[Matthew Shaw]

Well it doesn’t really have a scale option, unless I’m missing it.

It has a “Zoom” function that you can set to 100% or 133.3% or input it manually, and this “zooms in” while exporting so that the black bars will not show, but I’m not sure if that is the best way to go about it?

It also has a “Crop” function where you manually type in left, right, top and bottom margins.

Here is the Export menu for the program:

[Matthew Shaw]

Yes sorry, I mean “erased,” “deleted.” The version I had was giving me problems but I guess I will have to re-install at some point.

[Matthew Shaw]

Do you mean that I check the “Interlaced Scaling” box when I export?

And yes I am on a Powerbook, I just uninstalled Quicktime long time ago because I like Streamclip better.

[Matthew Shaw]

Hi again,

I think I see what you’re saying. I don’t have Quicktime on this computer, but when I open the “Stream Info” in MPEG Streamclip it says:

H.264, 160×120, 10 fps, 125 kbps

So I guess you are right, it is not 4:3. I guess this means I have to crop each one while exporting, right?

If this is right, is there anyway to automatically calculate the cropping values (i.e. margin numbers) in order to get rid of the black bars? Or do I have to input the margin numbers, preview it, then adjust the numbers accordingly? Is this the best way to go about this?

Thanks for your help!

[Matthew Shaw]

I see, but then why are there not any black bars when I first play the AVI?

They only appear after I’ve exported to DV. Which really sucks, because I have to Preview each DV to see if it needs to be cropped before importing into FCP/iMovie.

[Matthew Shaw]

Well I downloaded them from youtube, I didn’t create them, there are a lot of different ones. I’m not sure how to find this out. But when I export to DV using MPEG Streamclip, I pick 4:3

[Matthew Shaw]

Ahh okay, my sequence had the wrong Frame Size. So I changed it to “320 x 240” and now there is no black box! Thanks!

But still, when I export it to H.264, the playback in Quicktime is choppy. The audio is good but the video is too slow for the audio.

Do I need to change anything else? Like fps or anything?

I did: Final Cut Pro -> Export -> Using Quicktime Conversion

Format: Quicktime Movie

Options button -> Settings button (for Video)

Compression type: H.264

Frame Rate: Current

Key Frames: Every 24 frames

Frame reordering (checked)

Compressor Quality: High

Encoding: Best Quality

Data Rate: Automatic

These are the settings I used but the playback is still choppy(?)

[Matthew Shaw]

Thanks very much for your help, but I tried this with one file, and exported (using Quicktime Conversion) to H.264, and now there is a big black box around all sides of the video and the video is playing too slow for the audio. The audio is normal but the video is all choppy, lagging behind the audio?

[Matthew Shaw]

Oh I see…

So to change the sequence in FCP to 320 x 240, do I do it like this:

Final Cut Pro -> Audio/Video Settings -> Sequence Presets tab -> Edit button… then change the “Aspect Ratio” to “Multimedia Large (4:3)”?

That is the only way I could make the “Frame Size” change to 320 x 240… is this right?

I changed “Pixel Aspect Ratio” to “Square”

And there was nothing that said “Field Order,” but it said “Field Dominance,” so I changed that to “None.” Correct?

Now here is my next question: Some of the other MP4’s I want to have clips of in this sequence are 480 x 360 pixels (according to Quicktime Movie Inspector). So what do I do in that case?

Most of the clips are either 320 x 240 or 480 x 360, but some of them are:

450 x 360, 480 x 266, 480 x 320, 480 x 268

[Matthew Shaw]

Hi, thanks for your response!

Okay I am very new at this, so let me tell you exactly what I did and let me know if this is correct.

I used Movie Inspector in Quicktime to check the size of one of my MP4’s.

I didn’t know which “size” you are speaking of (There is “size” and then “data size”) and I didn’t see anything about “Pixel Format.” It showed the following info…

Size: 320 x 240 pixels

Data Size: 7.28 MB

Format: AAC, Stereo (L R), 44.100 kHz
H.264 Decoder, 320 x 240, Millions

Then in MPEGStreamClip, I went to File -> Export to Other Formats.

The format in the dropdown menu listed “Quicktime Movie.” Then I hit the “Options” button and then the “Video Settings” button, then in the “Compression Type” dropdown menu, I selected “Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2” and I left the “Frame Rate” dropdown menu on “Current.”

I kept “Frame Size” at “320 x 240 (unscaled)” and I couldn’t find anything that says “Pixel Shape” anywhere.

It said the Quality is “Medium” and would not let me change this.

…Is this all correct?

Then I started up FCP, and went to Final Cut Pro -> Audio/Video Settings and under the “Sequence Preset” dropdown menu, I selected “Uncompressed 8-bit NTSC 48kHz”

Correct?

Now my problem is that when I imported this MOV file into FCP, I received this message:

“The following media files are not optimized for Final Cut Pro.

It is highly recommended that you either recapture the media or use the Media Manager to create new copies of the files to improve their performance for multi-stream playback.”

Did I do something wrong?

The MOV plays back a bit choppy in Quicktime, but it looks and plays fine in the Viewer of FCP. Audio sounds fine too.