Tom Brooks
Forum Replies Created
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Excellent!
The resources are scattered all over the net and in various books. Digital video is almost changing too fast for books that centralize information to keep up. One of the best places to start is the Final Cut manual. I”m not sure how easy it will be to use in the new HTML version. This site has always been a good source of information for me. If you don’t mind the annoying ads, the people that answer questions here are really top notch and impartial to any particular brand of gear—and BTW I put myself closer to the bottom of the list. Creative Cow has hundreds of articles and tutorials, some of which are essential to understanding how digital video in all its variations works. Also Ken Stone’s site, kenstone.net. A recent post listed this resource: https://www.proappstips.com/HDSurvivalHandbook/
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I should add that many folks prefer to work with self-contained files for various reasons. But if it’s strictly an intermediate the reference movie can be a great way to go.
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That’s right. If you want more control over the compression process, you can compress for DVD in Compressor and import the MPEG-2 and AC-3 files into DVDSP.
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[Pino Catalano] “Yes, and I said yes to allow FC to change the sequence to match the clip settings. “
OK, so FCP changed the sequence into this non-edit format. That’s generally a problem. The pre-conversion is the way to go. Good luck with it.
Yes, a reference movie can be used just the same, as long as the media it refers to is accessible–generally on the same computer to keep it simple. Before you export from FCP, your sequence should be fully rendered–no colored lines over the timeline.
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[Thumper Nagasako] “should I have those settings on at all times when exporting 60i? “
Not necessarily. You should only deinterlace 60i material if you intend to play it on progressive display devices such as computers. TVs can handle the interlace correctly, so it’s best left alone for that purpose.
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Yes, the MP4 explains a lot. That’s a delivery format, not an editing format. It’s best to convert those types of clips to a standard edit format before bringing into Final Cut. A great way to do that is to use the free program, MPEG Streamclip. You open the clips in that and export to Quicktime with the DV codec. Then bring the converted clips into Final Cut. You should see all sorts of improvement in the operability of the program that way. Of course, the conversion will need to be done wisely to avoid scaling and interlacing pitfalls. That’s beyond the scope of what I can tell you at this point.
One question: When you first placed one of the clips in your timeline, did Final Cut ask whether you wanted to change sequence settings to match the source clip and did you say yes?
A reference movie is a Quicktime movie that does not contain actual video and audio media within it. A reference movie points to–refers to–media that is stored somewhere else. For example, your exported reference movie would be a very small file which would refer to video and audio media stored in the clips on your scratch disk. Reference movies are a good way to export from Final Cut if you are going to use the movie for further processing on the same computer–say, for compressing to MPEG-2.
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Look at it on a TV. Seriously, the material is interlaced. The TV is either displaying the interlaced fields correctly in the case of a CRT, or it’s deinterlacing it nicely in the case of a flat panel TV. So it looks good.
The computer DVD player you are using is probably not deinterlacing or is doing it poorly and the computer monitor cannot properly display interlaced video. If it’s the Apple DVD player, you can set it to deinterlace and it should look decent.
Otherwise, you need to use a high quality deinterlace filter. The filter in FCP is not so good. One way is to deinterlace in Compressor when you make the MPEG-2. You do this by turning on Frame Controls and setting all quality settings to Better or Best and output fields to Progressive.
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You don’t mention the type of media or sequence settings you are using. That would be helpful.
What is the purpose of your exported movie? To go to Compressor for DVD? The first possible explanation is that you might be recompressing everything on export. Assuming, as you say, that all clips are rendered on the timeline, the fastest export to QT movie would be to Export Quicktime Movie, Use Current Settings, do not check Recompress All Frames, do not check Make Movie Self-Contained. This will create a reference movie which refers to the media already contained in your project. The reference movie can be used in Compressor to make MPEG-2 or other formats.
Even if you check “Make Self-Contained” it should not take 6 days. This could indicate some sort of system problem involving permissions, disk space, disk directory corruption, etc.
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As Steve implied Adobe has fully integrated H.264 into Flash, so hardware encoders that get you that can speed things up. Microsoft Silverlight has also adopted H.264. Look at their sites to get specifics on the exact specs accepted.
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Are you working in After Effects or something else? QT Animation is fine, but I’m not sure how much smaller it will be. You could try PNG. Very efficient 8-bit codec with alpha.