Nicole Haddock
Forum Replies Created
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So are you doing a freeze frame, setting an in and an out, then doing a fit to fill? If so, welcome to the land of “it’s a feature, not a bug” and I can explain more. If not, then what are you doing? What’s the workflow the leads up to this issue?
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Well, it’s more of a Final Cut issue. While Final Cut can import PSD files, they’re not ideal. FCP wants to make the layer fill the frame, so that’s why each layer does it’s own unique whackjob stretch. If you work with TIFF files with alpha channels (the layers with text) you’re going to have much better results. All of the graphics we build in house, while they may start as PSD files, all get saved as TIFF files before coming into FCP. You do not get the layers, it comes in composite, but if you start fiddling with the alpha channels and text and saving out individual files, it works pretty well. Time intensive, sure, but things like drop shadows come across quite well, you can do nice bullet builds, etc. It’s a change of workflow, but something to consider.
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Can you post a screen grab of your timeline? I’m having a hard time understanding what exactly is going on.
What’s the source of the stills? TIFF, PSD, freeze frames generated by FCP? And how are they coming into the timeline?
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There’s no easy way to do what you’re doing. I’m not sure of the total benefit in your workflow to not doing self contained files, but if it works for you, groovy.
Personally, here’s what I would do.
1- Mirror the media. Don’t share over ethernet. But like I said, if it works, it works.
Then go assembly line-
2- Make a master sequence that has the elements you need for each clip. Put graphics on V2/V3/etc, audio on A3/A4, A5/A6. Put a marker in the timeline where the video should start.
3- Duplicate that, name it, and load the footage you need to edit. Do a 3 point edit, sink into your timeline. Presumably the video will be on V1, audio on A1/A2.
Rinse, repeat.
4- Move the required elements to where they need to be. THe marker you made in 2 will help when you enable snapping if it’s not already.
Rinse, repeat again.
5- Use the Export Queue to drag over all your sequences, tweak the settings, and export your movies. Go to lunch.
6- When you’re getting ready to leave for the night, take all those clips, toss them into Compressor with your settings of choice, let simmer.When I have to do a ton of stuff like this when it’s fairly simple, I have found that doing steps for a bunch of sequences CAN be faster, ie- do #3 for 10 sequences in a row. Then go back and do #4 for those 10 sequences. You get into the rhythm of the edit more easily. Also, worship your keyboard shortcuts. They’ll save you tons of time. SAVE AND SAVE OFTEN. If you start cruising along, Murphy’s Law will come along. Make sure you’re saving project backups to somewhere other than the drive you’re working off of.
Maybe this will help or not, but nothing can really automate the process. This gets you there a little quicker perhaps.
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It’s hard to say if it will playback flawlessly on your laptop. What’s the codec of your footage? Is it DVCProHD? 8 bit? 10bit? Etc? And without that knowledge, it’s also impossible to say how big the exported quicktime will be, but I would expect 90GB+ at least.
If you have the time, I think probably the best and easiest workflow is the following-
1- Go buy an Elgato Turbo h.264 – https://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/Accessories/Turbo264/product1.en.html – Some stores stock them, and the website will tell you if that’s the case, otherwise, just get one. It’s the best $100 doo-dad you can get.2- Export a reference movie of your timeline (counter intuitive to what I’ve said in the past, but hold on)
3- Take that into Turbo, squish it down to an h.264 with specs to your choosing. The Turbo speeds up h.264 compression. Don’t worry about showing him the best quality video. Your laptop only has screen space for so much HD video. As long as the audio is good, your frate rate is what you shot it at, you can probably squeeze it down to a 720 resolution of some sort.
4- Bring that to your client review. Should play back no problem on your laptop.
5- When all is said and done, the revisions are in, etc, THEN export a self-contained quicktime from FCP. It will be huge. Buy a new drive. Export to that. THAT is your show master. Use that for all future compressions. Dunk it to tape if you can so you have it on something more reliable than a hard drive.
So yeah, you’ll have spent between 2-500 for the final exports of the show (turbo + drive) but you’ll have it, in all it’s uncompressed glory, and you’ll have the Turbo, which if this is how you normally do client reviews, will pay for itself in the first 10 minutes of your review.
Just my .02 however 🙂
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Alternatively, you can just drag the tracks from the CD in the finder window, then drop them on a folder on your hard drive/wherever you’re editing. I will often use the iTunes interface to preview tracks, then drag my selects over on the finder level. If you need to convert stuff that isn’t already an AIFF/WAV, then involve iTunes.
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You’ve boggled me. Was some of the source footage only 4×3?? Otherwise, why wouldn’t you build it 16×9…
When in FCP with the export, does the weird pixel thing show up on your external monitor (I’m assuming you’ve got one hooked up).
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>so when you say NTSC DV does it give option of 30fps? If it did it would mean FCP knows it is progressive is that right?
When you do the setup, you’ll be capturing at 29.97fps. All (well, I’m pretty sure) progressive footage that’s shot on tape with the Panasonics and Sony cameras records at 29.97 and has progressive fields. If you shoot pA, that’s when you have to pulldown on the fly and get a 23.98 file.The footage will play back in a 29.97 footage and have the look and feel of progressive. FCP knows it’s progressive.
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>It looks fine viewed in 4:3 (the way it’s built), but also is fine squished into a 16:9 frame.
Wait, I’m confused. Is it built natively 4×3 in Motion or is built at a 16×9 ratio? If it’s 4×3, why are you squishing it into a 16×9 frame? Ahhh. -
I can’t speak for Canon tapes, but I’ve digitized Sony and Panasonic 30p tapes through FCP, no pulldown required on ingest (Easy Setup for DV-NTSC works fine).