[Chang Dek]

Thank you for your kind reply Andy. What I’m attempting is unorthodox, coupled with my beginner level proficiency makes for a big time waster.
The Image Masks are limited to 900 frames, must be some timed loop. The Overlay Panes Animations are extendable, as are other elements in the Layers Pane.
I suppose the trick is paste the masks into the right place in the TL. (along with the correct behaviours). Also, finding the correct place to import FC sequences.

Chang

[Chang Dek]

By “publish” do you mean export? I don’t see ‘publish’ option in Motion 4.
I have managed to extend all the layer tab elements into the timeline. The only problem are the image mask panes that are limited to 450 and 900 frames. Copying and pasting these doesn’t seem to work, Probably I don’t know how to put them in the right place on the timeline. Is there an “on top and behind” order in the Motion TL? Appreciate any thoughts.

Chang

[Chang Dek]

Thanks Andy, I have not published anything because I’m not sure where to add the additional drop zones. I imagine they need to be added somewhere in the Layers tab, along with activating the (correct?) corresponding generators? I see a lot more online help for Motion 5, not sure if those help with Mtn 4?

Chang

[Chang Dek]

Thanks Stephen, I tried the apple support advice, including a complete re-install, but Motion is still sluggish and beachbally when there are moves that involve more than one video clip – I hope I can hobble by and hopefully make the current project eye popping enough to attract the next job, then it will be an iMac 7 for me… Thanks

Chang

[Chang Dek]

OK, I sorted out the match move by re installing Motion 4, now Motion is terribly slow, mostly a beach ball watching experience with 3 video clips that scroll with some rectangle elements that follow. It took over an hour to make a HDV QTmovie from 10 sec timeline. Is my old MacBookPro2,2 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz 3G Ram too slow for Motion 4 work?

Chang

[Chang Dek]

Thank you both, Rafael and Alexander for your patience and valuable information on all subjects that you have brought to light! Feliz Navidad!

Chang

[Chang Dek]

Hi folks, I did a quick test exporting from FCP NTSC DV timeline to Compressor 8 bit Unc PAL (no, I didnt open any frame rate or other parameters) and the comparison to an export made in PAL DV setting was very noticeable; not only in the still JPG logos that I had inserted, but the general quality of the original DV footage was much sharper in the 8 bit Unc version, even though I made no colour corrections or any changes to the DV footage apart from a tiny amount of cropping ( 2 % in a very few places) and adding JPG logos.

And yes, Alexander is right, a 700 MB file became a huge 3.65 Gig file, which I dont know if going this way will be useful when I compress to DVD, though the differences in the test were signifiacant, I will be adding hard disk space to achieve this better quality even if it is only to save a quality version to tape. My test is only preliminary as I am only viewing through an MBP 15″ laptop screen.

Thank you both for your valuable input.

Chang

[Chang Dek]

I am previewing full screen still JPG images in the FCP Viewer and then the same images from the rendered timeline in Canvas, which gives me a considerably inferior quality image (unusable) I have tried various pre import options in APS to optimise the JPG image, which appear fine in the Viewer window but look bad in the Canvas, even if the image is alone in the timeline, with no scaling or effects. Any ideas? Thank you

Chang

[Chang Dek]

Hi Alexander and Rafael,
Thanks for the brainstorming; being a novice FCP user, I will try to keep it simple.

I plan to edit my NTSC DV footage in DV NTSC on FCP, add graphics, make color corrections, sharpen and then (hopefully) use the best codec for the standard conversion in Compressor and conversion to MPG2 for DVDSP ( can this be done as a one step process?)

Can someone advise the steps I need to take? My files are all mostly about 40-60 seconds.

Thank you both!

Chang

[Chang Dek]

Hi Rafael,
Thanks for your input. I have decided to not use the VTS files if I can help it, and I am working with NTSC DV files originals that I have found of the same DVD’s

I dont think I have the Natresse standards conversion application.
Can I edit NTSC and then export from FCP via Compressor into 10 bit uncompressed PAL DV or just PAL DV? Use those to build my DVD?

Thank you,

Chang