Okey]

[Alan Okey]

Regarding the speed of conforming, it’s very fast because Cinema Tools is merely altering the clip’s metadata so that the clip will play back at the new frame rate. There’s no re-encoding or heavy processing involved.

Be warned, however: Cinema Tools permanently and irreversibly changes the clip when conforming, so only conform a copy of the original clip in case you need to revert to the original.

If you use Cinema Tools to conform 24p to 29.97, it is merely changing the clip’s metadata so that the clip will play back at a faster frame rate. This will effectively speed up the clip and shorten its duration.

If you don’t want to do this, then use the Compressor method.

Regarding using Compressor to change 24p to 29.97 (30p), I neglected to mention an important step:

In the Encoder pane of the Inspector window, click on the Video Settings button. Make sure Frame Rate is set to 29.97. In the Frame Controls pane, leave Duration set to 100%. This should give you the result you’re looking for – a 30p clip that is the same duration as the original 24p source clip.

[Alan Okey]

[Richard Herd] “Regarding Smoke, is it an editing suite or is it specialized for finishing, compositing?”

All of the above. Although its perfectly possible to cut and finish a spot in Smoke, it has traditionally been used most often for conforming and finishing because it’s a pricey tool to use for basic editing. That may have changed somewhat now due to the less expensive Mac version being released, but Smoke is still in a completely different price category than that of FCP or even Avid. Smoke for Mac is $15K for the software alone plus a yearly $2K maintenance fee, and it requires very beefy certified hardware to run properly (Quadro FX, 500MB/sec. RAID, Kona 3, etc.).

As others have pointed out, Smoke isn’t necessarily the best tool for any single tasks alone – there are better standalone editing and compositing tools available. What Smoke has in spades is a highly integrated toolset and advanced user interface designed to speed workflow. For fast-turnaround client-attended sessions that require high quality and a broad toolset, Smoke is pretty much unique.

Check out the Smoke forum on the Cow for more details.

[Alan Okey]

Conforming 24p to 29.97 in Cinema Tools will speed up the footage, which I doubt is the desired result.

Instead, try using Compressor to convert the 24p footage to 29.97. Enable Frame Controls, set Output Fields to Progressive, and set Rate Conversion to Better (Motion compensated).

[Alan Okey]

Much has already been said about the similarity of the new UI to iMovie, but I see a strong resemblance to Logic Pro as well.

Judging from other posts on the forum, there’s been much concern about a potential lack of tape I/O, but that’s merely FUD at this point. Check out the Event Library section of the screenshot. Under the “Media” folder, there’s an entry labeled VTR. Of course it’s not hard proof of integrated tape I/O, but if you look carefully at all of the media represented in the screenshot, it’s obvious that the entries were carefully chosen to represent different camera and media types (Phantom, Alexa, DSLR, GoPro, etc.). I think it’s no accident that an item labeled VTR was included along with the other entries. Keep your fingers crossed.

[Alan Okey]

The part that I don’t understand is that Amber said the original footage was 1280×720 which implies that it should be progressive (720p). It was then transcoded to 1280×720 ProRes. Was that a typo, and was this indeed originally 1080i footage? Or were fields incorrectly introduced during the Compressor transcode to produce a 1280×720 ProRes file with interlacing? I didn’t even know that was even possible… Please advise, thanks.

[Alan Okey]

Using the deinterlacing filter in Final Cut is the worst possible way to deinterlace footage. You’ll achieve far superior results if you simply edit in an interlaced sequence, export the finished video as a self-contained Quicktime movie (not using Quicktime conversion) and then perform deinterlacing using Compressor (with frame controls turned on). Compressor’s motion estimation provides deinterlacing results that are far superior to FCP’s simple field blending/doubling.

What is your delivery destination (web, DVD, etc.)? You only need to deinterlace if you’re delivering content for web use.