[Andy Mees]

Archie
on the Dell’s … in the OSD settings at Display Settings -> Wide Mode -> 1:1
Best
Andy

https://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=3302&p=5

[Andy Mees]

[Naomi Stock] “Here’s the scoop.”
Heee. A valiant attempt and kudos for at least appreciating the need and going for it …. unfortunately what we ended up with was “a” scoop, not “the” scoop!

For future reference (though hopefully it won’t be necessary) heres some of the kind of questions immediately thrown up:

Downloaded MPG’s from video camera.
OK, first obvious question is “What camera” … by giving the specific camera make and model then folks can get a good idea of which source formats you might be dealing with. “MPG’s” come in many flavors …. your post doesn’t detail what the actual source format is nor its resolution or bit rate. Similarly, although your post does specifically note that you are making “6 short films” “for TV playback” its not really quite clear whether you are intending to author and distribute your films on DVD’s for personal or mass consumption or whether the project is to be delivered for broadcast. All these are exactly the kind of details that are really needed in order to offer you good, targeted advice on how to get the best from your footage, and this is basically what Rafael asked for in his first response “What kind of footage are you working with and which will be your delivery format? ”

Streamclip – export to QT. Wanting to keep highest quality…
Details follow on what you then did to the mystery footage which is great but it all essentially concludes that it didn’t work. We know you tested DVCPRO NTSC amongst 10 other formats and that amongst them you liked AIC’s color rendition best, but we don’t know what those other formats that you tested actually were, and so can’t advise on whether they were appropriate for your unknown source or target, nor do we know how you judged the results (on a TV, on your computer monitor, whether you have any I/O hardware etc) and we don’t really know the criteria of your assessments. We do know you spent 4 hrs testing the various formats and so clearly it wasn’t just a pot luck decision but other than the the fact that the setting you hit upon ultimately didn’t work (can you say “media not optimized” and ‘”ripples”?) we really don’t know how you arrived at those settings.

Regarding your questions then:

1. Was choosing AIC as my Compression while exporting MPG’s thru Streamclip a mistake – for someone who wants to import the footage into FCP?

No, it was not a mistake in and of itself, but it may not have been your best option. However, without knowing all the details (noted as missing above) and without knowing the details of your edit system hardware (Mac, RAM, Storage, I/O etc) then it is guesswork as to what would be the most suitable choice for you.

….

b.)If no, what is the reason and how can I make it stop?

Well the reason is guesswork too without the missing info.

For better or for worse Naomi, if you do come back and check this thread then hopefully this will be helpful. If not, then I guess some other luckless poster might stumble across it somewhere down the line, in which case hopefully it might help them 🙂

Best
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Who’s bringing the cake?

[Andy Mees]

Hey Raf

I guess the basic thing that we can understand from either the FxPlug SDK and/or the FxBuilder environment is that all scaling and motion is handled prior to effects handling (unless of course the scaling or motion is a product of the filter itself).

A filter is simply handed the image data upon which it is required to act, and that data is received at the resolution of the sequence … in fact a filter has no direct means of even knowing what the original format or specifications of the source image were, it has only the image data it receives after the fact. (Thats why some filters, for example, Nattress Standards Conversion filters require that you drop the original master-clip into the applied filter’s image well, in order to pass it the unscaled and native source so that it can better handle the required processing independently). From such a perspective, even without definitive information or inside knowledge, then it’s reasonably safe to assume that FCP’s data processing pipeline is that image data is initially processed according to a clip’s initial bit depth and resolution, the sequence bit depth and resolution and of course the sequence’s motion filtering quality setting, and only thereafter is the image data processed according to the coding of a given filter and the sequence’s high precision setting.

I guess if the hypothesis is correct then it ought to be testable by taking a raw clip (no filters) and dropping it into an uncompressed 10 bit timeline; set motion filtering quality to best, turn on high precision rendering then export. Rinse and repeat but without the high precision rendering setting and compare the 2 exported files … If there is no difference then it would seem to support that high precision rendering has no affect on the quality of scaling alone, and further tests might show that the efficacy of the switch is only apparent if and where appropriate filters or combinations of filters are applied.

Well, I might have a look at that when I get some extra time (ha!) … but in the meantime, whatever my tea leaves reading may or may not conclude, Apple themselves state in the manual that “In most cases, you should choose to render your sequence using 32-bit floating-point space (called high-precision YUV) for final rendering before output or export.” And indeed, “in most cases” how many of us turn pics around without any form of filter based correction? (Hmmm, I suppose if all the correction is handled in Color … but I’m risking going off on another tangent)

Andy

[Andy Mees]

Only the below filters will work in 32-bit floating point if your sequence is set for high-precision rendering in the Video Processing tab of the
Sequence Settings window … none of the others!

Gaussian Blur
Broadcast Safe
Color Corrector
Color Corrector 3-way
Desaturate Highlights
Desaturate Lows
RGB Limit
Proc Amp
Sepia
Tint
Chroma Keyer

… and the Cross Dissolve is the only transition

[Andy Mees]

Frans
It depends on the codec needed for delivery … MXF is just the container.
Sony’s free XDCAM Transfer includes an FCP Export component that will rewrap your DV, IMX, HDV or XDCAM HD variant edits to MXF
Or maybe this is what you need: https://mxf4mac.com/mxf4qtexport
Best,
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Are you also using the same camera/deck and same cable for the capture in both instances?

[Andy Mees]

Kevin,

I’m obviously not Rafael but if it helps I’m glad to offer my understanding of this setting. Basically the “Render all YUV material in high-precision YUV” checkbox switches FCP effect rendering engine to 32 bit floating point precision math. In situations where you’re applying applying multiple filters to a clip and/or 10 bit aware filters such as color correction, then the greater precision will improve the quality of the final render file even though the original clip may have only 8-bits of color information. Note a) that not all (in fact only a very few) filters are actually 10 bit capable, and b) that your render time will significantly increase with this setting. However, as a final step when mastering, especially in such situations as described above and rendering for a 10 bit output, as Raf describes, then you may feel the improvement in your output makes it worthwhile. Its probably worth noting however that the general consensus is that this setting applies solely to the quality of rendering of effects (as noted, changing the precision of the effects rendering engine) and therefore would not be essential for processing SD downconversions. The quality of scaling, amongst other things, is generally understood to be dictated by the “Motion Filtering Quality” setting (also in the Video Processing tab) and should be set to Best for final output (something Rafael also advocates).

Rafael’s contention appears to be that the render in high precision setting in and of itself applies much more broadly than simply the effects rendering engine, and that the setting is an essential one when handling scaling in FCP too. I’m not especially privy to the inner workings of FCP’s processing pipeline and despite what might have been generally understood before, it could be that Rafael is quite correct … but either way, if the specific settings and workflow he’s hit upon can produce markedly better results than when not applying that particular recipe, well then it seems to me its probably worth the effort!

Hope thats a useful perspective to add to the pot

Regarding vignettes … you can create it yourself by overlaying a simple matte shape, or use FCP’ built-in Vignette filter (in the Video Filters > Stylize bin), or you can download a free Vignette filter from Marcus Herrick’s website or theres another free Vignette filter at Alex Gollner’s website, you can even use my Region Blur filter for it, and I dare say there are many more besides.

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

not tried it yet Rafael, i really just came across it earlier today (following a year old review on another site)
a little poking around shows sadly that it’s not user configurable … levels are always normalised towards -1db so after pre processing with this app one would have to further normalise in FCP to bring levels back to the actual target

[Andy Mees]

Tobias,

Just as Jerry’s suggestion here’s a nice recipe

1) add the Audio Filters > Apple > AUFilter
set low filter type to low shelf
set low frequency to 800
set low gain to -18
set center gain 3 to -18
set high filter type to low pass
set high frequency to 3500
set high gain to -18
2) add the Audio Filters > Final Cut Pro > Reverberation

see how it sounds and tweak the settings to taste

… or how about just re-recording the audio through a wall?

cheers
Andy