[Brian Miller]

make either tiff or SGI sequences from your FCP project. if your project is setup as 4k your image sequence will be the same frame size. we do this all the time. exports will be large.

[Brian Miller]

if the player detects the display does not support 16×9 it will letterbox it. will do on any player. if you borrowed a ‘widescreen’ DVD from a friend and played it on your older 4×3 TV, it would display letterboxed. if you played it on a 16×9 TV it would play full frame (minus of course whatever matte the filmmakers used)

[Brian Miller]

I went a head and copied and pasted into another project with the sequence settings matching the footage that i shot. From playback i cannot tell any difference between the two. Why is this? And if the final product is going to be a DVD, isn’t the timebase going to play at the standard NTSC anyway??? (what it’s compressed to)

sometimes the subtleties of different codecs is hard to discern with the naked eye which is why it make look the same. also, if you try to bring in a 23.98 file into DVD studio pro, it either won’t accept it or it will convert it to 29.97.

And if you can change the codec when you export, why does it matter if the codec in the timeline doesnt match what you shot? especially when you can change it back when compressing. Is there quality loss with that?
Just curious. I know there are ways of doing things, and standard procedure is just that, but i am curious to know what the difference would be.

let me use an example i typically encounter. say i get footage that is all native pro res. i build my sequence as a pro res sequence with the same frame rate and frame size and my footage. now when i drop footage into the timeline, there is no need to render (unless you add effects). that’s why you match sequence settings to sources. so let’s say the client doesn’t have time for me ship a HDCAM tape, so instead they want an h.264 posted on an FTP site. Then i would export the file from my pro res sequence as an h.264. yes there will be some loss as h264 is not as good of a codec as pro res.

And i cannot figure out why there is a need to double compress? I am creating the .mov reference movie in FCP and exporting it. I then use compressor to make the codec that is for the dvd. Then after I import the assets in dvd studio pro, when the project builds and burns….isn’t it compressing again?? why?? is there quality loss with this workflow?

you say you are going to compressor after you come from FCP in order to get it to a certain codec. that codec should be available in FCP so there is no need, you should just eliminate this step. can you tell me what codec you are using in compressor? yes there is quality loss when you encode the asset through Studio Pro, that is why it’s imperative to give Studio Pro the best quality possible source file from which to encode…here is a workflow tip. cut with the footage at the frame rate you ultimately need it to be. this might mean FIRST converting 23.98 footage to 29.97 through compressor -or even better use Shake- and keep the codec the same as the source.

[Brian Miller]

that sounds odd, i have experienced that with speed effects but not on a clip without an effect…

i’m trying to think of anything that it might not like – are you going from one frame rate to another?

[Brian Miller]

you should make your sequence, source files and DVD project 16×9. this might mean adding in side mattes if all your footage is 4×3 or if all your stills are in a 4×3 aspect.

when played on a 16×9 display (computer or LCD) there will be no stretching, and if it’s played on a 4×3 monitor (computer or LCD) the DVD player will letterbox the signal.

[Brian Miller]

that’s what i thought – none of my hi-8 cams had FW! well ignoring that, are you seeing this on an external monitor or your computer monitor? is your easy set up correct and are your sequence settings matching your source?

[Brian Miller]

Can anybody tell me what exactly is being changed if you change the quicktime video settings within the sequence settings menu? after you have already established a sequence!

the codec of the sequence is being changed. you can change it to whatever you want, although as a general rule set it the same as your footage

Will this setting effect what your project becomes when you make a .mov? or does it only reflect what you see within the FCP timeline?

well you can export two ways – same as source or change the codec. so it depends!

I know that you cannot change the editing timebase after you have already established a sequence that you have a project in and it seems that you ARE able to make some changes with the sequence settings menu.

If a mistake was made at the beginning….established an editing timebase that is standard NTSC when the footage was shot at 24p…..what effect will this have on the final project??

but what you can do is make a new sequence with the correct settings (native to your source), then copy from your incorrect sequence and paste into the new one.