[Andy Mees]

Wierd, I was just chatting about this today … take a gander at The Levelator
For someone uncomfortable with handling such basic tasks manually it might just the ticket.
(Heck, it might be just the ticket for some of us who are used to handling such tasks manually)

[Andy Mees]

Hmmm …other than the “polishing turds” analogy I think I’d have to disagree with Dave on this one. Certainly the logic seems flawed, in that Motion’s scaling is not going to be better simply because Apple gave the app the capability of performing such a function. But I haven’t done a side by side comparison either so I’m afraid I can’t give you the definitive answer you’re seeking. FWIW, like you Nick, I also find FCP’s scaling to be preferable for this, and round tripping out to Motion would seem to be rather a long winded affair with likely not enough advantage to make it worthwhile. You might also gain some advantage over FCP from scaling/arc’ing the footage using Compressor’s Advance Format Conversion presets but once again I would doubt that you would see enough real benefit and unlikely that such a benefit would be outweigh the ease and advantage of scaling and framing directly in the Canvas window.
Just another 2c for your consideration.
Andy

[Andy Mees]

>I changed the settings to Apple ProRes 422 using Sony Firewire

Danger, Will Robinson! Messing with the settings if you don’t understand exactly what you’re doing will usually end in unexpected and unwanted results. (Apologies of course if you do understand exactly what you’re doing!)

Your best bet is just to go to your Easy Setups and choose: HDV-Apple ProRes 422 1080p24

See if that helps

[Andy Mees]

[Rafael Amador] “This option is great but in the end is no much useful … the best is just to set ProRess as the sequence codec from the beginning”

Ack, Rafael its not like you to come up with such “my way or the highway” conclusions.

[Andy Mees]

you might want to take a look at Alex Golner’s solution here
https://alex4d.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/final-cut-pro-free-plugins-to-make-all-fonts-available/

or if you like you can try my own here
https://web.me.com/andymees/Free_and_Easy/main/Entries/2008/5/11_Andy’s_Basic_Text_(FxPlug_-_Preview_Release).html

[Andy Mees]

Hmmm… You might be able to hook into FCP’s Mackie protocol control surface support and use something like “Timecode” from https://e-pocalypse.com/timecode/ to generate a Midi Timecode stream that your console can be set up to read

[Andy Mees]

[Bret Williams] “even just a dissolve brings up the conforming window “

Sounds like you might be inadvertently rendering the whole timeline rather than just the transition or area of focus … make sure under your Sequence menu > Render menu’s you are not choosing to render “Full” quality playback area’s, or select the area you want to render and use the Render Selection option

[Bret Williams] “Should we be importing as Pro Res and using a Pro Res sequence?”

Well, yes you could but you’d lose the advantage of the tapeless workflow and the low data rate of the native codec …. you might get better mileage simply by changing your Sequence menu > Settings … >> Render codec to ProRes 422. That way you enjoy all the benefits of native codec editing and the speed and quality advantage of an FCP optimized I-frame 422 render codec

[Andy Mees]

[Josh Anderson] “Do you know of any applications using VP7…”

Quicklink use VP7 in their PC based Laptop Newsgathering applications

[Josh Anderson] “…that have a license that is not restricted by the non commercial license which is the only one that on2 has released to the public on their own site?”

Well I wouldn’t be privy to the terms of their licensing agreement.

[Josh Anderson] “What solutions currently offer encoding with vp8 to the public? “

As far as I know, Quicklink have adopted H.264 for their Mac based Laptop Newsgathering applications, and whilst they (Quicklink) were looking towards VP8 a few years back it certainly seems possible that On2’s platform centric approach might not be doing them (On2) any long term favours

[Andy Mees]

try this
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cinema_craft_encoder.html

[Andy Mees]

Tony

You might be able to pull something together using GUI Scripting
https://www.apple.com/applescript/uiscripting/

Or if its a built-in Fx Script based plug that you’re trying to better control then you could consider opening it up and modifying the code directly
https://joemaller.com/fcp/fxscript_reference.shtml

And as Peter can better explain, you can build your own plugs quickly and easily using the FxFactory Pro FxPlug modelling application
https://www.noiseindustries.com/products/fxfactory/

Cheers
Andy