[John Fishback]

Yes. 48kHz sample rate is good. I use WAV, but AIFF is basically the same. If you’re sharing files, I’d use WAV as it’s more common, especially in professional use. While not necessary, I use 24-bit bit depth.

[John Fishback]

I don’t see the image that comes up.

[John Fishback]

I have an M2 Max MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM and a 2 TB SSD. It works great and will do everything you need, but I’d have gotten 64GB of RAM if I had to do it again. There are times with Final Cut, Photoshop, and other apps open that the available RAM drops to 3 or 4 GB, and Final Cut becomes unhappy. If I run Memory Clean and free up 8 to 10GB of RAM, all is well.

If you choose the M4 Mac Mini, I suggest you max out the RAM with 32GB and get a 1TB SSD. It’s less than $1500.

If you haven’t checked out Apple’s refurbished gear, take a look. Occasionally, there are very good deals.

[John Fishback]

I agree that to have more formatting options, titles are the way to go. Here’s a tutorial from Ripple Training.

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[John Fishback]

This is a muscle memory thing for me so I’m not sure this works. I think if you click on the field with 250, you can enter a number in excess of the slider, hit return and, hopefully, you’re good.

[John Fishback]

I understand. Less is more.

[John Fishback]

I’m not an expert in AE. You didn’t mention the background. How about placing a copy of the background over the leaves and masking it to reveal or hide the leaves. Not elegant, but might work.

[John Fishback]

I don’t edit with Premiere, but use Adobe Media Encoder. You might be able to do this in Premiere.

Bit rate and resolution are the parameters that most affect file size. I’d start with a bit rate of 500kbps and lower your resolution to 720P. AME will show you the estimated file size after you enter the parameters.

H.265 will give you better quality compared to h.264 at the same bit rate. So you can go to a lower bit rate with h.265 and maintain quality, if the copyright office accepts that CODEC.

Be sure to use 2-pass encoding as that will increase quality compared to 1-pass. Also, use variable bit rate. Hope this helps.

[John Fishback]

Checkout 7toX. It may help.

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Testing the 7toX Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X conversion by Scott Simmons - ProVideo Coalition

When Apple released the latest Final Cut Pro X update there was a very important 3rd party utility released right alongside the 10.0.3 update that finally allowed the importing of legacy FCP7 projects into FCPX. It wasn't entirely surprising that … Continue reading

[John Fishback]

I recommend Topaz Labs’ Video AI. They have a free trial.