[Nick Meyers]

when working on a project, it can pay to establish the correct sort of sequence as your default.
you do that in the A/V settings,
and if your project requires a setting that isn’t available, then you need to duplicate an existing setting and modify it.
(note: all the 24p sequence settings are actually 23.976 fps, so if you need true 24fps, then you have to create your own)

while you can rely on FCPs ability to adjust the sequence to match a clip’s settings,
it wont work if you are copy / pasting a bunch of clips, as you found out.

anyway, the EASY thing to do is to make a new sequence, edit one of your clips in,
and say YES, you want the sequence settings to match the clip.
then get rid of that one clip, and paste your other timeline in.

thats only easy if you really are at the end of this job,
if it continues, just go into A/V settings and tick the appropriate box.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

if you put the ProRes files in an identical sequence,
and export from that sequence using “Same Settings”
there wil be no generational loss at all, merely a transfer of one & zeros.

and just so you know, FCPX multicam can deal with camera stop / stats.

nic

[Nick Meyers]

“For some reason, FCP 7 will no longer launch”

what have you done anything to your system lately?
updated something?
installed something?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

yes, you need to convert the audio

convert it to AIFF 48k 16bit

nick

[Nick Meyers]

if you media manage as Shane suggests, then the sequence audio outputs are completely irrelevant.

it’s odd that you are being asked to convert the media to non-editable formats like H264 and AAC audio.
i guess they will re-transcode it on the other end?

if your audio is 2 tracks only, then i think that you need to make it stereo and convert it as stereo,
than you have a chance of keeping your two tracks separate.

as i say media manager will not change the audio in your files, just trim them of any excess.
so test your conversion to H264 & AAC audio before you go down this path

you CAN change the audio format in FCP by dragging the clips into a timeline,
and making them stereo. (select all, Option L, CHECK YOUR PANNING!)

you can cull the clips in the timeline, too.
then copy/ paste into a new bin, and do a batch export.
Export as QuickTime movies, same settings, USE IN TO OUTS to trim.

(as you are going to convert all these files to H264 you could export as non-self contained. it’s a lot faster, but risky in the long run)

this will create new files with STEREO audio, which might convert to AAC better for you.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

[Rafael Amador] “The Hollywood movies DVDs distributed in Europe are NTSC”

that’s not quite true,
Most Hollywood movies DVDs distributed in PAL territories are PAL
i base this on living in Australia, and buying a lot of DVDs locally and from the UK, and some from France & Germany.
plus there is the issue of region coding

however, it is not uncommon to see NTSC versions for sale in all these territories

the PAL versions are, almost universally, made by playing the source material at 25fps

nick

[Nick Meyers]

oops.
i took so long to reply that Dave beat me to it!

i’ll add that Graeme Nattress makes a highly reccomended plug in for doing the standards conversions in FCP.
cheaper than Twixtor

nick

[Nick Meyers]

1st question:
do you really need to convert to PAL?
most DVD players and TVs in PAL territories will play back NTSC, and have been able to do so for years.

2nd question.
why use Toast for format conversion?
that’s what Compressor is for

the simplest, and probably best looking way to do this is to make a copy of your teaser,
open it in Cinema Tools, and CONFORM it to 25fps
then take that file, and make your DVD components in Compressor,
and create a DVD in DVDSP. (or Toast)

conforming gives the best motion as it’s a frame-for frame conversion.
possible problem is the clip will play a bit fast

another option is to take you teaser, run it though compressor to do a standards conversion,
then put that back in compressor to make your DVD components, then make a DVD.

i suggest the two step process, as suspect trying to standards convert while making your mpeg files is asking for trouble.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

what is different between your systems?
what is different between your workflows? (and / or media?)

” it seems to be random, and varies clip to clip”

sounds a bit like a linked audio / subclip issue.
though i haven’t seen that sort of thing for years

what format is your audio?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

FCP will only provide RT effects on specific sequence settings
your custom setting would have no RT effects at all,
so you’d have to render any effect, even a dissolve

and would your 4k be camera original?
it would probably not have a look on it, and you may find you’d want to colour correct.

making exports for screenings, or any form of moving media around will take a lot longer with the larger media files

for me, having to deal with those sorts of handicaps even minute of the day is a lot more inconvenient than a re-conform,
i’d much rather be able to edit quickly and easily, without excessive rendering, and with my rushes looking somewhat like they should.

nick