[Jim Glickert]

I never cease to be amazed at the knowledge and experience of Walter and the others who so generously share it with the rest of us on this forum. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned just by reading your contributions. You guys are the greatest!

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Another vote for Boinx Software’s FotoMagico. I did a project last year (using the Pro version) that was similar to what you’re doing, and it came out great.

There’s a free 5-day trial available. At least take a look at it.

https://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/overview/

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi Harry:

I feel your frustration with this, so let me try to help. I just did a little test of what I’m about to suggest, and it seemed to work OK. But let me first start at the beginning.

I had a 1280x720p FCP project that I exported as a QuickTime (.mov) file. I wanted to scale it down to put it on a website.

I brought the .mov file into Compressor, and used the “Apple Device–H.264 for iPod video and iPhone” preset, which gave me a 640×360 or 16:9 file (.m4v). (Don’t worry if the preset says it’ll come out as 640×480 or 4:3–it’ll come out 16:9.)

I took the resulting .m4v (640×360, which is 16:9) and used ON2’s Flix Standard to convert it to a Flash video. (You can download a free 30-day demo version of Flix Standard.) That Flash video was then used on my website in a 640×360 size.

I just did a little test to see what results when I take that .m4v file (that Compressor produced) and use Flix Standard to encode it into a Flash video using a 1.39-to-1 aspect ratio (which is your 284×204 video), instead of a 1.78-to-1 (16:9) aspect ratio. I made my output size 320×230 (that’s still 1.39:1) and lowered the quality setting simply to speed up the encoding.

After encoding, I looked at the two videos–the original 16:9 and the new 1.39:1 versions, and the new 1.39 version looks OK. My video is of a fireworks display, so I can’t be 100% certain that your video is going to look OK, too.

So, my suggestion to you is to use Compressor to encode the video (using the preset I mentioned above), download a demo version of Flix Standard, and then encode a Flash version of the video using Flix. Flix is easy to use. Just go through the tabs to make sure you encode using the appropriate settings–particularly on the Video tab, where you specify the “Output video dimensions”. Also select the frame rate, image quality and audio settings you want.

Yeah, that’s a bunch of steps, but it may be worth a shot.

If my memory is correct, the demo version of Flix puts a watermark on the output. You can buy Flix Standard for $39 (that’s pretty cheap for what it does) to avoid the watermark. After your headaches over the past couple days, $39 would seem like a cheap solution if it works. I hope it does for you.

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi Hana.

When I was looking for software to convert QuickTime videos to FLV last month, I downloaded a demo version of On2’s Flix Standard. Here’s a link: https://www.on2.com/index.php?387

If you like it after trying it, you can purchase it for $39, which is a pretty attractive price. (A pro version, with more features, costs $249.) It was quite simple to use, and did a great job for me.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

My setup is similar to yours, so maybe this may be of some help. I have a Canon HV-20 camcorder and MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz; 4 GB RAM), running Final Cut Studio 2. The camcorder captures HDV, but I bring it in to FCP as ProRes422.

I have a CalDigit S2VR Duo (1 TB capacity) and CalDigit’s FASTA SATA adapter. The S2VR Duo is set up as RAID 0. I paid about $900 for it a year ago–I would imagine it’s less expensive now.

It works great for me. I’ve never had a problem with dropped frames.

Jim