[Gunner Jones]

I see none of these problems–but I have a lot of experience with the program. I gotta say bro, you are probably overlooking some crucial stuff….

First of all, are you aware that the Canvas is not where you see the quality of your renders?
Do you have a video monitor hooked up? How does the image look there?

Gunner

[Gunner Jones]

But scaling is AWESOME in FCP 5.

[Gunner Jones]

Make very sure that the dark green FULL bar is checked in your Sequence>Render menus.
Graphics placed on whole, even numbers?
Checking on NTSC?
Type CMD + Zero and go to the Sequence’s Render settings: Are Frame Rate and Resolution set to 100%?

[Gunner Jones]

Typically, it is not a good idea to use JPGs unless that is their native codec. PICT, TIFF, PSD or PNG are good choices.
Other than that:
What is the frame size of these JPGs? Are they larger than 2 or 3 times of the DV Frame?
If so, you need to resize them in PS to be just that.

Use the flicker filter or a little bit of gaussian blur to attack the “shimmer”.

G.

[Gunner Jones]

Oh man Arnie! You got it nailed. It’s gotta be one of these things.

gun

[Gunner Jones]

Sean,
Are you checking this on a NTSC monitor and not the Canvas?
It the Timeline set at Safe RT?
Have you rendered with the dark green FULL bar checked in the Sequence>Render menus?
Did you apply the 4:1:1 color smoothing filter ahead of the key filter (G Nicer performs the same function)?
Are you using the Chroma Keyer and not the Blue Screen Filter?
Did you use the same technique as this article?
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/chroma_key_fcp_hd_monahan.html

A few things to check here to make sure you’re properly keying in FCP before you make more judgements.

Thanks!

[Gunner Jones]

How are your speakers and video monitor set up? Are they setup the way it shows in the manual on page 55?

[Gunner Jones]

Let me guess…you’re using FireWire drives, no?

[Gunner Jones]

Render in same codec as your Sequence. If it’s DV, render in the Apple DV Codec. If it’s headed for AJA uncompressed, render in the 8 or 10 bit Uncompressed Codec.

Not sure if you can even run the DV Codec on a Windoze maching, though.

[Gunner Jones]

First of all, you probably are not rendering properly nor are you monitoring your rendered effects properly.

First read this:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/rendering_rt_fcp_4_balis.html

What should you learn from that article?