Timeline rendering in FCP

[spinner]

I know I have seen people's posts about this, but it has been a loooooonnnngggg time since I've seen this addressed, soooo...

In FCP, there are times when you are dragging your clips to the timeline and they have to be rendered before you even do anything to the clip. I know that Final Cut Pro certainly has its quirks, but does anyone know whyyyy this happens or at least if there is a way to MAKE IT STOP!?

....geez.....


-- spinner

 

[escher]

The footage you put into a sequence has to have the exact same settings as the sequence itself or it has to be rendered.

Premiere 5.5 is making me miss FCP less and less. (No transcoding! More realtime! Woot!)

 

[spinner]

The footage you put into a sequence has to have the exact same settings as the sequence itself or it has to be rendered.

Premiere 5.5 is making me miss FCP less and less. (No transcoding! More realtime! Woot!)

Yeah, but I can't afford a new edit system and since I have FCP, it better do what I say!

...I yell at my system a lot....


Hmmm..... so maybe if I start a new sequence, this problem will go away.....?


-- spinner

 

[knightly]

Either make the sequence match the footage or use compressor to make the footage match the sequence.

 

[spinner]

I think I know just enough about compression to mess up whatever I am doing



-- spinner
p.s. -- I'm going to take a break and watch the Michigan State University/Wisconsin game. Go Green!

 

[knightly]

Must be time to learn... carpenter has to know his/her hammer

Sequence, right-click, settings, or info ... or in the preferences, there's a check box that allows you to select the sequence settings on creating a new sequence.

Now select one of them (prores 422 is a good one) for your sequence...

In compressor, drag your clip in and set the output to prores 422. Hit submit, go out for supper and a movie and then go to bed. At the end you'll have nice hires stuff to work on.

 

[spinner]

Now select one of them (prores 422 is a good one) for your sequence...

What is the difference betweeen ProRes 422 and ProRes 422 HQ? And that is HQ no HD.

I've been shooting in 24p and I'll be changing a lot of my settings, I can shoot in 30p but I'm not sure if I should use it. I have been shooting some short films...


-- spinner

 

[escher]

HQ uses a higher bit-rate and should result in fewer compression artifacts. Good to use for footage that will be run through multiple programs and so re-compressed multiple times.

 

[spinner]

I have another question just in case this can be corrected somewhat:

I am finding that some of my footage is soft. I'm pretty irritated with myself for not being more attentive, but somehow I ended up doing MUCH more for this event when I only wanted to sit there and eat my salisbury steak.

Is there a way to add a little definition to soft video? I will be bringing up the gain so that will help a bit, but I just was wondering if there was any more I could do.


-- spinner

 

[escher]

Learn the ins and outs of Unsharp Mask. Used correctly, this is a very powerful tool that can save slightly-blurry footage.

Be warned, however, that when used incorrectly the results are incredibly ugly. Use with a light touch.

 

[spinner]

Thanks! I'll take a look.



-- spinner

 

[escher]

I do remember that FCP's unsharp mask doesn't look as good as Adobe's software, so your mileage may vary.

 

[knightly]

You can also take a copy of the clip in the timeline on a new layer and using just the blue and green channels turned B/W, Multiply them over the source footage (with a low opacity) to bring out some of the stronger detail that lives in the blue/green channels (the red tend to have less detail).

You can then unsharp mask this clip rather than the original to preserve the integrity of the original footage while enhancing just the details from the 2 color channels.