With the release of Final Cut Pro 7, we got a new export menu option – Send. In this article, I take a first look at the differences between Share, Send, and Export; and explain which one to use.
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over the years, I’ve learned more and Apple has released new software, so this nine-step process has become a bit outdated.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.”
This technique shows you how to get the most from your FireWire drives, from partitioning through formatting to daisy-chaining.
This article is based on research done by William Aleman, who sent instructions and links on how to embed metadata into H.264 files. Some interesting reading!
It is a long-known, but little-discussed secret that hard disks slowly lose their magnetic signal. If you archive your projects on hard disks, you need to read this article before all your carefully stored files… are gone!
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.
DVDs are always standard definition video. Which means that if you shot your project in HD, you need to down-convert it to SD before you can put it onto a DVD. This short article describes what you need to know.
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.
By definition, all DVDs are only standard-def (SD). If you need high-def, you need to create Blu-ray Discs, which are not the same thing. But what if you want to take HD material and put it on a DVD? You need to convert it. And this article, describes how.
Larry fields a question related to transferring HDV footage and traces the problem back to the process of compressing the video. A walk-through of changing the output settings in the Geometry tab provides a detailed guide to preventing this problem from reoccurring.
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.
Adding subtitles is something DVD Studio Pro is very good at. But sometimes, importing a subtitle file doesn’t work. This explains why and how to fix it.
What’s the best way to get the highest quality video images during export? DV, especially, looks particularly poor when you view it in QuickTime. This article explains what’s going on and what you need to know to make your exported video look as good as it possibly can.
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.
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.
Keynote is a secret weapon in the arsenal of creating motion graphics. The problem is getting the files exported from Keynote into something we can edit. This article describes the process, along with several tips from readers.
As we move more and more into a tapeless workflow, I realized that new editors may not know how to record a project back to video-tape; a process called “lay-back”. So, this brief article tells you what you need know, as well as how to structure your sequence for tape.
Following up on an earlier review of the Matrox MXO, a user contributes another application he discovered, while a word of warning on compatibility is offered by another contributor.
QuickTime does not always properly display 16:9 video. This means that iDVD may not accurately compress your video in the correct image aspect ratio. This article explains what you need to do to fix this problem.
Larry fields a few questions regarding DVD problems from transcoding HD to SD, the advantages of Blu-Ray, and more.
The best way to export from FCP is reexamined with new attention given to changes in distribution mediums. Also, Larry provides a detailed explanation of how he exports files from Final Cut.
Adding DVD chapter markers to a QuickTime movie is reasonably easy. But how do you do this for H.264 compressed video. This article describes what you need to know.
When using Compressor on Final Cut Pro 7 and multiple users are using the same computer using different log-ins, if editor one submits a batch through Compressor, waits for the job to finish, then logs out, when the second editor logs in and submits a job to Compressor, they will get a “Share Failure” error.
One of the new features in Compressor 3 is its ability to harness all the processors in your computer to speed video compression. But, you have to turn this feature on before you can use it. Here’s how.
If you’ve ever had to convert a 16:9 sequence into a 4:3 letterbox video, this explains how to do it.
Working with video clips in different aspect ratios (i.e. 4:3 and 16:9) can cause headaches for anyone. In this article, Daniel Rain describes his system of working with a variety of different files in PAL.
Martin Baker of Digital Heaven has the answer to a question regarding the creation of a 14:9 Title Safe in a 16:9 image.
Sometimes you need more than QuickTime to meet the needs of a client. In this brief article, we present a variety of solutions you can use to create WMV files of your Final Cut Pro projects on a Mac.
Apple now supports creating Blu-ray Discs in Final Cut Studio 3. This support involves using templates to create your discs. However, making changes to these templates is easy to do, but hard to find. This article explains what you need to do to create your own customized Blu-ray Disc templates.
Most of the time the default settings in Compressor are not too bad. But, sometimes, problems arise when down-converting high-def material to standard-def (HD to SD). In this case, if you are getting images that look worse than you expect, try this two-step process (called “pre-compression”) and see if your image quality improves.
If you’ve ever compared the quality of your DV movies in Final Cut to what they look like in QuickTime, you can very quickly become suicidal. Why does QuickTime make your images look so bad? This quick article explains.
There are a variety of ways to export a project from Final Cut Pro for a DVD. This article showcases the best way to do it if you are using Final Cut Pro 6.x. (FCP 7 users may want to consider using Share or Send, which this article doesn’t cover.)
A reader asked me how I organize my files when I’m creating a DVD. Well, organization best starts at the beginning of a project, so in this brief article, I outline the folders I create and where I store my files.
By default, DVD Studio Pro creates tracks that support 4:3 video. However, this is easy to change, but hard to find. This short article describes what you need to do to create wide-screen DVDs.
One confusing issue new editors need to deal with is getting Final Cut Pro to recognize 16:9 (also called “widescreen,” or “anamorphic”) video. As well, if the editor is a new Mac user, they may also have problems with exported file sizes. This article addresses both these issues.
PPMs are something we never hear about in North America. All our audio is measured in dB. However, in Europe, PPM is THE standard of audio measurement — and Final Cut does not support it natively. This article explains what you need to know, and how to measure audio in PPMs.
Here’s a simple technique you can use to export all the data in the Browser into a format you can read in Excel, Word, or Text Edit.
Here’s a seven-step process to export your Final Cut video sequences to Flash.
This technique generated a LOT of responses — how to export a series of still to create a slide show. This technique shows you a couple different ways to create this effect.
There are a variety of ways to export a project from Final Cut Pro for a DVD. This article showcases the best way to do it if you are using Final Cut Pro 6.x. (FCP 7 users may want to consider using Share or Send, which this article doesn’t cover.)
One of the current limitations of Final Cut Studio is that it does not natively support creating Flash video output from a Final Cut Pro sequence. However, all is not lost. This article describes three different ways you can get what you want.
Normally, when you export a QuickTime movie from Soundtrack Pro, the audio travels with the video. But, not always. This article shows you what you need to know to export audio and video successfully from this audio editing software.
Dramatically slow motion is easy to create in Motion – if you know where to look. This article details all the steps you need to take to make your fastest shots move in balletic slow-motion.
Creating a slow-motion clip is easy: Modify > Speed. But what if you want to create a fast-motion clip and your hard disk isn’t fast enough to keep up? This short article explains what you need to know.
What do you do when your client requests a video that’s almost 13,000 pixels wide? (Well, after panicking a bit first…) Steve Sebban took on this task for a museum. Since then, I’ve heard from other editors who need, or use, this technique for the chasing lights around the edges of stadiums. Fortunately, Final Cut Pro makes this easy… if you ignore render times.
Here is a ten-step, tested technique to convert DVCProHD sequences into HDV. This would a good way to archive HD sequences if you don’t have a DVCProHD sequence to tape.
As we move away from tape and into tapeless video, questions about how to best archive our projects take on a new importance. For many, the issue revolves around the hardware we use to archive. But there is a second question: what video format do we want to use to store our files for the long-term. In this dialog with Philip Hodgetts, we examine this very complex issue and provide some guidance.
Ever wonder what levels to set your reference tones to? Should you output tone at 0 dB, -12 dB,-18 dB, or -20 dB. In this discussion, Larry is joined by Woody Woodhall, president of Allied Post, to get a better understanding of the issue. And, yup, it’s just as confused as we thought!
With Blu-ray winning the DVD format war, attention has now turned to the costs of creating a Blu-ray DVD. This article explains that the cost of replicating one of these new format discs isn’t cheap.
