FCP Time Lapse File Size Reduction?

[Dave Allen]

So if one records in full time a 60 minute long video of say like a sunset or cumulus clouds forming over an hour time, and wants to speed it up in FCP to a 10 second clips, rather than a huge file size that 60 minutes of footage would represent, how does one take just the 1st frame of each 1 second clip and use that (just an example) so the file size is 28 times smaller?

[Erik Andersen]

Just put the full clip into a timeline, change speed to 360% in your example, turn frame blending off, and then export the sequence to create a new clip in the same codec. FCP will automatically "select" the frames it needs for the 10 second clip.

You could then delete the original file if you were sure you didn't need it anymore, or (better) back it up to some type of cheap storage.

If your codec is compressed such as HDV, I'd recommend rendering the new clip as prores.

[Dave Partington]

Just put the full clip into a timeline, change speed to 360% in your example, turn frame blending off, and then export the sequence to create a new clip in the same codec. FCP will automatically "select" the frames it needs for the 10 second clip.

I could be wrong here Erik - but 360% would take 16.67 mins to play (because it's only playing back 3.6 times faster), whereas 36000% would take 10 seconds.

You're definitely going to have to export that because FCP will have trouble playing that back in real time otherwise.

[Erik Andersen]

Thanks Dave! Guess I was thinking about 360 TIMES faster which would of course be 36000% ;)

[Dave Allen]

Thanks guys!