[Kai Cheong]

I’ve subtitled a corporate video before using Arabic subtitles. Just make sure you have a trusted and professional translator doing the work for you, esp. if you don’t have an Arabic-speaking editor/producer who’s able to check through as s/he edits. My edits had very clear and short sections, so even though I’m not Arabic-speaking, I could place each section more or less in its right place. If it’s a longer piece, you might want your translator to be more precise in indicating, with timecode, how each sentence should be placed.

The Arabic subtitles probably needs a little more space/height than English subtitles in order to be readable, so you might want to factor that in when shooting eg. don’t shoot too tight on faces and leave more room below, esp. if you need to super AND subtitle.

Other thing to note is that Arabic reads from right to left and it’s a little tricky when you’re trying to separate your sentences, since you might accidentally break up a phrase and change the meaning altogether. It takes some getting used to. Plus, you’ll need to obtain a readable Arabic font – perhaps you could arrange that with your translator.

Other than that, I find the subtitling work to be as… gruelling… as any other language :]

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

By ‘adding to it’, does it mean the client is going to bring it into a post house to do more editing on it?

I’d think the best option is to export the 60s as a Quicktime Movie with Current Settings. But a 60s with DV codec would be ~220MB. Though you could solve that by using https://www.sendspace.com/ [300MB limit for its free service].

Is it possible to pay for a pay-per-use premium YSI service just for this then? $8.99 gets you a 2GB limit. So you can even fit an uncompressed 10-bit Quicktime file in there!

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

I assume you’re editing your 16:9 footage in a 4:3 sequence, which explains the letterbox you’re getting?

You’ll need to resize the footage slightly bigger to compensate for the displacement. Then over that particular clip, either create 2 black bars using Matte > Color and place them on the top and bottom…

OR to make things simpler, use Andy’s Letterbox 2 filter:
https://web.mac.com/andymees/Free_and_Easy/main/main.html

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

If you’re capturing HDV, there is a ‘Create new clip on Start/Stop’ under Clip Settings in the Log and Capture window.

If not, I found a possible workaround:
https://www.eventdv.net/Articles/News/Feature/Tutorial-|-Cut-Lines-Final-Cut-Pro-DV-Start-Stop-37862.htm

The one issue about using this method is that you need to go through ‘Capture Now’. If you want to play safe, you could still log your footage roughly, capturing them in 10-min parts and then creating sub clips afterwards.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

YouSendit.com has been a useful tool for us when it comes to sending cuts to clients. Though instead of telling YouSendIt to send the link directly to our clients, we usually include the link in an email, with comments and simple instructions. Also, just to make sure the link reaches the client without bouncing etc.

My preference is to encode to Quicktime movies using H.264 compression, but a lot of our clients are in PC-based environment, so I usually have to make do with .WMV [using Flip4Mac].

We have our own FTP server, but since a lot of our clients work in organizations with strict firewalls, don’t have admin privileges to their own system or are not tech-savvy, we gravitate towards YouSendIt more often than not.

Turnaround time and costs for web delivery sure beats couriering a DVD :]

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

Another free conversion software you could try is MPEG Streamclip.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com
At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

Hi Kathleen,

There could be many reasons why your images are still fuzzy – and most of them would not be due to the .tif format, since that’s a good format for bringing stills in [as long as the photos themselves are sharp, are at least screen size if you want them full-screen and not expanded more than 120%].

A few things you might want to check:

1) Is your sequence in offline RT? If yes, your stills would be rendered at lo-res together with the rest of the sequence.

2) Under Sequence > Render, is the light green ‘Preview’ ticked? If not, whenever you hit Apple + R, any areas with the light green bar [often occurs with stills] would not render. As far as I recall, the green ‘Preview’ is not ticked on default.

3) On the top left of your sequence, what’s your Playback Video Quality? If it’s medium or low, things would look fuzzy.

You could easily move the lower third down to where you want it by going to the Viewer > Motion tab > and changing the ‘Y’ value of ‘Center’.

Not sure how it works with Illustrator, but if you bring in a .tif from Photoshop and leave the transparency embedded, the transparency would act as an alpha when the .tif is brought into FCP.

Hope it helps some.

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com

At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

Perhaps a mind-reading, neuro-sensing FCP 11 – takes away the need to remember and button-mash complicated shortcut keys? Surely, it’ll be a good example of editing using Murch’s idea of ‘In the blink of an eye’ ;]

The oblong system seems like… fun. It’ll be perfect if they also developed some Star Trek-like seat/pod to go with the setup.

If fate is kind to me, I’d hopefully still be editing by the time FCP 11 rolls round in due course… so this is exciting stuff!

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com

At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

Hi Wesley,

I’ve done the Export to Quicktime > Compressor > DVD Studio Pro workflow for quite a few projects and previews already – and it has served me well. Perhaps you want to make sure a few things are in order?

1) The correct sequence was highlighted and exported. Since you’re not exporting a self-contained Quicktime, the file will be pretty small.

2) Remember to export the Quicktime with ‘Current Settings’ and not with any form of compression.

3) If you’re using an external hard disk for your media, remember to keep the external HDD plugged in when you send the Quicktime to Compressor – since you’re exporting a reference, not self-contained, Quicktime.

4) You CAN do CBR and 1-pass in DVD Studio Pro – you just need to tweak the settings yourselves, after selecting a preset to begin with. Once you have your CBR and 1-pass setting done up, you can save that as a preset for your future projects.

5) After you churn out a .m2v AND .ac3 file, you can then encode a DVD, either through DVD Studio Pro or Toast Titanium [just make sure you select the ‘never re-encode’ setting].

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com

At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2

[Kai Cheong]

Update: Burnt a test DVD in DVDSP and everything looks fine on a 42-inch Plasma TV :] No scary interlacing lines, text is sharp.

So, this will probably be my workflow until I upgrade to FCS2!

Kai
FCP Editor / Producer with Intuitive Films
—
Now ‘LIVE’! Check Out The Intuitive Films Blog @ https://intuitive-films.blogspot.com

At Intuitive Films, We Create: TV Commercials, Documentaries, Corporate Videos and Feature Films
Visit us @ https://www.intuitivefilms.com
—
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz | 4GB RAM | FCP 5.1.4 | Mac OS X 10.5.2