[Edwin Street]

Yes use Compressor to do this. It’s fairly simple and it makes it easier that you know what you want.

If you don’t want to buy Compressor 4 then Quicktime 7 or MPEG Streamclip will do the job.

[Edwin Street]

Convert all the .webm files to ProRes422(HQ), or, if the files are still too large convert them to ProRes422.

Final Cut Pro 7 loves to edit in these formats.

[Edwin Street]

So are Blu-rays 23.976 also, or 24p. Because film is 24p not 23.976p.

[Edwin Street]

No there is a benefit to using ProRes HQ, I’ve converted 1080p 7D files and have studied the difference. Canon 7D uses a GOP structure of M=1, N=12 so each of these frames becomes an i-frame when converting to ProRes. H.264 is, currently, the best encoder (file/size) at keeping detail from frame to frame so the more bits you can throw at it when encoding to i-frames the better. Hard drive space is so cheap these days, there’s no reason not to use HQ if you want the video to look better. But it depends on how attached you are to your work… if it’s going on TV and you’re not going to look twice at it once it’s done, go ahead and use 422, but if it’s for a personal film, then HQ or higher is the way to go. Nothing is ever going to look as good as the original file, unless you convert it to uncompressed/lossless.

[Edwin Street]

When you convert to ProRes also convert the frame rate to 30. It wouldn’t entirely matter because when you drop it into the timeline it will convert anyway to 30fps but it’s good practise to do it before hand.

The H.264 codec on the Canon 7D is very good so I’d recommend using ProRes 422 (HQ) if you want to keep all the detail. But this really depends on how powerful your computer is if you are to edit with this codec.

[Edwin Street]

Thanks for the help Shane, that explains a few things.

I don’t know why Quicktime and MPEG Streamclip encoded 4:2:2 and a bitrate of 192Mbps/s, both times I selected ProRes4444.

Unless Quicktime reads the H.264 file bitrate first and decides that it doesn’t need anything over 192Mbps, otherwise I don’t know.

[Edwin Street]

Hi,

I found this thread by googling 4K and FCP7 because I wanted to know more about it.

In sequence settings I can change a custom aspect ratio to size 4096×2160 (4K) and use compressor of prores4444 or 422hq and edit away…

So why do people say FCP7 can’t edit in 4k?

[Edwin Street]

I’ve tried with Frame Controls on and off and get the same result. Green render bar.

What do you mean by “Compressor works only in 8b when frame Control is not ON.” ?

Do you mean 8-bit? With frame controls off, it just selects the options automatically for you instead…

How does that make a difference?

[Edwin Street]

Thanks for the link to that page it was a good read but I found it a little outdated as it talks mostly about DV and Betacam although the introduction about chroma sampling was great.

I’ve done some playing around and exported the timeline with the compressor version and it turns out that the timeline is Chroma subsampling : 4:4:4
So why I have to render is still a mystery to me.

The program I use is this:
https://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

On PC it’s free but on Mac you get it from the Mac App Store for 99c

[Edwin Street]

Thank you all for your help.

If I open the Compressor4 exported ProRes4444 file in Media Info it shows this:
Chroma subsampling : 4:4:4

If I open the 5DtoRGB exported ProRes4444 file in Media Info it shows this:
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:2

If I open the Quicktime exported ProRes4444 file in Media Info it shows this:
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:2

Is the FCP timeline Chroma subsample : 4:2:2 and is this why I am having to render the Compressor4 file and not the others?

Why do different programs export with different chroma subsamples if it’s the same codec?

Why do they use the numbers 4 and 2 to represent a channel?

I’ve been editing for a long time but never been able to understand different channels and colours, thanks.