[David42]

The Windows Media Encoder seems to offer the same cut and paste functionality as QuickTime Pro. Has anyone tried this?

dw

https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

Windows Media File Editor.
Use the file editor to trim the start and end points of a file; add metadata, markers, and script commands; and, for multichannel audio files, control how the files are folded down for stereo playback.

Windows Media Stream Editor.
Use the stream editor to split or combine streams in existing Windows Media files to create files.

[David42]

Thx, Charles.

It sounds like the technique you describe is for overlaying a logo, like the network bug on the news.

What I want to do is append a short clip, a movie of the logo with a bit of motion graphics.

[David42]

“The sharpest display is always pixel for pixel actual size. Not .9 pixels per pixel.”

Good point, one I had not grok’d, and possibly explains why FC encourages us to monitor video on a video screen, and dodges the “display as 640” instruction. Getting the sharpest QT window is one of the reasons I go to “open in editor” from FC, eliminating “not really real” artifacting. ‘Actual pixel” is sharper on my digi-vga screens.

640 certainly makes sense for VGA release/playback of progressive scan movies. Apple has now set the mark at 640, with their Itunes entry into digital movie distribution.

Unfortunately digital video cameras and DVD took a different path, and have a lot of tech momentum and inertia. In terms of mastering/archiving, I want to maintain a 1:1 relationship with the aquisition tools and tape format, where 720/CCIR601 interlaced is the best SD performance, less processing, and nominally no trancode/generation loss from tape to desktop to tape.

[David42]

OK, I have peace, if not satisfaction, on the question of why some FCP 720×480 exports play in QT without distorting, and other’s defaulted to square pixel. To keep it simple, let me talk export from FCP, not Compressor. Your results may vary, but this is what I got.

If I mark a clip (not a sequence), export a movie using the File/Export dropdown. there are two choices, Quicktime, and Using Quicktime Conversion. My habit was to default to the first choice, because it was preset to “Current Settings”. That produced DV movies at native resolution, a no brainer, no options. However, in a standard 4:3 DV project, this export path leaves off the 4:3 “display at 640” playback instructions on the resulting movie. There are other options behind “current settings”, but they still didn’t give me 4:3 playback results, and had less control than the next option.

Alternately, I mark a clip, take the File/Export/Quicktime Conversion path. I get a more complex dialogue that allows you to select options. It also defaults to “Most Recent Settings”, which is handy, once you’ve defined export settings. By selecting options, I can choose video settings for DV/DVCPRO, and it reports back a 4:3 aspect, and (640×480) display from a 720×480 file size. There are a world of options here, besides the obvious dv 16:9.

By exploring the options in the Windows/Export Que toolset, I got similar options of less control sq.pxl vs more control 4:3 results . I’m going to guess that Compressor options also give results of sq.pxl vs good 4:3 display results.

I never used to worry about this, since it all came out in the wash if I re-imported to FCP, printed to tape, or output to DVD. It wasn’t until I got tangled in non-NTSC movies for vga display that the missing 4:3 pb setting became important enough to lose hair over. It doesn’t explain why the capture tool creates QT files that default to sq pxl playback in quicktime, but i guess I can live with it or deal with it, now that I have a hook to hang my ignorance on.

Hope this helps someone else keep their hair.

[David42]

I suspect that the HDV mpeg2 video is making TC discontinuities at the cam trigger points, and your settings (properly in my view) are causing the Capture aplet to continue capturing, while starting a new media file.

If FCP didn’t do this, Time Code errors would get burned in, countingforward continuously from the capture point, ignoring the jumps, or miscalculating the duration. You would be in a world of hurt and confusion if you tried to recapture from the resulting TC errors in the timeline.

HDV is affordable and nice looking, but GOP media is different. I think that’s one reason why FCP translates to apple’s intermediate codec.

When doing bulk capture (never more than 15 min. clips) I always start organizing bins by doing DV start-stop detect, which breaks things at the camera cuts, a benefit in my process.

Good cutting and clip-name-pasting.

[David42]

I hear you, that “normal” video monitoring ought to be thru an NTSC signal chain; say your AJA, or at least the FW deck to a monitor. That said, straight ntsc editing/output for tape playback is a declining part of my business. VGA, U-tube is as “real” as videotape and TV. Conference big screens are often fed from laptops.

What I’m trying to understand is why 16:9 widescreen DV 720×480 exports and plays wide in Quicktime (display at 853 pixels), while a 4:3 versions of the movie, letterboxed to a standard 4:3 dv 720 x 480 plays square pixel, instead of automatically setting to display at 640. When I made an AVI 720×480 of the letterbox, quicktime opened and displayed at 640, the way it should.

There is virtually no circumstance when I want a 720 x 480 frame to display square pixels, although I tolerate it for Photoshop graphics work. A 720-480 Quicktime ought to batch-default to CCIR601 4:3, the same way it corrects to 16:9.

Understanding my signal path, various playback ap characteristics isn’t rhetorical, or limited to 720 vs 640 displays. It comes up in review mp4 and h264’s, and in final output forms, is potentially more problematic in HD variations, which are frought with non-square pixels.

I should be able to send full quality movies off to clients without having to open and modify the pb controls on each clip to play as shot.

grumble.

[David42]

For light duty field work, or student work, I would go with MacBook over the Pro, and any spend leftover budget on max memory (which helps compensate for the lite graphics card), ext keyboard and trackball, second screen, FW hard drive, all the stuff you might want or need with a MacBook Pro. The MB is way better than a PB 4 Titanium, which is supported for FCP by Apple. For basic I/O, edit, and tanscode to DVD, MB works, and is supported for that use with consumer aps.

While the caveats listed by Mr. White are true to the best of my knowledge, a white Mabook worked fine for me on a conference job. I captured live DV from the Imag dv deck, was moved to the edit room, hooked up to my screen and keyboard and editing by the time the crowd cleared.

Daisy-chaining the capture cam or FW deck on the second port of a Lacie FW drive was no problem at DV data rates. A FW hub is another option, sorry I can’t give you the model we used, but it was one aquired 3 years earlier. Besides IO anc onnectivity issues, MacBook is prone to build up heat. If it was being used outdoors in hot climate to crunch HDV to m2v dvd movies, that might become an issue.

My one advice to MB and pro users is to be sure you are fully shutdown before bagging the beauty, since the fan coming back on in sleep mode will overheat it with the exhaust ports blocked.

[David42]

” I will try adding an avi extension on my next test and let you know how it works.”
—
If that’s all it is, just rename the last effort by adding the .avi, on the OS/finder level. Mac export dialogs are spotty about adding (or not) the extension, but you get used to it.

Going uncompressed to get to a highly compressed flash movie sounds like a lot of wasted data expansion. Is the flash end product why thousands of colors makes sense? I don’t do Flash myself.

My QuickTime export dialog offers AVI, but I forget if that is a Flip4Mac plug-in, which I do have. Under the AVI Compression options, I see DVPro50, which is a good 4:2:2 codec, upsampling from dv, without the size of uncompressed. In the color-space option, I get Millions, or 256, no thousands offered here.

On the Quality slider, I’d turn it all the way up.

Best

[David42]

“uncompressed AVI with thousands of colors” raises flags for me. Not millions?

What FCP compression settings are you using? As a basic concept in going cross-platform, use transcoding that is 1:1. No information lost, no counter productive enlargement of the file. AVI’s do tend to be bigger, but going uncompressed is not necessarily going to buy anything on the windows side.

Are you exporting from a timeline, a reference QT, or a stand-alone QT? DV on the QT side? DV compression on the AVI side? Add the proper .avi extension? Did you try importing the .avi, instead of drag and drop?

Read all the export options carefully. Try doing the export from QuickTime Pro, rather than from FCP.

Barring that, try the conversion on the windows machine, from a stand-alone quicktime.mov

[David42]

FC Studio is officially not supporrted on MBs. The FCS apple sales info says the little GMA 950 graphics card is the issue.

Word from an Apple video expert is that FCP universal will install, but no tech support. Motion almost certainly not.

The post on the shootout was great! https://www.barefeats.com/mbcd4.html

Thx all, for contributing.