[Herb Sevush]

Carl –

I have successfully used a setup like your #1 for editing 4 camera multi-cam. Your timeline will probably be at preview quality (bright green ) but will not suffer any dropped frame issues. Don’t drop down to a 2 drive raid, the speed won’t be enough for consistent playback.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Joachim –

I heard from the Black magic guys off line. The downconvert feature won’t work with a 30P timeline. Change your timeline settings to 720P60 and it works. The change doesn’t require any rendering or effect the material at all.

Herb Sevush

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Max –

Credits are often a major pain and can take an inordinate amount of time, especially as revised spellings and new names get added with each successive viewing. Because of that I’d suggest buying the $49 CHV Text Collection Plug-in. It includes a specific “credits” plug-in that is, IMO, he best way to do credits in FCP, including the ability to add a graphic file as a part of a rolling credit sequence.

https://www.chv-plugins.com/cms/Fx-Script/Text-collection/Text-collection.php

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Bouke –

Well there is normalizing and then there is Normalizing … if you are referring to the totally inadequate normalizing tools that you find in Final Cut and Soundtrack Pro then I totally agree – do not normalize.

But if you have a proper normalizing tool like (Sony) Soundforge then normalization IS the way to go. With it you can choose between normalizing to peaks or to a “loudness contour” determined after analyzing the entire track. Then you can set your “normal” loudness profile and the while adjusting the overall volume you can pick a level above which you can have all peaks compressed. This is the way a quality normalizer works and should not be confused with the crap Apple gives us in FCP and Soundtrack Pro.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Walter –

What does the “levels” filter do and what settings do you use for final broadcast delivery?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Troy –

Can I make cross dissolves when editing a multiclip as opposed to the default straight cuts?

No.

is there a work around or way to make all cuts into cross dissolves after I have edited it all with straight cuts?

Yes.

Set the dissolve you want as the default transition in the browser. Position cursor at beginning of sequence of straight cuts in timeline. Select all cuts then drag to canvas and use the “overwrite with transition” feature.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Dennis –

Final cut only allows 1 clip per camera angle for any given multi-clip. In other words you cannot have multiple shots from camera A in the same multi-clip. The only way to get around that is to create a timeline for each camera angle, with all of your clips laid out in sync with timecode and then export separate movies for each angle and then use those clips to form your multi-clip. It’s a bit of a work around but I’ve worked this way and if you have lots of start and go clips, or have to import P2 footage from FireStore drives, it beats working with dozens of separate multi-clips.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

For few years I’ve been reading (and using) the term Uprez whenever the people try to make a picture bigger, what ever the original size and whatever the target size. However if you show me a serious document stating what you say i will happily accept it.

I have no serious documents to offer, just logic.

Insignificant to make 1920×1080 pixels from 1280×720 pixels?
Insignificant to make 1280×720 Square pixels from 960×720 HD pixels?

Apparently your notions of size is constrained to the individual frame, which would make sense if we were talking still photography. But we are not, we are talking about motion pictures, and here temporal considerations also apply.

So yes, the differences are insignificant compared to going from 480X720 interlaced to 1280×720 progressive. The reason 720 is comparable to 1080 is the progressive frame rate. If you actually count pixels per second, 1080p24 has 1920x1080x24 (49,766,400 pps) 720P60 has 1280*720*60 (55,296,000 pps) which comes to around a 10% difference, with what you consider the smaller size having the larger amount of information. If you were using 1080i30 it would be approximately 62,000,000 pps still about a 10% difference, albeit the other way. However standard def has 480*720*30 (10,368,000 pps) which is aprox. an 80% difference from 720P. So I stand by my statement that the difference between the various HD formats is “insignificant COMPARED to the difference between SD and HD.”

The logic in using one term “up rez” to indicate the always huge and one way change in data and the term “cross convert” to indicate a much smaller and often more complicated change in data size makes a lot of practical sense.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Rafael –

I disagree with the idea that the term “cross conversion” is empty marketing hype. Up-Rez means going from standard def to ANY HD format. Cross-Conversion means going from one HD format to another. Compared to the difference between standard def and any form of HD, the differences between the various HD formats is insignificant. for instance I can make the case that going from 720P60 to 1080i invovlves no expansion of data whatsoever, just a change between temporal and physical dimensions. So for convenience sake we have the term “cross-conversion” which indicates a change in format without any significant change in quality and “up-rez” which indicates an enormous change in quality.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Trevor –

I am assuming you are using the Final Cut “multi-clip” feature.

1) First of all in the prefiew monitor you should have “sync open” checked. As you play your timeline you will then see all cameras playing in sync as the timeline plays.

2) While you can’t have the multi-clip play in the canvas you can have it play on your external monitor by going to the “View” tab and at the very bottom of the list you will find “show multi-clip angles.” Turn this feature on and the multi-clip will play to your external monitor.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions