[Ken Barnes]

Hi Steve,

This is an old post but if you’re still getting replies, I have a question since you’re a Matrox person. (Matrox Customer Support is rubbish)

I have Matrox MX02 Max. I used compressor to make a .264 file (there is no ‘h’ before the period in the file) However, nothing accepts this file. Neither toast, nor encore, nor matrox vetura playback.

I just want to burn a BluRay disk with the 18gb file. Toast says the .264 file is “an unsupported format and cannot be imported”

I tried custom settings in the encode window in Toast 11.04 but no joy.

Any ideas? Which Compressor>MatroxMX02> settings do you recommend? What is the final format that Toast will accept?

Thanks, Ken

‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh

I think this applies to editing as well….

Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

[Ken Barnes]

Thanks for the detailed and clear response. Much appreciated. I’m sure I’m not the only one to benefit from your generosity, although the subject line might not grab as many folks as it could. Maybe this should be part of another thread where workflows are covered.

In my case, I haven’t really noticed any dropped frames or loss in quality so I don’t think I’ll be changing things. Even the subtitles, scrolling credits and the few effects look pretty good.

But for future projects, it’s definitely what I’ll do.

It’s strange but whenever I drop a H264 file straight from the camera onto a new FCP 7 sequence timeline and it says ‘match sequence to clip?’ and I click ‘OK’, the timeline immediately goes to HDTV 1080i (interlaced!) Weird. Do you have any idea why that would be? The clip has not gone through Mpeg Streamclip or Log and Transfer. Imported right off the CF card. And it doesn’t seem to matter what the sequence preset is set to. It’s not that I’d edit in H264 but it would surely be progressive so I find this odd.

Finally, what should the final sequence/timeline be set at for clips converted to ProRes422 (non-interlaced)? Do you have to type in a Custom Frame Size? There doesn’t seem to be a 1080p option on the pull down menu in sequence settings.

Thanks again. Ken

‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh

I think this applies to editing as well….

Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

[Ken Barnes]

Wow. Thanks Mark. I’m truly sorry to take your time with a question that isn’t relevant anymore. I had emailed the festival to ask for clarification and the delay in their reply and the upcoming deadline meant I had to assume they wanted 4:3, weird as it was. Turns out they sent off old information. I wonder how many others are/were freaking out.

HOWEVER, your question about why my footage is interlaced is a good one and maybe I’ve been doing something wrong.

It was shot in NTSC 60 (or 30?) before Canon’s firmware upgrade came out. Not sure if that makes a difference. I sent all the footage through Mpeg Streamclip to convert to ProRes422 because FCP (and or my older MacPro) doesn’t handle the H264 files from the camera very well. The default in MPeg Streamclip is ‘Interlaced Scaling’ and I think I ticked HDTV 1920X1080 when I did the conversions. The only preset in FCP 7 sequence settings that shows 1920X1080 is the HDTV preset which is interlaced. I suppose I might de-selected ‘Interlaced Scaling’ in Mpeg Streamclip and then made a Custom sequence in FCP of 1920X1080. Strange there’s no sequence setting for that that is not interlaced. Should I have chosen something else? Never had any rendering problems, etc.

The big question now is: Have I affected the quality of my film by doing this? Would it be worth it to re-import everything de-interlaced (or more properly non-interlaced)? I did figure out a cool workflow to replace multiple clips a while back… if I can remember. I think I posted it here or maybe another forum. But is it worth the effort? Certainly not for this festival. No time. But for others?

Thanks and once again apologies, but maybe some good info has come out anyway. I hope to hear from you again about this last question.

Ken

‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh

I think this applies to editing as well….

Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

[Ken Barnes]

Hi All,

Well it turns out that the festival’s information was copied, pasted and sent from some prehistoric festival and that it’s fine to send them 16:9 bluray after all. Hallelujah. Never want to look at 4:3 again, ever.

Anyway, the invite to the Quad cinema in Greenwich NY on 18th Nov. at 2pm still stands! Come one, come all.

I couldn’t have finished the film without all the great advice on the Cow so hats off to all who helped.

Ken

‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh

I think this applies to editing as well….

Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

[Ken Barnes]

Hi, This is a slightly old thread, but I ran into exactly the same problem as Alec and found a reasonable fix that might save others a bunch of time.
I had a timeline set up incorrectly for 1440X1080 ProRes422LT and needed the whole sequence converted to 1920XX1080 and ProRes422. All my footage had been compressed with MPEG Streamclip. To complicate matters, my LT sequence had no original audio, but synced audio using PluralEyes. I found this thread and figured I was out of luck. But I decided to try something and it worked!! But only if you kept your original footage out of the camera. Do this:

– Select the entire LT sequence
– Export an EDL to desktop (ignore any warnings)
– Make a new sequence with 422
– Import the EDL to the new sequence (all media will be offline)
– Recompress all original .MOV footage to 422 .mov (Hope you kept the originals!!) Give it a unique destination.
– Select ALL new sequence and right click to Reconnect Media. Follow the steps in the Reconnect Window.
– All of your new footage will be imported onto the new timeline BUT it will not be in sync with proper INs and OUTs, of course, but at least the properly referenced media will be there.
– Keep both old sequence and new sequence tabs on the timeline
– Toggle back and forth, finding the first frame of the desired clip on the old sequence by double clicking it
-Note and/or copy the TC marker of the old footage
-Toggle to new sequence
-On the first frame of the clip, click Match Frame (keyboard F)
-Type the TC from old sequence into the Viewer and push Enter
-Make an IN point
-Then simply push REPLACE (F11) and the correct media will magically fill in, the same as the old sequence

There are a lot of steps and I hope I have made them clear enough… It beats re-editing the whole project and once you get into the flow, it doesn’t take so long. For me, with no synced audio, I had to copy all the .wav audio from my old sequence and paste it onto the new. Therefore it was essential to have precision syncing going on when I re-did the new video. I found this to be the only way.

Finally, I can see a clear difference between LT and 422. The colours are much richer (I noticed it in reds) in 422 and small details leap out (teeth on a zipper, hairs, etc.). Someone suggested stacking an LT and a 422 on top of each other on the timeline, then right clicking and selecting: Composite Mode>Difference. If the Canvas is Black, there is no difference. I found many examples of difference between them.

I hope this helps someone and they can find this in a search. Might be worth it’s own topic, actually. Moderators?

Ken

‘It’s not a question of becoming. It’s a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away’. – Journey to Ladakh

I think this applies to editing as well….

Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
http://www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

[Ken Barnes]

Quote: ‘Check your deck’s menu setting for “iLink”. It needs to be set to “On”.’

But if you do that, the footage won’t be HDV but SD.

Anyway, I cannot get any joy trying to import HDV into FCP 7.0.2 “Cannot capture” messages no matter what settings I use. Another forum suggests that the firewire port on the camera is fried and that is looking like the answer for many people. Apparently you cannot hot plug or unplug the cable even though the 4 pin end is not supposed to be hot.