[Andy Mees]

Hey Mirada

[Miranda Raimondi] “The question, perhaps, should have been accompanied with some context “

Yes please … always a good idea.

[Miranda Raimondi] “Briefly stated, “

Uh oh … we need copious and specific details, not brief statements 😉

[Miranda Raimondi] “The footage that I am working with has some graphic attributes… “

Vague! Details Miranda, we need details. 🙂 Ok, lets go back to the basics.
What are the format properties for these graphics? Select one and press Cmd-9. Write down (or take a screenshot of) what you see.
What are the sequence properties? With sequence active, press Cmd zero. Write down (or take a screenshot of) what you see.
What are the RT plaback properties of the sequence? Click on the RT button top left of the Timeline window and note down all the checked settings.
Post back with all those details.
And how are you viewing all this ie on what image are you basing the critical assessment? Are you looking in the Canvas window, and if so, at what scale? The Canvas window is just a proxy of the full image, it’s not necessarily showing you everything. For example, at any resolution other than 100% will only display the Upper Field of an interlaced image … so if you are using it for monitoring of interlaced footage then you’d best set it’s display scale to 100%. For critical assessment tho, what you should really be looking at is a full resolution output of your image on an appropriate reference monitor (attached to your system by an I/O device). If you are assessing interlaced material then that reference monitor needs to be capable of displaying that interlaced image properly.

[Miranda Raimondi] “I ask the question about rendering because I want to know whether FCP is somehow recompressing or rewriting frames as if it were rendering those frames for real-time playback purposes”

Yes it is.

[Miranda Raimondi] “If so, what would it be, about that real-time progression, or any playback, whether timebound or still, that would hide such graphic attributes? Would it be the interaction between playback frame rate and interlacing? But that would not explain why still frames would seize to show those attributes.”

I already mentioned that the Canvas window at any resolution other than 100% will only display the Upper Field of an interlaced image … if you have a detail in your source image that when rendered to the sequence properties only takes up 1 scan line, and that scan line happens to lie be an odd number (Upper field) then you won’t see it in the Canvas window at anything other than 100% scale … doesn’t matter if the playhead is moving or still, its the same. On an appropriate reference monitor you would see the image as it should be but that same element will appear to flicker as it is switched on and off with the sequential display of odd and even frames. Have the graphic remade more appropriate attention to the target settings … or just add a tiny amount of blur to it in your sequence, just enough to spread that detail onto a second scan line … that should resolve the issue.

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hey Ronald
Jay is discussing the choice between the standard Quad Core 2.2GHz i7 chip in the new 17″ MBP and the Build To Order option for the Quad Core 2.3GHz i7 chip in the same … they are both i7 chips 😉
Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hi John, the purpose of this feature is so that users working with FCS apps but reviewing and/or previewing clips outside of the suite (in Quicktime 7) will be able to see those clips with the same color reproduction as they would see within the FCS suite . For many its a valid and useful feature.
Hope that helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

[Louis Basslines] “Where can I find Enable Final Cut Studio color correction option. I have QT 10?”

There is no such option in QT 10 Louis, you need to install Quicktime Player 7 which is an optional install on your original Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installation disc. If and when installed then you should find Quicktime Player 7 in your /Applications/Utilities folder … the “Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility” option is then found in the General tab of the application’s Preferences window.

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Spending someone else’s money .. my favourite 😉

Fwiw Jay, if I was buying today then my money would be going on the 2.2 GHz option … saving the extra that the 2.3 GHz option would have cost me and putting that instead towards the matte screen option and a third party upgrade to 8GB of RAM ( cheaper to order 2 x 4GB from OWC than to buy Apple’s own 4GB upgrade ). Re the SSD, yes, an internal SSD startup disk would be nice and the 128 GB SSD should be all that you’ll need to start off, assuming you’re happy to skip all the extra “Content” that comes on the FCS discs … but as has been noted, the internal HD is easy to upgrade to an SSD as and when the prices of the higher capacity units come down to something more affordable, so if you find yourself leaning that way then the 500GB 7200rpm drive option might be a good compromise for the time being.

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Wow, that question is a little broad Miranda. What is it that you actually want or need to know? At the lower level ie the mecahnics of rendering in FCP, bear in mind that no one here is likely to be privy to the FCP code base … and even if they were they are almost certainly not authorized to reveal it for all the world to see on a public forum. But very broadly, when any frame of the source does not match the properties of the target (and this can be because your source and target properties simply don’t match or because you are modifying the source to suit your purpose) then FCP must create a new frame from that source according to the modifications applied and the properties of the target. When the calculations required to create each new frame cannot be made faster than the target frame rate, then you need to “render” … in which case the new frames are pre-calculated and written to disk as a physical media file (a render file), just like the original source clip, and thereafter referenced by FCP in place of that original media.

[Andy Mees]

Hey Matt

Try selecting your various clips in the Browser and then choose Modify menu > Make Multiclip Sequence… that should create a sequence with the selected clips laid out chronologically aligned to the sequence timecode

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Good call John, the conversion w/ audio pass-through should do the trick too.

[Andy Mees]

MPEG Streamclip, like most other Quicktime based apps of the ilk, will not recognize mono audio channels. Instead it treats each channel as part of a center-panned stereo pair. Instead of using MPEG Streamclip just use FCP’s Batch Export … that should work (but as ever, try the workflow out first on few small test clips before you commit the whole job).

[Andy Mees]

Hi Bob

Are you going from a 1920×1080 source to a 14:9 SD NTSC target? If so, try setting:
Source Inset (Cropping) to Left: 120 & Right: 120
Output Image Inset (Padding) to Top: 34 & Bottom: 35

Cheers
Andy