[Rory Brennan]

Bang for your buck!

Our facility used both FCP and Avid and we recently upgraded to FC Studio2.
The latest version of FCP has greater HD compatability and control and for $500 this is a better investment than upgrading one of our older avids to an adrenalin.

$500 V $35,000. hmmm…

Also, we use compressor enough to more than justify it. The latest version is much better and more user friendly. (though not perfect)

All the other updates are needed or appreciated but for us, we make enough money of FCP and Compressor, that the upgrade is already well paid off.

Though we’re a fairly top-end boutique post facility in NY and can easily justify it. hard to say that applies to everyone.

The CS3 update is another story. Just do it…

[Rory Brennan]

Because you’ve got final cut i’ll assume you have QT Pro. In order to retain the ability to use Pro instead of the regular, i believe you will have to uninstall (delete) FCP Studio and Quicktime.

The next step though i am not sure of the order.

Either go to Apple.com and download the version of QT you want and install. Then install FCP and it should be upgraded to Pro but Pro at the version you want.

or

Install FCP and QT Pro will also be installed.

Sounds like a lot, but could be worse. We’re getting a new avid but we’ll have to reinstall the OS from an old OSX install disk then update only to the level we need. We download the required OSX update from Apple.

[Rory Brennan]

For client approval we pretty much do the following:

Export Same as Source.

Compress using Sorensen Video 3 Pro Codec
700kbs
320X240
30 Keyframe
Smoothing
uLaw 2:1 Audio @16Bit 22k Mono

This pretty much does what you are asking for.
Remember, it’s client approval not Mastering so a quality concession needs to be made. Though our clips look really good and are still retain good clarity.

[Rory Brennan]

Generally the more things you run through the more delay. I noticed this drasically today when patching some HD video around a patch bay to different decks and monitors.

We have from the same video switcher a DVI line to a HD Sony Monitor and a SDI line to a Kona SDI to HDMI convertor to the plasma. because of this step in the line there is a slight delay though only about 1/3 a second.

looks great though

[Rory Brennan]

My guess is that you didn’t flip the fields, but rather they need lower (even) fields first. SD PAL is lower field first.

[Rory Brennan]

I think you would just need to adjust the presets accordingly to be the size you want. save as a custom preset i believe otherwise it might revert.

[Rory Brennan]

I believe this is an Aspect ratio problem. QT has always been a bit behind on all of this. It also depends on your final product as to whether this is an issue.

One thing i have done in the past though is to go into QT, Select “Show movie properties” select the video track and manually change the video to what i want the scale to be. Then save.

Most important to remember is that your video is HDV so it’s not really 1080p. It’s 1440×1080 i think and stretches out to 1920×1080. FCP knows this but QT doesn’t so shows it square pixels. That’s where manually changing the scale comes in.

Consumer codec i’m afraid.

[Rory Brennan]

Export the piece in 3 parts (if that is ok with the DVD Author) which will fit onto 3 DVD’s. It should be no issue for them to re-assemble.

Otherwise be a smart arse and ask them how they manage to accept 30min+ pieces as Quicktime. FTP???

[Rory Brennan]

Well sure, using filters for correction is pretty easy, but I woould assume that the expectation for the use of filters is to change the picture from what you have, NOT returning it to what you have.

Why buy something that does more change than requested.

We have also notived this darkening but since we mostly compress for basic client approval, we tolerate the problem.

Though this isn’t always a viable option, I have found that having just one compression suite isn’t always enough. We use compressor for some things (H.264 and DVD) and Squeeze for others (web based QT, Flash etc)

[Rory Brennan]

You’re kinda tricking yourself up here.
If you export the clip HD then it will remain HD. If you export it SD then it will be SD.

Having a HD-DVD burner will allow you to burn HD-DVD’s, and without this burner you won’t be able to make HD-DVD’s, but that doens’t mean you have no other HD options.
You can layoff to HD tapes or export HD Quicktime movies which you can put on your own Websites or burn to DVD/CD as data.

I don’t believe youtube or myspace would accept HD. If this is to be the only destination for your work then don’t bother Digitizing the footage as HD. Just do it as SD to save Hard Drive space and allow for optimal system performance.