[Trevor Ward]

Thank you for that suggestion. I understand that I can batch convert. In fact, I’d be going into Lightroom and re-exporting the stills out of Lightroom.

The problem is this: I have over 500 stills in my timeline, that are already set with keyframe movements based on scale. I will now have to go into each image and type new scale numbers. THAT will take some time. At this point, it may be my only option, as I think installing Adobe Premiere, importing the FCP sequence into it, finding everything that didn’t translate properly, and making adjustments will probably take longer than re-scaling EVERY image in FCP. There are a lot of unknowns with this. Of course, just making small images has a lot of unknowns too, like, will this actually solve my problems by going to 3999×3999 images?

I really wish I knew this before starting this project. although I did this once before and had similar issues, I thought the issue was due to the file size of each still (about 16MB). This time around I had all my stills generated at less than 1MB.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

I did the same thing. although I got around $550 for my t2i. The main reason I upgraded was for the flip out screen. I do a lot of video and found the stationary screen on the back of the t2i (and 5d and 7d) to be too restrictive for documentary style run and gun stuff.

It’s totally worth the extra $150! and the footage is excellent.
https://vimeo.com/35342632

– Trevor Ward

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

But a 18MB picture isn’t abnormal. It’s quite common. I can buy a camera for $200 that takes 15mb pictures that I might want to throw into my production.

You’re missing the point, and so is Apple. I’m not making a 5000×3500 video. AE doesn’t seem to freak out. I hear that AVID works well with pictures. I’m sure Premiere works too.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Yeah, I get it. But it’s not like a 5000×3500 pixel image is an unreasonable image size. It came from a Canon prosumer camera. It’s not like it’s a 20,000 pixel by 40,000 pixel image.

Actually, perhaps FCPX IS the answer. AE is too slow, waiting for renders. I don’t own Premiere and am not ready to give up on FC. But ARGHHH!

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

This just pisses me off! I’m having this same issue. It’s only a 20 minute video. But it’s mostly photos, about 500 of them. Most aren’t that big, 10-18 MB, 5000×3500 pixels.

I am at least able to run the thing through compressor, which takes FOREVER.

Workarounds? Forget it. Why do I have to have work arounds? FCP should just work.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

To be clear, the word “convert” that you used can be taken two different ways:

1. “Convert” 60fps footage to 30fps footage, so that a one minute clip continues to play out at one minute and any audio plays normally and there is no speed change.
2. “Convert” 60fps to 30fps footage, so that a one minute clips now plays at two minutes, essentially becoming a speed change of 50%. This is what CONFORM does. If you shot 1 second of footage at 60 fps then you have 60 frames of footage. You can conform that clip to a 30fps clips, in which case, you still have 60 frames. It will take 2 seconds to go through all the frames. Or you can conform it to 24fps, in which case it will take 2.5 seconds to go through all the frames.

The CONFORM process doesn’t remove frames or convert a frame rate to another frame rate.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Yeah, as far as I can tell, it seems to be pretty straight forward. I’d recommend spending a few hours to run a few tests. You can play with shooting various shutter speeds to see if you like the motion blur. You can shoot at 1/60th of a second, or even 1/48th of a second (if the camera allows it).

-tw

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

I would shoot 720p30. This way the frame rate matches. And the uprezzing is less than if you shoot 1080.

Mixed frame rates are a big deal unless you have hardware cross-conversion. I’ve done mixed frame rate, using compressor as my cross conversion tool. It’s noticeable. It doesn’t look good. Why take the hassle and why downgrade your film?

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Yes, this will probably be my course of action. I’m running fcp 7 and I’ve really no reason to change, even if fcpx WAS what everyone was hoping for. Heck, the only reason I upgraded to 7 was so I could have the different flavors of ProRes, like Proxy. That was almost worth the upgrade price. Add in Color 1.5 and it was worth the upgrade. 7 is working great for me.

Of course, the allure of bigger, faster, stronger is always there.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

When? 12 months from now? Sounds like they went in a completely different direction and now they have to stop the train and go back the other direction.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl