Jeff Weisinger
Forum Replies Created
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Answered my own question I guess. The V key apparently does not work when moving through multicam edit points. It’s as if the systems design for the V key command doesn’t even see them as edit points. It moves through edit points fine on a non-multicam sequence. Another stupid move from Apple….
Discovered something that hopefully is a tip to someone else. If you first select any edit point on your multicam sequence, you can then move around via keyboard, highlighting to your hearts content: using the arrow keys. As soon as you click anything but an edit point, the highlighting-via arrow keys- goes away again, until you manually select an edit point once again. Annoying, but better than nothing….haha, That should be the Apple motto 🙂
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I’ll keep that info in mind for Cinema Tools. The Avid timeline is 23.98, and I’m exporting the 24 frame EDL for Final Cut. As long as I set the Import EDL settings in FCP to be 23.98, all goes as smooth as butter. I don’t notice any frame drifts, but I will watch out for it.
I’m not sure if I’m just lucky or what, because I really only played around with EDL’s for a day or two before figuring this out. One little setup I have figured out is kind of cool: almost an Automatic Duck setup…though not as “Automatic”:
So I capture my DV footage in the 23.98 project as uncompressed (for more room color grading in Color) I do my edit then export an EDL from Avid. Then I create Quicktime reference files of the media in the Avid bins; just a quick batch select and export. By the grace of God, somehow Final Cut loves those Quicktime proxies! I can edit with them and export perfectly. So I link the EDL to those proxies and I’ve got a damn cool workflow. In all honestly the Duck sounds cooler, and is quicker, but the price of admission is still a little steep right now. I’ll most likely buy it a few projects down the road. Unless Apple allows Final Cut to read AAF’s….hint hint Apple!
Jeff
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Man I swear on my life that I saw 24 as the editing timebase in the FCP sequence settings after importing that Avid EDL. Thats really bugging me now…
Well after reading around I see that its 30 or 24fps EDLs (for 29.97, and 23.98) but after seeing that setting I got all confused. Now I can’t seem to replicate it.
One thing I might also add, in case someone doesn’t know this: you can convert the 30fps EDL that Avid creates into a 24fps with Cinema Tools. This might be standard knowledge but I just found it out, and man is it cool 🙂 So now two ways for the Avid EDL to FCP!
Thanks for the feedback Michael, and thank you very much for the informative 24p.com site.
Jeff
Oh, before I forget. Are the Pullin column in the bin, and the Pulldown starting frame from the EDL Manager something I should look into as well; for a proper EDL that is?
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Ok so I had a breakthrough. After reading some old posts and going over to 24p.com, I discovered this hidden TC24 column. After setting it up right I can now successfully import the Avid project over to FCP. Here is my next question though:
The Avid project is 23.98fps, but it exports a 24fps EDL. Choosing DV NTSC 23.98 in Final Cut Pro allows me to import this 24fps EDL just fine. When I reconnect to the 23.98 media though, the media manager says that there is a rate difference; which makes sense seeing as how it’s a 24fps timeline now.
Should I go 24p all the way then? 24p project setting in Avid, 24p EDL, and convert FCP footage into 24p via Cinema Tools?
The option for FCP importing the EDL into DV NTSC 23.98 is odd, since the EDL is straight 24p. Will my edits get wonky going from Avid project 23.98, using the EDL, and going to FCP project with 23.98 media? This is my current setup, but I’ll go 24p all the way if need be.
Sorry if this is confusing, but I assume someone has been here before and has seen the light.
Thanks.
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Thanks Tom. That’s pretty much what GeniusDV said. Load it up in the viewer, change the duration in the duration box, and then edit it to the timeline. I wish it was easy to manipulate once it was in the timeline though.
Jeff
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Found this link on GeniusDV:
https://www.geniusdv.com/news_and_tutorials/2008/01/extending-generator-duration-length.php
Man those guys ARE geniuses 🙂 If anyone knows of an alternate way, that would be appreciated as well.
Jeff
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David,
Thank you for the response. I can see the pitfalls that could come with using reference, and I will greatly take that into account; possibly nixing that workflow in the future.
That being said, I think I understand what you are saying about encoding over a network, but I want to make sure. So, by using a reference file sent to Compressor, and then using Qmaster to encode with multiple Macs, it would actually be slower than using a self-contained file? That doesn’t make sense to me, but if that is what people have discovered, then I will take your word on it.
I did want to clarify my earlier question because I don’t think it was actually answered. Just for clarity if I exported as a reference file, and all my media and renders are on a scratch disk networked to the Windows PC, can I just drop the file into any encoder on the Windows side and it just works? If that is impossible then that is fine; frankly it sounds impossible, but who knows.
And one more question if you don’t mind. If I stay on the Mac with some projects, and just export as a Quicktime movie, is there any quality loss with self-contained over reference? I know I need to recompress if I change my render settings, but I haven’t found much clarity on that question. I would just as well like to export straight to compressor, but that ties up FCP, and always crashes when Qmaster is set up as a quickcluster. So in a sense, the fastest way is the export to quicktime movie option. (Oddly enough though the quickcluster works like a champ when I am just straight dropping something into Compressor.) I have read that going straight into compressor will get you the highest quality settings though? What would be your thought on that as well?
Hope I didn’t bombard you there, but I am a consummate learner, and I’ll be damned but there is just so much to soak in 🙂
Jeff
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Well then that’s where my confusion lies. How does the sequence export out the 29.97 interlaced footage, if I have it set as a 23.98 timeline? I know that may sound very amateur, so apologies beforehand.
My assumption is that FCP would have to convert the 29.97 interlaced to whatever the sequence preset is, upon export. If this is not true then I would love to know. I think it would be great to have both frame rates on there, so when the DVD plays, some of it is already interlaced, and the rest will be interlaced by the DVD player. I just don’t think that it’s possible to have truly different frame rates in one sequence, but I haven’t read or heard the opposite, so I could be wrong.
Though, I will have to de-interlace it for the web, because artifacts will show up when people play the demo reel on their progressive monitors.
Jeff
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Well I knew already that the computer monitor is progressive, and I also did think it was weird that the person encoded the film 29.97 but neither of us can assume what they actually shot it in. It might have been that they felt the final product would be TVs only so they shot it in 30fps, which would make it easier to interlace and show on an NTSC television; on a side note, another of the 6 DVDs was encoded at 29.97 (or originally shot, who knows).
Based on my further reading ALL OVER the world wide web (my head still hurts) I gathered quite a bit of information about de-interlacing. Like Chris pointed out, it can look bad, but I found out usually if you use the wrong program/ method; and in some cases the DVD might be interlaced bad to begin with.
My final output will be both DVD and the web for my demo reel. Since 4 of 6 of my source DVDs are 23.98(976) and the other two are 29.97, I am just going to convert them to 23.98 (whether inverse telecine, or bob+weave de-interlacing, etc…) and set my sequence to 23.98 and let the DVD player take care of interlacing for the TV, and my web output should be solid.
I appreciate everyone’s opinions/ advice and thanks for taking the time to give them.
Till next post 🙂
Jeff
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Well, I apologize for starting an argument, but I think this thread got off topic.
I am not a DVD authoring buff, by any means, but I know from research and just watching these indy films that everyone seems to be kind of right. One of them is encoded as 23.98 progressive; received the source information of the MPEG-2 rip from MPEG Streamclip. Another is 29.97 interlaced; again from Streamclip. BOTH original DVDs play fine on my DVD player in my home and the software DVD player on my computer. I only notice interlaced artifacts on the computer monitor when looking at the interlaced MPEG-2 source stream.
That being said, the original question: does de-interlacing, then re-interlacing a piece of footage cause quality loss?
Also,I have read that it’s possible in FCP 6 to have multiple frame rates in the timeline; but when you export do they all conform to the sequence preset? This question was asked here in May and not answered. If it gets answered this time I think it would benefit future searchers.
Jeff