[Andy Mees]

If I remember correctly, Quicktime Player 7 does not recognise discreet audio channels … it sees only stereo pairs … when it encounters a discreet audio channel, the player will simply it as a centre panned stereo pair, hence it all sounds mixed.

The steps I outlined above are specifically for dealing with Sony’s XDCAM format which requires that the exported audio is using discreet audio channels, not stereo pairs.

For your workflow though, if you need to create your export so that an average Quicktime based player easily and properly reproduces your discreet audio channel separation, then you need to target the export using stereo pairs, and use the appropriate pan controls in the timeline to achieve the required track separation …

I’m really not using FCPX enough to be offering definitive advice, but assuming you’ve set your roles up with something like a “Channel 1” and “Channel 2” role, or something like that … if you use the Timeline Index to select all clips with the “Channel 1” role, then you can use the Inspector window to adjust all those clips at once … set the Pan Mode to Stereo Left/Right, and the Pan Amount slider all the way to the left (-100) … do the same for the “Channel 2” role except set the Pan Amount slider all the way to the right (100) etc etc.

Now, when you are in your Master File export settings, set it up using 2 stereo output pairs, set both the Channel 1 and Channel 2 roles to the first Stereo output, and the Channel 3 and Channel 4 roles to the second Stereo output

Something like that should work for your setup.

But check with a hardened FCPX user first … there may be a much more obvious way.

[Andy Mees]

Hey Eric

First off I can’t help but ask, have you specifically been asked to down-convert and transcode these files .. and specifically to AVI wrapped DV … or are you jut trying to do the right thing?

The reason I ask is that Edius is perfectly happy to work with native Quicktime MOV wrapped files (and MXF and AVI and just about anything), including DVCPRO HD MOVs … and leaving them at HD resolution should give the editor in Japan more flexibility (for pan and scan etc) if they are working at SD resolution. Like most NLE’s Edius works easily with mixed resolutions in the timeline.

That said, If you do need or want to down-convert and transcode these files before passing them over to an Edius editor, I’d be inclined to suggest you target the Grass Valley HQ codec … you can download the free Grass Valley HQX/HQ Codecs Pack for Mac OS X from the Grass Valley support site (I think you have to register on their website before you can download).

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Lots of free plugins for FCP X that will allow you to add isolated blurs to an image.
Alex Gollner offers a bunch here: https://blog.alex4d.com/2012/02/12/blurs-7-free-fcpx-effects/
If you have FxFactory then you can try my own one here: https://andymees.wordpress.com/region-tool/

These days I’m preferring to use Resolve Lite for this as it’s super fast and easy to track and blur multiple subjects.

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hey Shawn

Yep, Jeremy has it.

You’ve already done all the hard work, creating annotated compound clips that represent your “reels”, you now just need to pass that in a form thats easy for your editor to work with regardless of the NLE in which they choose to work, correct?

So if you export 2 self-contained movies for each of your Compound Clips, one with the annotations (i.e. the subs, clip name t/c) visible, and one with those annotations muted (you can just use the timeline index to select and mute all text generators) – then you will end up with 2 regular QT clips for each reel, with those clips being effectively identical except for the text information.

Your can work with these new master clips instead of the originals, using the texted version for the offline and switching to the textless version for the online. If you so chose you could encode the texted version using CPU friendly ProRes Proxy as the codec, whilst encoding the textless master version using a higher end codec such as ProRes HQ.

Does that make more sense?

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

You might consider exporting each of your compound clips as standalone intermediates, two versions for each (clean and texted).

[Andy Mees]

Bear in mind that in large part that blog’s info seems to be derived directly from the sales pitch on the website of the company (CineMartin) who are selling the Cinec encoding software … theres an alternative view over on the following website which seems a little doubtful:

https://cinescopophilia.com/hevc-h-265-royalties-are-killing-it-even-before-it-takes-off/

[Andy Mees]

You might want to give Adobe Audition a try … they have their advanced spectral noise reduction tools, perhaps not as good as iZotopeRx, but not bad … the “Learn Sound Model” feature might make life easier for you, and for the price of a throwaway email address* you can grab a free trial which should last plenty long enough to get the job done.

I just dug out this tutorial from the inter webs
https://www.streamingmedia.com/Producer/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Tutorial-Sound-Removal-Auto-Speech-Alignment-and-More-in-Adobe-Audition-CC-91527.aspx

*Note, a regular email address would work too but their record on data security was a more than a bit dented recently.

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Thanks for the quick reply Ian, thats excellent news!
Best
Andy

[Andy Mees]

[Ian Cook] “…you can install Content Browser and use thhe standalone Export plugin to rewrap back to .mxf (just drop each .mov onto the app and a conversion window will open up; this is something of a hidden feature).”

Thats good to know Ian … does it work Content Browser 1.1 or is this only with the commercial version?

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

[Dean Longfield] “So my question: Is XDCAM Transfer’s .mov files just for FCP ? My understanding is that XDCAM Transfer optimizes the footage to be used in FCP and that it does not work well in other editing systems. is that correct? “

No. You can use the Quicktime MOV wrapped XDCAM files with any system that has the appropriate Quicktime codec installed … you can also buy a 3rd party XDCAM Quicktime codec for both Mac and PC systems from folks like Calibrated Software.

Bu it might be easiest just to rewrap the MOV footage back to to MXF/MP4 before passing it over to the client. You can do that from FCP (Export > Sony XDCAM) or using a free 3rd party tool like Convergent Design’s File Converter: https://convergent-design.com/Downloads.aspx#tptab7