Scale and Matte

ussinners

ussinners

When I shoot using my crappy camcorder or when I used an XL-1 to make my first movie. There were two constants.

1. When I looked in the MOTION section of the VIEWER the clips always started at 100% in SCALE.

2. If I used motion keyframes on a clip and then added a widescreen matte the matte would be on top, so the movement would not change the size of the picture. It would just seem like the camera zoomed in.

The above were used with Final Cut 4.5 and I had no problems.

I've just updated because we're using advanced equipment.

Here's the basic technical info I think might be needed to help figure out the problems.

I have Final Cut 6.0.1 with a G5 PowerPc
Camera being used; Canon 5DMKII HD video
The video codecs is Apple ProRes 422 (LT), Timecode, Interger (Little Endian)
Vid Rate is 23.98
Frame Size 1920 x 1080

When I drag a clip to the timeline it says:

For Best performance your sequence and External Video should be set to the format of the clips your editing. Change sequence setting to match the clip settings? I click YES.

It plays great.

I noticed when I go into MOTION in the VIEWER the scale is at 66.67 or 37.5 %.
The picture in the BROWSER is perfect. When I export it plays perfect on my computer.

While this might not be a problem, if I export a movie and show it on a huge screen, will the scale pose a potential problem? Is there a reason with this new equipment that the scale changes so drastically?

My second problem is using keyframe motion. We're shooting widescreen. So, when I add keyframe motion is destroys the size. I add a widescreen matte over the motion. It doesn't work. The size still changes as the motion takes place. I can't figure out this problem.

However, if I just cut a clip in two and increase the scale of one of the clips, place a widescreen matte over the enlarged scale it works perfectly.

Any help with these two items would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks: George
 
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Nesting is your friend. Just wait until you get to use After Effects -- it's all about nesting (which users often refer to as precomping).

Also, there are other ways to add widescreen masking. In FCP, I like to use two black color solids on separate layers, that are cropped to make the masking. It looks perfect. You don't have to use a matte.

About the size issue, is there a reason you can't just reset your scale settings to 100%? What happens if you do? Also, FCP often will change your aspect ratio settings when placing a clip into a timeline, so make sure these settings are also correct.
 
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Doesn't FCP let you drop 1920x1080 footage on a 1920x800 sequence? I mean how are you supposed to re frame the shots? Are you saying you have to KEYFRAME motion animation in your parent timeline? That would suck eggs. I mean, what if you shorten a take in the child timeline.. all your keyframes in the parent are now off. doh!
 
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The widescreen I worked out. That's back to normal.

I'm used to FCP 4.5. I'm a simple editor, so I really don't do anything fancy.

Wheat: What is a 1920x800 sequence? How do I set that up?

Dirty: When I increase the size to 100% it zooms in. So, I really only get a fraction of the picture. Complete it's at 37.4%. For the computer it's fine. Just look at the video I just put up. I'm just worried when I finish the movie and export it, it's going to look like crap on my TV or a larger screen, since it's starting out at 37% of the real picture size.

Someone told me that ProRes is something new to FCP 7.Maybe I can get my DP to change the format he uses for the footage.
 
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@ussinners,
sorry Im using Adobe Premiere terms. When I start a new time line (Sequence) I can set the output screen resolution. 1920x800 is my approximation of super wide screen (1920x1080 is 16:9 wide screen) The video will render at 1920x800 not 1920x1080 with black bars. Its a subtle difference and might not work well for projection.

More importantly, even with using a black bar mask, I can shift the position of the 16:9 clips up\down as needed for framing in super wide screen per clip.
 
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Dirty: Much different then with a normal camcorder setting.

Normal is 360 & 240

New Footage is 960 & 540

I took the settings and changed them to 360 & 240 and it definitely shrunk the picture to where when I increased the scale to 100 it filled in the canvas. But, it lost the widescreen, giving the actors that skinny even though I'm not look (Ann Wilson of Heart effect).

Is there a way to remedy this? So, it fits properly in both scale and distort?
 
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FCP often changes the Aspect Ratio and/or Distort settings on import. You have to manually adjust these until they are correct.

Your Scale should always be at 100%; if it looks wrong at 100%, it's almost always the Aspect/Distort settings.

Aspect ratio should default to 0%.

The Distort numbers should be exactly half your image size. In other words, with 1920x1080 footage, all of the numbers in the left-hand Distort Column should be 960 (or -960), and in the right-hand column should be 540 (or -540).

Try these settings and report back. I would also double check your Sequence Settings (CMD-0) to make sure that they jibe with the footage.
 
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Dirty: I imported and put on a sequence a clip and here's what I got and it looks PERFECT. But, all the numbers are off.

All the numbers I list have been done automatically by FCP 6

Scale: 37.5
Distort : Left is -960 & 960 Right is -540 & 540
Aspect Ratio is -12.5

With these numbers the picture is perfect.

I'm guessing when I export a full movie it will suck on anything larger then a computer screen. Am I wrong about that?

Also, how do I check the CMD-O of the sequence?

Thank You: George
 
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That video is useful. I'm curious how you converted your DSLR footage to ProRes. I don't use this kind of DSLR footage (I use transcoded AVCHD, myself, these days), so am less familiar with some of the specific problems -- but once you have converted it to ProRes, it shouldn't matter. The settings shouldn't deviate like you mention.

CMD-0 is the command button plus the number zero key (oops -- may have typed a letter "O" in the last post). But click your timeline first to make it active, then this shortcut will work. What are your Sequence Settings? (Only video, don't care about audio.)
 
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DirtyPicturesTV said:
That video is useful. I'm curious how you converted your DSLR footage to ProRes. I don't use this kind of DSLR footage (I use transcoded AVCHD, myself, these days), so am less familiar with some of the specific problems -- but once you have converted it to ProRes, it shouldn't matter. The settings shouldn't deviate like you mention.

CMD-0 is the command button plus the number zero key (oops -- may have typed a letter "O" in the last post). But click your timeline first to make it active, then this shortcut will work. What are your Sequence Settings? (Only video, don't care about audio.)
Click to expand...

CMD-0 did it. It was set to 720 x 480. When I changed it to 1440 x 1080 the scale/distort are at their correct numbers. But, the aspect ratio is now 33.33 to look normal.

I think that's the problem. FCP6 doesn't have a 1920 x 1080 setting.

I forgot to say I'm not transcoding the footage myself. The DP does it (he has FCP7 and everything else) He's just giving me the transcoded .mov files.

I have to figure something out. We have to use this camera for the movie. The difference between the footage is incredible.

THANK YOU for your help. If you have any ways I can fix that last aspect problem let me know.

If not, this is much better then it was.

Thanks again: George
 
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As I thought. FCP doesn't always guess correctly when creating timeline settings on video import. I'm also using FCP 6 -- I think that FCP 7 is slightly smarter about this process than 6.

What's your Pixel Aspect Ratio? Should be "Square."

Is your Anamorphic box checked or unchecked? Should be unchecked.

FCP 6 does not have a default 1920x1080 setting in Sequence Settings, but it does have Custom 16:9, which is what you want to use.
 
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THANK YOU AGAIN DirtyPiecturesTV that worked like a charm. Not only is everything at the proper settings, I also was able to put some motion keys and it didn't lose the widescreen. AMAZING... YOU ROCK!!!

Thanks, Thanks, Thanks.
 
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