Kevin Hamm
Forum Replies Created
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ah yes, i’m a complete dork. It would seem that for the macbook you’d need the Io line for your system. I would check, tho, on the new camera boxes, I can’t imagine that they don’t have a firewire port at all. Most things nowadays do, even if it’s on the side and not talked about much. Have you talked to the camera manufacturer?
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Yeah, highlight them all, using command-a on the keyboard if you choose, then right-click (or control-click) on one of them, choose Duration (tc:xx:xx) from the menu and then you get a dialog box asking you for the new duration.
Type in the following
.01
and then hit enter twiceand you’re done.
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I might suggest something like this: https://www.aja.com/html/products_macintosh_kona.html
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You’re presuming that there is an extra step between your timeline and the output format, and there isn’t. When using compressor or quicktime conversion, your source sequence is the input, and your settings determine the output, there isn’t anything else going on.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. When you export a timeline that has graphics, say from LiveType or Motion, and the final output is smaller than the source, it doesn’t take a direct conversion of your rendered timeline, it re-renders the entire timeline in the new format, so any overlays of graphics get redone correctly – but only from FCP. If you export a Quicktime movie and then do the conversion using that as source, the text will start at the settings that the quicktime pulled from FCP, and every piece of video is one track that gets re-rendered. It never looks bad, but it sounds to me like you’re pretty picky and would notice (I do, too, but I shut up about it, because no one else notices.)
So what you really wanted to know was how to avoid a generation gap from your LiveType, Motion or AE clips when outputting, and to do that, use the original timeline, no matter it’s settings, as it has the master (unrendered) clips from motion, ae and livetype.
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[paul nevison] “I just tried exporting via quicktime conversion and again messing with the various 16:9 options and still i get a 4:3 QT. “
I just tested my theory on this, and it worked fine for me, so I’ll walk you through it. Sorry that this has gone on so long, i’m usually not this braindead.
From Final Cut, you make sure your sequence is either selected in the browser or active in the timeline.
From the menu bar, choose Export>Quicktime Conversion.
In the dialog box that pops up, click the Options Button. This should give you the view where you see the pixel count and size for the video. In this case, since the only change I made to the sequence was checking the Anamorphic 16:9 box in the settings dialog, I see that my output quicktime movie will be 477×268 pixels.
Well that works, but there are more options. You can, at least in FCP 6, click on the size button of the movie settings panel and change to full-sized NTSC 16:9 – but you have to check the box down below to preserve the pixel aspect ratio and then choose how you want to do it – you can letterbox it, or crop it. either way. cropping, however, will get you back to where you were before.
Try that, and if you are still having problems, perhaps I can get a copy of your output file so I can see just what you’re making.
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Be happy they have anything to give you and use clean and serviced machines to play it back so you don’t a) ruin the only copy around and/or b) degrade an already ancient source. You’re going to get lots of weird source material. Save yourself some work later on and once you’ve got bits captured, back them up to disk or tape and move them offsite just in case.
Good luck with the project!
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[paul nevison] “you get the same problems if you import 16:9 QT from FCP into idvd….they get interpreted as 4:3. “
Aha, a clue.
When you are exporting your Quicktimes, which export option are you using? This is an important piece to the puzzle.
Now, back to where I pointed out the Anamorphic checkbox. Look again at the settings panel for the sequence and notice right above that checkbox there is the frame size setting – which doesn’t change when you click the anamorphic option. Why? Hold that question, it gets better.
When you import the quicktime file into iDVD or DVD Studio Pro you noticed that they get interpreted as 4:3, and now that you’ve just reviewed the frame size of your sequence, which is the source of the quicktime that you opened in iDVD, it’s obvious that it is interpreting it as a 4:3 video because, actually, it is.
This is where a bit of knowledge about the DVD spec and the convoluted mess it created actually did work as expected from the get go. The original DVD spec allowed for video up to 720×480 pixels, no more. So if a movie is going to be “widescreen” it’s actually got to give up some of the pixels to create the black bands on the top and bottom of the television screen so that it can view right. In other words, when you get a DVD movie and it’s widescreen, you aren’t getting a true anamorphic image, you’re getting two bars of black and the video in the middle as a sandwich.
Which then brings me back to how are you exporting the movie. Just exporting the Quicktime movie and making it self-contained will leave you with the 4:3-with-black-bars-to-pretend-it’s-16:9-fakery that is causing your headache.
However, if you export using Compressor or Quicktime Conversion, you can choose to export the Anamorphic sizes correctly and not have the black bars AND have the QT Player open the file right the first time.
So, I’m guessing you use Export>Quicktime Movie and just make it self contained. Am I right?
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Nope, i won’t call you stupid. I’ve done much worse than this, so don’t worry about it.
Open your final cut pro project
In the Browser, choose the sequence that is supposed to be 16:9 and then right-click or control-click on it with your mouse, and choose “Settings”
In the window that pops up, you’ll find five tabs, with the left most tab active. In that panel you’ll see a drop down for “pixel aspect ratio” which should be NTSC or NTSC CCR blah blah blah.
Right to the right of that is a checkbox for “Anamorphic 16:9” – check that. Voila!
Export the Quicktime and you should be good to go, unless you use a 4:3 ratio preset in compressor, but that’s another issue entirely.
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It’s not your preferences, otherwise no file would work. It’s not your scratch disks or your files on your boot drive, or again, other projects would crash as well. It’s just a corrupted project file.
Yes, I said that like it’s no big deal. And it’s not. You know why? Because unless you foolishly turned off the Autosave feature, you have a series of versions of this project in there that should work just fine. just go into your Autosave Vault and open the project using one of the last versions in there. You should be fine, then.
I’ve had this happen when stuff is stored on external drives, it’s a pain, and it sucks if you lose a ton of work, but amazingly, Autosave Vault really works brilliantly. Oh, and it should be “Save Your Ass When You Most Need It Vault”
kev~!
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