NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2004

[Joe Gioielli]

I tried to burn a FCP film with idvd but I've had some problems.

The film is 70 minutes long. First I tried exported it as a quicktime movie, I got 3/4 of the way through the burn and I got an error message. Then I expoted it asa "final cut pro" movie. Same result,

The error code is 2147352542.

Anyone know what this is about?

Thanks
Joe.

[Cannon Pearson]

Thanks.

[Grant McClintock]

Jeff, I am in the middle of a long back and forth email correspondence with Sounddog--very good support. Thanks for asking. Grant

[Kevin Kimmell]

Hi,

I'm at a friends and we're trying to colaborate on a project. She's put together video and audio in Final Cut Pro 4 and needs to export or render it so that I can pull it into my PC editing program (I use Vegas).

AVI's are fine so I don't think this will be a problem. The problem right nos is I know nothing about MACs and she knows enough to get her projects done just on the mac.

We rendered from FCP4 but to my chagrin it didn't prompt for a filename or location and when we search her hard drives for files with names similar to the project and there's nothing sizable enough to be the 14 minute file that we rendered.

Can anyone help me locate this magic file or perhaps explain the best way to output a high quality project from the mac so I can import it into my PC for further editing?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Ted Springer]

You have to export the movie.
File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion...
Format: AVI
Options: Video: DV/DVCPRO NTSC
Quality: Best
Frame Rate: 29.97
Sound: Compressor: None
Rate: 48000
Stereo

[Kevin Kimmell]

Is that lossless? I thought render was lossless and conversion used compression?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Ted Springer]

If you're going to the DV codec like I listed above, it will not lose anything from the timeline since it is not being recompressed, only creating a standalone file.

The DV codecs in AVI and Quicktime are the same. DV is DV. Only the structure of the format itself (Quicktime, AVI, etc) is different, not the actual data used.

If you're really concerned, install Quicktime on the PC and go to File > Export > Quicktime Movie (NOT Quicktime conversion). That just exports a standalone QT really fast with zero conversion, guaranteed.

[Kevin Kimmell]

Thanks a million. I just pushed the render out via export. Now I'm just going to have to figure out how to access the MACs firewire drive through the file sharing on this thing.

:)

Thanks again,
Kevin

[Murad Toor]

To make the tracking shot to split screen work smoothly, I suggest you change the framing of the lead guy just as the girl's image wipes in.

The camera follows the lead guy and he's more or less centered in the frame. His phone rings and very smoothly, the framing changes to where he's now fully on one side of the frame.

The shot of the girl push-slides in at a similar speed to the change in framing on the guy. Which side of the screen you place them depends on where they're facing, but they should be facing sort of towards each other. The phone call ends, she's push-slid out back to where she came from and the framing of the guy moves smoothly to where it was.

You could even cut to the split screen instead of wiping or push sliding. The cut could correspond tightly to the guy opening his phone or pushing "talk." Aesthetically it would make perfect sense, especially since it seems this is the guy's point-of-view. The empty half of the screen a second before and a second after the split-screen cuts would enhance the effect.

[Ted Springer]

I wouldn't even change the framing. You could just push the guy's image over. Or if you are shooting in widescreen (which you should be because 4:3 is evil) you could just take two full frame 4:3 images and butt them against each other. Like Jeff said, there are MANY ways to do this.

[Travis Cossel]

I'm pretty adept at altering colors of an image in Photoshop, but FCP (I'm in version 3) has several video filters that claim to be color correctors. Which of these do you guys prefer?

Also, I read a tip on here that to get a film look, you need to go into curves and make a lazy "S" curve. I can't seem to find a filter in FCP that has an actual curves adjustment interface (like the one available in Photoshop). Does anyone know if FCP even has this type of curves adjustment interface?

[Ken Tanaka]

I recommend a good book on color correction.

[Travis Cossel]

Thanks, Ken.

I've been doing more research, and found some links to more information on the internet. Here are the links for anyone interested . . .

-- very detailed article
www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cc_legal_fcp3.html

-- a DVD on color correction, looks pretty in-depth
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage...c_dft_dvd.html

-- a great little Quicktime video -- check it out!
www.dvcreators.net/media/colorcor.html

This was the best of what I found so far. If anyone else has any advice to add, especially if anyone can comment on locating a visually-representative curves filter in FCP, please do. Thanks in advance!

[Joe Lloyd]

Just saw a couple academic version of DVDSP2 on ebay. Whats the difference? I mean If I am creating DVD's for home use is there any reason why I couldnt use this version?

[Ted Springer]

Just the license. You cannot legally use it for projects in which you could make money. That's it. The features are the same.