Blog Archives

Even an iSight camera can be pressed into service for capturing video when nothing better is available. This tutorial shows you how fast and easy this can be.

The problem is that both 16:9 and 4:3 SD video have exactly the same number of pixels. This is true in both NTSC and PAL. And, sometimes, you need to convert from one to the other. What’s the best way to do this? What’s the fastest? Why is it necessary? This article answers those questions.

One of the common problems that inexperienced Final Cut editors run into is audio that slowly drifts out of sync. While the problem may appear to be within Final Cut Pro, the cause is actually due to mismatched audio sample rates between the video you shot and the way you are capturing it. What makes this worse is that many consumer cameras default to an audio sample rate of 32 kHz, while Final Cut expects 48 kHz. In this step-by-step tutorial, I’ll explain what an audio sample rate is and how to change your Final Cut settings to capture your audio accurately.

Stereoscopic 3D video is not just for theatrical release. Cable and satellite channels, even YouTube, now display images in 3D. In this musing, I reflect that even if 3D isn’t the future, we can make money on it now – without spending a ton of money.

It’s a simple question, but not necessarily a simple answer. This looks at the differences between the two video formats.

The simplest definition of rendering is to convert an effect or image from its native format to match the video format of your timeline.

It’s late at night, you are wrapping up a project. Just when you think you can go home, you discover that your final export from Soundtrack Pro, doesn’t sync with your final export from Final Cut Pro. Grrr!! Now what? This article explains a very nifty technique that solves that problem in short order.

Need to find some new fonts — or looking for a way to add them to your system? Here’s how.

Here’s a conversation between Peter Tours, of TNT Video Services, and Tony Lauria, of AJA Technical Support, on the best way to ingest footage using AJA video cards. (Reprinted with permission.)

Traditionally, effects were recorded to DigiBeta tape in two cuts. The first cut was the hold-out, which defined the alpha channel and the second cut was what went into the matte. However, creating an alpha channel from tape is not obvious. However, it’s easy to do and this article shows you how to do it.

Setting the Anamorphic Flag to tell FCP how to treat your footage.

It’s hidden in plain sight, near the top of the Motion tab in Final Cut Pro: Anchor Point. But, what does it do?

Soundtrack Pro does not create audio CDs automatically, but you can still do so, if you know how. This article explains the steps. Also, Peter Neil, from the BBC, suggests another program that makes this process even easier.

In Final Cut Pro, filters process before motion effects. Most of the time, this is fine. However, this order prevents creating certain effects. This tutorial shows how to create nests, how to change this processing order, and how to blur both a clip and the edges of a clip.

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.

When it comes to creating 16:9 projects in LiveType, the process is not intuitive. However, after you read this, whether you need 16:9 in PAL or NTSC, it will be a piece of cake.

Here is a fast way to create a sequence with burned-in timecode – very useful for client reviews and revisions. In fact, we can do this in about six steps, as this tutorial shows how.

Here is a fast way to use anchor points in the Motion tab to create motion effects quickly, while saving keyframes.

In Final Cut Pro 7 is the File > Share option which allows us to export a sequence from Final Cut and compress it for YouTube. This article, and comments, show you how this works.

How to carry a preference Custom Keyboard Layout file and place it in a new Final Cut Pro system. Very useful for freelance editing!

After years of using Compressor Droplets to automate video compression, a very helpful tip has been discovered to engineer Droplets to contain multiple settings. Larry illustrates this simple and innovative process.