Huge frustrations in Final Cut Pro

[Mike Butir]

Hi everyone,

I have been having numerous problems in Final Cut Pro for the proper procedure on how to Export HD footage at its fullest quality. I shoot with a Sony NX5U and after im done exporting the footage, it always looks terrible. meaning that the footage is distorted and when i go to view full screen it almost looks like Standard Definition... Im not shooting with any gain on the camera so i know that cant be a factor in this case. My import settings are.. Sequence settings " Apple Pro Res (HQ) 422 1920 x 1080 30P" (for when im shooting 30p of course) Capture Preset "HDV Apple Pro Res (HQ)" when i export as a "quicktime movie" set to current settings it always looks bad! I have been messing around with this for a while and i cant seem to figure out what it is that i am doing wrong.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks Everyone!

[Tim Dashwood]

Don't use any 1080 "HDV" setting for sequence or export because it will be compressed to 1440x1080 and not square-pixel 1920x1080 as your AVCHD camcorder records.

[Bill Davis]

If you'll forgive me for getting all "philosophical" on you and agree not to take this personally, I'd like to address a very common concept that I see all the time in folks asking questions in this forum and elsewhere in today's "instant on-line culture."

I call it the "just give me the answer to my problem - I don't want to mess with anything else" syndrome.

I completely understand that. In fact, I feel that way myself a lot.

Perhaps it's the result of our instant gratification mode where we're conditioned to expect that the answer to anything is a couple of Google clicks or a DVInfo.net post away - and that this is the proper way to learn.

The problem is that while this often generates ANSWERS - it shortcuts the learning process.

We want to do something. We try. We fail. So we go online and ask someone to give us the answer. Get the answer and move on. I get that. It's efficient, fast, and satisfying.

But before this was possible, the process was more like: I try something. I fail. I adjust something and try something else, but I fail again, and again, and again and again until I finally succeed.

It's annoying, inefficient, and time consuming. But the undeniable fact is that along that difficult path you don't just learn about what works right now - you learn ALL ABOUT the process of what you're trying to do.

You build DEEP knowledge rather than just SURFACE knowledge. And you also learn that the process that works to solve today's question will likely also work to solve tomorrow's questions.

It's the knowledge equivalent of the "give a guy a fish and you feed him today - TEACH a guy to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" old saying.

I say all this because you self-titled this using the term "huge frustrations" - and to me that's a clue that if you're going to avoid getting back to the same emotional place over and over again in the days ahead - you've got to solve the real issue with your current approach.

For what it's worth.

[Arnie Schlissel]

Originally Posted by Mike Butir

I have been having numerous problems in Final Cut Pro for the proper procedure on how to Export HD footage at its fullest quality. I shoot with a Sony NX5U and after im done exporting the footage, it always looks terrible.

Honestly, you're starting off with a camera that doesn't record "HD at its fullest quality", so you have no right to expect to get it out the other end. If you really want "HD at its fullest quality", you need to start with a camera that can record in a high quality codec, or that has an HDMI or SDI output that you can connect to an external recorder like an AJA Ki or Convergent Nanoflash.

If, for some reason, you decide that you really cannot afford this, then you may need to adjust your expectations down a bit.