Blog Archives

This video tutorial shows you everything you need to know to create a great-looking key with Final Cut Pro X.

Here’s a detailed look at the new advanced chroma-key controls in Final Cut Pro X.

A fast trick to display and hear just one audio track in an interview.

Final Cut Pro X can automatically analyze your audio. This article explains what it is doing.

Recently, I’ve started working more with Adobe Audition, which is part of their Production Premium suite of products. Audition is similar to ProTools and Soundtrack Pro in that it handles audio recording, editing, and mixing.

Open in Timeline is a hidden menu item in Final Cut Pro X that allows you to modify a clip in the Event Browser without removing it from the Event Browser. This technique allows you to solve problems that are not easy to solve any other way.

Optical flow, and it’s less sophisticated cousin, Frame Blending, are techniques that Final Cut Pro X uses to smooth playback of extremely slow-motion clips. This tutorial shows you how to apply and use them in FCP X.

The purpose of the Limiter filter in FCP X is to make soft audio louder while preventing the louder passages from distorting (which happens when audio levels exceed 0 dB). In fact, when used properly, the Limiter filter virtually guarantees that your audio won’t distort; as this article explains.

The best way to improve the quality of your picture is to improve the quality of your sound. However, what that means in real-life is moving files from your video editing software into audio editing software.

Final Cut Pro X provides a very easy way to match audio between clips. This is useful when you have recorded the same talent on different days using different mics.

The Activity Monitor in OS X is one of those unsung utilities that I find indispensable. It allows you to look inside five key areas of your computer to tell you what’s going on. Best of all, you can’t hurt anything using it – because its simply a monitor.

Recently, I wrote about how to add video to a shape in Final Cut Pro 7 While adding video to shapes is reasonably easy in Final Cut Pro 7, it is almost impossible in FCP X. So, this week I decided to create a video tutorial on adding video to a shape in Final Cut Pro X.

Always check to see if Final Cut supports your camera before you buy it.

Is it possible to permanently link video and audio clips together? Larry teaches you how to create a Merged clip.

Are you getting the “render error: insufficient disk space” message? You just need to create more free space on your hard disk by deleting files you don’t need.

The easiest way to control editing audio or video to the Timeline is with the patch panel. However you can also use the Button List to search for shortcuts.

Stuttering, frozen display is one of the hallmarks of non-native video. FCP can edit it, but can’t play it smoothly.

Soundtrack Pro suffers from the same problem as Final Cut Pro – both applications can only access 4 GB of RAM.

Is it possible to carry custom Final Cut Pro keyboard shortcuts in a pen drive and install it on another machine? Here’s a technique to help you.

What is the best version of ProRes to use for HDV?

Which version of ProRes should you select in Log and Transfer for a Canon 7D? Which is better for the Canon 7D format?

A reader wanted to know how to display video on the monitor using an AJA card. So he contacted AJA, who responded with this.

Dual Layer break points are determined by where the VTS segments are located, not just which is the longest, or most logical, clip within which to place a break point.

Larry walks you through looping a DVD, along with reader feedback on how to make those loops seamless.

When importing a video into DVD Studio Pro, if you encode at the end of the project, your assets are not converted to MPEG until you start to build the project.

DVD SP contains drop zones, which you can use to add video or images to a menu. Here’s how.

These two options are designed to solve problems when the clip, or image, you are editing into the Timeline does not match the sequence size.

A few weeks ago, AJA sent me a new KiPro Mini to take a look at.

A few days ago I wrote about my frustrations in finding archiving solutions. The next day, I had a long phone conversation with the executive team at Cache-A plus a long email from HP.

I’ve become increasingly concerned as I talk with producers, editors, and vendors that we are rapidly moving into a tapeless environment without any realistically priced options for long-term media archiving.

Here are two techniques that make a big difference to me when I am working with effects: Remove Attributes and Paste Attributes.

Compressor automatically generates log DPX files. Is there a way to create linear DPX files?

Troubles with logging? Check the Reel column in the browser.

Larry answers some questions regarding the different codecs that Final Cut Express captures vs. Final Cut Pro, as well as fielding a question on audio waveforms.

There’s a lot of confusion about the three different media types in Final Cut Pro X: native, optimized, and proxy. This article explains what you need to know.

Many times, editors need to share projects. Changing Event References in FCP X makes this possible.

Common Final Cut Pro X trouble-shooting and performance tips, including how to trash Final Cut Pro (FCP) X preference files.

Do you have two or more audio clips that need to sound the same? Here’s a fast technique in FCP X that explains how.

A solution for dual-channel mono clips, or single track mono clips displaying audio as a single waveform in Final Cut Pro X.

Roles are new with Final Cut Pro X (FCP X) and can help manage complex projects through keywording your audio and video clips.

By default, the audio output of Final Cut Pro is stereo. You can get it to output split tracks, but you’ll need to do the mix in Soundtrack Pro or ProTools. This tutorial explains how.

There’s been some debate about authoring NTSC DVDs in DVD Studio Pro (with having all of the region codes selected) and their playback in PAL countries.

Here’s what you need to convert GoPro video files to before importing them to FCP.

Here’s a quick effect to create a “pull quote” using the Motion tab in Final Cut Pro.

Apple rewrote both the Constant and Variable Speed change interface for FCP 7. In this technique learn how to create speed changes using FCP 7.

A clip collision generally occurs when you are trimming. Specifically, when you are ripple trimming.

This is a very cool technique that changes the color and display of your text as the background changes.

Loading clips into an Audio File Project, reducing noise, and handling audio files in Soundtrack Pro.

One of our subscribers discovered one of the big differences between capturing in tape-mode, where you can combine multiple shots into one long clip, and tapeless, where each shot is stand-alone. In this article we examine how to avoid that problem.

For those of you interested in a more technical look at the Broadcast Safe filter, Dennis Couzin, technical assistant to a video documentarian based in Germany, sent me the following article that he wrote.