[Alvin Thompson]

Hey Russ. You’re right, I’ll need to invest in Pro. I went all over the net and all I’m hearing is get the Pro because having Express is very limited especially when using 5D. There is a way around it but I’m not sure I wanna use it. I read somewhere that using MPEG Streamclip to convert H264 to a DV format. The problem is there are several formats. Eg. Apple DV/DVCPRO-NTSC, Apple DVCPRO50-NTSC, etc. Which to use?

In regards to what you mentioned about finding out what my file is through sequence window. Well, I suspect your not entirely sure what FCE has so I’ll tell you that when I right-click Sequence then clicked on ITEM PROPERTIES. A window pops up and under FORMAT is Frame size as 720×480, compressor is DV/DVCPRO – NTSC, Pixel Aspect NTSC – CCIR 601, Field Dominance is Lower (Even). It included some other stuff as well but these are the main things I’m pointing out. I must tell you that nothing can be edited under this.

I found out how to change my sequence settings but it does not allow me to do half of what FCP can such as making my own EASY SETUP PRESET. Now if I use DV – NTSC the output is automatically 720×480 and no option for 1920×1080. My guess is this is the problem even if I decided to convert.

Sorry for the lengthy reply but I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.

[Alvin Thompson]

Hey Russ thanks for getting back this quickly. Since I have Fincal Cut Express and not Pro it doesn’t have the same settings as Pro does. I did what you asked and all I saw as options were: Timeline Options, Render Controls and Track Display.

Al