JPEGs are highly compressed, which means they often show blockiness or other image artifacts. However, they tend to have smaller file sizes. TIFFs are uncompressed with great image quality. However, their file sizes tend to be lots bigger. All things being equal, I recommend using TIFFs.
As you know, most versions of Final Cut Pro are tied to work best with certain versions of QuickTime. However, as time passes, it gets harder and harder to remember all the different permutations. Here’s a quick link to a website that has the answers.
When I was writing my first book on Final Cut Pro a few years ago, I developed a nine-step editing workflow that answered the question: “What should I be doing right now?” However, over the years, I’ve learned more and Apple has released new software, so this nine-step process has become a bit outdated. Today I want to revisit and update it. Especially for editors that are new, or just getting back into the industry, my hope is that in following these steps, you’ll have a better way to keep track of what you should be doing “right now.”
Video is hard enough to understand. Throw in fields, frames, field order, and interlacing and it’s enough to make you cry. In this article, I explain what you need to know to successfully navigate around the land mines.
By default, Final Cut only displays one field of video – this makes images much easier to view while editing. But, sometimes, you need to see both fields. This very, very short article explains exactly what you need to know.
Over the last few versions, Apple has added new options in Final Cut Pro that make finding clips a lot easier. In this Technique, I want to show you what some of them are. Whether you are looking for clips in the Viewer, the Browser, or the Timeline, here are some very cool, and little known, techniques.
A quick technique to use when you need to find a specific clip.
Here’s a secret technique that allows you to add the default transition to any number of selected clips in the timeline — all at the same time!
Flip cameras, and other inexpensive devices, capture footage in a variety of unusual formats. This article explains what you need to know to work with it inside Final Cut Pro.
The world of HD is awash in incompatible formats. Worse, it has eight different frame rates. And selecting the wrong frame rate in After Effects can make your video uneditable in Final Cut Pro. This article explains what you need to know.
I discovered this technique to be very useful when I want to make a shot-by-shot comparison between an existing movie and a sequence.
As we gear up for the 2010 NAB Show – where the Digital Production Buzz is the Official Podcast of the event – I thought you’d be interested in the gear we are using and how we are using it. Next month, I’ll report on what we did.
A reader writes that his 10-year-old daughter is interested in editing and wants to know the best gear to buy and how to get trained in FCP. This is a great question, but the wrong question. This article explains that it isn’t the gear, its her interest. Fan that first, then buy gear second. You can read how here.
Have you ever wondered what that thin green line means at the top of some of your audio clips? Well, this short article let’s you in on the secret.
Handles are critical for transitions and trimming. In this article, discover what handles are and why they are necessary.
HDV is the latest video format craze, but it isn’t like DV; or any other video format we are used to working with. This article explains how HDV is different and what you need to know to use it successfully.
Trying to get up to speed on HDV quickly. This article gives you a primer on the current status of HDV – what’s good, what’s bad, and what you need to know.
HDV uses rectangular pixels to represent its image. Each pixel is short and fat, which means it only needs 1440 pixels to represent an entire line of HD video. However, the computer (and some other video formats) use square pixels to represent the image. So, when you export from HDV to a QuickTime movie, Final Cut converts the pixels from rectangles to squares.
Probably no subject generates more email than questions about the best way to prepare still for both HD and SD. In this article, David Scott provides this step-by-step approach to making your stills look great. (Note: For a video tutorial on this subject, CLICK HERE)
Here is a very slick technique to find audio in your sequence that’s distorting. It won’t fix it — but it will find it; and much, much faster than real-time.
Recently, Apple announced a new video format – iFrame – and Sanyo announced new cameras that support that format. This article looks at this announcement and speculates on what this means for the video professional. (Note: Currently, Final Cut Pro does not support iFrame files.)
Not everyone needs HD. However, HD can make reframing a lot easier — especially when it is integrated into an SD timeline. This article provides an example of how this is done.
Money was tight, so “they” decided to shoot the project using both SD and HD cameras. Now, your stuck editing them. HOW??? In this article, we explains a variety of ways you can intercut between SD and HD material, and how to avoid problems with poorly converted video.
The more I work with Soundtrack Pro 2, the more I like it. Recently, I spoke with Apple about STP and learn some quick facts I wanted to share with you here, including what gear you need to hear surround sound.
Interlacing, deinterlacing, progressive — three very confusing terms to many people. This article explains what they are, when you use them, what to do when you see them, and why you should care — not, in many case, not care at all.
I was surprised to discover I haven’t written about this technique – I use it in almost every project I edit. Built into Final Cut Pro is a really fast, REALLY easy way to find keyboard shortcuts or menu items — if you know where to look. In this article, I’ll show you where.
The bigger a project gets, the more critical it is to get it organized. In this article, two readers suggest ways you can use to get your projects under control.
It drives me nuts! The Link Selection tool is right there in the Timeline. But using it is likely to slip your audio and video out of sync. There’s a better way, and this article explains it.
Final Cut allows you to connect an unrelated audio clip with a video clip, using either Link or Merge. This article describes how and how to select the right one.
With the release of Final Cut Studio (3), Apple signaled that LiveType was not long for this world by no longer bundling it with the suite of software. However, FCP 7 still supports LiveType files. This is a shame, as I truly like working with LiveType. This article details what makes LiveType fun to use, and features in Motion that would help us make the transition.
When you press the backslash key, Final Cut loops around the current position of the Playhead. This article explains how to change the amount of time plays during this loop.
I got burned by this when I was prepping my most recent webinar for posting. My audio slowly slipped out of sync. I hate when that happens. What I discovered is that the Soundtrack Pro sample rate preference setting overrides the sample rate of the Final Cut Pro project, resulting in a slow sync drift that will drive you nuts. This article explains what you need to know to fix it.
With the recent release of new MacBook Pro laptops, I was surprised to discover that Apple is removing ports from the computer, making it harder to attach the accessories, like hard drives, that we need to edit. Now, the MacBook Pro has the same ports as a MacBook — which makes NO sense to me, In this commentary, I discuss the situation and provide some ideas on how we can contact Apple to get them to add more ports on future models.
This technique is very useful when you need to find the video that goes with the audio, or the audio that goes with the video.
Here are three quick ways to determine the duration of a clip or a gap.
Gary Freedline sent me a long screed decrying missing features in Final Cut Pro. However, in reading it, I realized that many of them are already there if you know where to look. This article points the way.
The way a monitor wall works is that you send it a full-screen feed for each camera or image you want it to display. It will then composite them into a single display. This gives you the highest image quality and the ability to zoom one of the images full-screen.
Frame offset was invented to allow you to compensate for the delays between your computer and an external device, like a deck. Here is how it works and why you should care.
There are two categories of edits inside Final Cut Pro — Insert and Overwrite. This article describes what they are, when to use them and faster ways to get them done.
DigiBetacam is a standard in video-tape. However, many new editors don’t know what settings to use to capture it properly. This short article describes what you need to know to select the right codec for your project.
Keyboard shortcuts make work a lot easier. Here are eleven that I recently discovered that I never knew existed; along with a suggestion on how to get keyboard shortcuts that use Function Keys to work on your computer.
Here’s the problem. You have high-definition (HD) 16:9 footage that you need to create a standard-definition (SD) 4:3 full-screen image. This means that you are going to lose some visual information on the sides of your image. What’s the best way to do this? This article explains what you need to know.
Chapter markers are frequently used in DVD production. However, you can also put them in QuickTime movies to simplify navigation. However, compressing using H.264 makes this process a bit more difficult. But not impossible, as this article explains how to do it.
Here is a series of ten questions that new editors can ask their producers to make sure everyone is on the same page at the start of a project. This is also a useful bidding tool.
What are the disadvantages of using DV, rather than SD, video? This discussion also features comments from a variety of readers.
Chroma-keying, also called blue-screen or green-screen, is the process of making the background transparent so you can insert the foreground into a different shot. It sounds easy, but in practice, its tricky. This is because the chroma-keyer in Final Cut is, to be kind, sub-optimal. In this article, I’ll show you a better way to key — using Motion. Better yet, you don’t need to really know Motion to get great results.
Normally, you can delete one marker or all markers. This article shows you how to delete any arbitrary range of clip markers.
While there is no one perfect codec, this article can help you improve your capture image quality, while reducing file size, when capturing SD (non-DV) video.
There is no one “perfect” video codec (compressor/decompressor), but some codecs are better than others. This article helps you make a better choice.
Why doesn’t MP3 audio play nicely with Final Cut Pro? The answer is because Final Cut Pro was invented to support only uncompressed audio files. There are only three audio formats that Final Cut supports: AIF (and AIFF), WAV (and Broadcast WAV), and SDII. All compressed formats (like MP3 and AAC) need to be converted into an uncompressed format before you can edit them.
