[Jeff Greenberg]

I’ll be honest. I’m not 100% sure. I don’t know if Apple is working in 32 bit float RGB space (the way Motion is now) or in 10 bit YUV space (or 12/16 bit which would be best for ProRes). I do have someone who might be allowed to answer so I’ve sent that email off. Will report back.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

Can you (on a still) draw a mask around the foreground woman? Yes. How about for video? Sure – it’s an animated mask.

Can you clone in the wall/door? Nope.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

[sean pollaro] ” So.. Why would they take these options away? I’ts very confusing to me.. I mean, What about footage that has a native format of DVCPRO HD? Are they forcing us to recompress our footage? Also when you say Pro res which PR codec is it? 4444, HQ, 422, LT, Proxy? What if I’m using 720p and 1080i footage together in 1 timeline? the 720 is non interlaced while the 1080 would have an upper field order. How does that work out?”

FCP 1-7 was designed in 1997-99; they didn’t have HD on the table, they never foresaw highly compressed footage (like HDV or h.264) where 1 in 15 frames has all the information. It was optimized for broadcast formats; later they grafted on HD; DVCProHD is a full frame codec.

This is part of the reason Apple threw us all a curveball to FCPX – they felt they were best served looking at the future and throwing off the bonds of the older versions.

You can work natively with h.264 or DVCPro HD (in QuickTime wrappers) but the renders will be all ProRes.

ProRes 422 – the other ones are for higher/lower data rates (Do you want the reasons for each codec? If so, let me know, I’ll write it out, but I’m about to get in the car for the next 6 hrs.) But they just pick ProRes422 for most card based HD (unless of course you pick to work natively, which you can do)

I think apple’s decision was that leaving the switches there were wrong for 99% of the people. They’re not chasing after the 1 percent that it matters to.

[sean pollaro] “What if I’m using 720p and 1080i footage together in 1 timeline?”

Whichever timeline type you start with, it conforms to. I’m assuming that they got the blending of interlacing correct in FCPX…given that frame rate changes and interlacing were pretty poor in FCP7.

Me? If I was outputting a 1080 timeline, I’d start there. If I was outputting a 720 timeline, I’d start there.

[sean pollaro] ” So how do I get it to playback normal and not blurry? I have to view it at 50%? why is this? can I change this option?”

I don’t think it’s a switch you can throw; I picked 50% or 100% because the methods software use to quickly downconvert for playback look best at these sizes. If you know the quality is there, does it matter? (I come from post environments where we used to cut at 320×240 – so I’m a bit more acclimated to the idea I can cut so-so footage and know the final version will be correct.)

What sort of footage are you needing RGB 8 bit for? How are you monitoring (what’s your setup?)

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

Art,

All I’m going to suggest is that you spend money.

Want to have perfect sync with a different microphone? Well, unless you slate at the beginning and sync the slates by hand – Plural Eyes does this for you.

Want to edit natively? Premiere Pro CS 5.5, Avid Media Composer and FCPX all will edit natively (although your computer will then be the bottle neck in rendering and performance.)

If you’re going to stick with FCP 6? Transcode everything to ProRes 422. Yup, you’ll still need pluraleyes for a perfect sync (unless you want to do it by hand.

Video converter? Free? Compressor. Many people use MPEG Streamclip, because it does a faster job (as it doesn’t have to be network aware).

Premiere Pro, FCPX and Avid all have trial downloads so you can test this yourself.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

Yes. It’s a decent trade off of size/performance.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

Not with 3.5.3. You’re going to need something else. 4 doesn’t do it either.

Episode or Squeeze.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

Al,

I hate to be the one to tell you this…but this isn’t going to happen…or may not be easy enough to be worth your time.

As a still, I’d have to use some of the sophisticated photoshop tools to clone out the woman, reconstructing the door and wall. Photoshop (starting, I think in CS5) had a great feature called “content aware fill” which intelligently clones other material in…but this image probably can’t take too much advantage of that.

If it’s a piece of video, you’re in for even rougher times, as doing one frame might be possible, but making sure the change is consistent from frame to frame gets into ugly concepts like pixel chatter.

I might try to use some of the color correction tools in FCPX to dim the woman to the right and darken the rest of the frame so your focus was on the woman who you’re trying to keep the audience focused on, rather than trying to crop her out.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

Can you post a still to illustrate your question?

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

[sean pollaro] “you know for changing codecs, frame sizes, field order, RGB 8 bit or YUV 10 bit rendering etc.?”

You don’t have access to any of that. It handles interlaced video formats in their native field order; it works 10 bit YUV (no RGB access). Everything is rendered into ProRes.

[sean pollaro] ” Also when I input my 720 prores HQ footage it always looks blurry when I hit the play button. then looks sharp again when I hit stop. why is this happening?”

FCPX degrades the playback to get RT ability and shows you all the information when you pause. As much as possible view elements at 100% (or 50%)

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website

[Jeff Greenberg]

Copy the .MOV clips off the card to a structure you like at the finder level – I create a folder per card etc.

Then use the IMPORT feature of FCPX – you have the option to link, copy and work natively and/or transcode. Be aware that the transcode will slow down other functions.

Best,

Jeff G

Certified Master Trainer | Adobe, Apple, Avid
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
My book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Lynda.com – Compressor Essentials 3.5 and 4
Contact me through my Website