Blog Archives

Sigh… There’s nothing quite like death by PowerPoint slides. Still, many times we need to incorporate them into our productions. Here’s what you need to know to help them look as good as they can. (Oh, and by the way, do EVERYTHING you can to reduce the text they contain!)

Print to Video is your best choice when outputting to tape. However, some people find really ingenious ways to avoid it. This article describes what it is, along with a discussion of self-contained vs. reference QuickTime movies.

When you are working with multiple tracks of video, trimming clips on several tracks at once is essential. This article shows you how to trim multiple tracks quickly and accurately.

Confused about what size to create your images? This article explains what image size to use so they import correctly into Final Cut Pro HD.

In this article, various problems with playback are addressed and answered.

“Interlacing” is a term that confuses many people. This article explains what it is, how to work with it, and how to remove it in both video and stills.

Gamma settings control the gray-scale midpoint. The reason this is significant is that Macs, video, and Windows all use slightly different settings. This means that video that looks good on one system, may look washed out or too dark on others. Snow Leopard, however, has changed the rules. In this article, I explain what gamma is, how to use it, and where to set it.

Garbage mattes are a fast way to exclude portions of a frame that you don’t want the viewer to see. This article shows an example of using garbage mattes to hide light stands in a music video.

This tutorial shows you how to create a glowing lantern effect in Final Cut Pro using the Light-rays Glow filter and some video generators. It isn’t fine art, but this will show you how to create some amazing effects, easily, on your own system.Easy, I thought… use Light Rays.

This is a comprehensive look at how computer and video graphics are different and what you need to know to create great looking video text and graphics. This article can make your life a LOT easier!

Handles are critical for transitions and trimming. In this article, discover what handles are and why they are necessary.

As I was investigating how Final Cut Pro handles multiclip editing, it struck me that, after a certain point, the speed of your storage doesn’t really matter. Which means that we need to pay attention to more than just the raw speed of our storage systems.

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.

One of the most complex steps in video editing is getting your computer-based images to look good in video. This article explains how video images are different from computer images and what you need to do to make them look great.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Final Cut makes it challenging to line things up properly in the Canvas or Viewer, because there are no grids or guides. Here’s a quick technique you can use to create your own grids.

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.

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.

MXF is the native format for a variety of HD video formats. However, it is not one that Final Cut Pro currently supports. This short article details what you need to know to get your QuickTime video into MXF format.

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.

The default video transition in Final Cut Pro is a 30 frame cross-dissolve. This article shows you how to change it.

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 Eric Mittan writes: “My favorite keyboard shortcuts are those that are contextual. The function of the keys in question change in the context of what task is being performed, or what item is selected, or what tool is chosen in order to get a different, if slightly related result.

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.

Asymmetric trimming allows you to trim the audio and video in opposite directions at the same time. I’m still not sure if this is a good or bad thing. Here’s how it works.

Here’s a neat trick to make a constant speed change to a video clip without changing the sound of the audio.

Setting the correct audio recording levels on a video camera is crucial to obtaining the best sound during production. This short article explains some of the choices and what you need to know.

Here is a great trick to solve one of the features of FCP that drives me nuts — we can’t slip keyframes. But, here, in this article, I’ll show you an undocumented way to slip audio keyframes. Very cool and very quick.

Every clip in Final Cut supports up to three timecode tracks — a primary and two auxilliary tracks. This article describes how to access them, change the timecode they contain, and idea on what to use them for.

There are two questions I get asked a lot: what’s the best camera, and what’s the best hardware. This article explains why answering the hardware question is so difficult. It isn’t that there’s no answer, its that the answer is TOTALLY dependent on what YOU need. Take a look here at why.

In this article I want to give you some suggestions on proper selection of compression bit-rates; as well as how to improve the compatibility of the CDs and DVDs that you burn.

Folks that have worked with video for a long time are often confused about where to set the black level for digital video. This article explains what you need to know — and, relax, it isn’t that hard.

Ever wonder about those black bars on the edges of DV? They are about 9 pixels wide and they are always there. How can you get rid of them? SHOULD you get rid of them? This article explains what you need to know and when you need to worry about it.

In spite of the hype, optical media is not dead. The two variations for HD media – AVCHD and Blu-ray Discs – are still valuable tools in an editor’s toolkit. In this article, David Scott writes about his success in using Blu-ray Discs to meet the needs of his project.

I am not a testing organization, but, recently, Jon Schilling over at CalDigit (www.caldigit.com) sent me a 500 GB SATA RAID to examine (Model #S2VR Duo).

Unlike NTSC, which requires frequent monitor calibration, PAL color is pretty stable. However, for those situations where you need to make sure your PAL monitor is showing colors accurately, this article will tell you what you need to know.

Final Cut Pro is, most often, used for editing after the recording is complete. However, there are some situations where you need to record live and edit as soon as you can. This article talks about that and provides options to consider. There’s also some relevant reader feedback.

What do you do when you have hundreds of hours of material to capture? Well, first, you have a number of decisions to make. This short article outlines what you need to know before you start.

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.

There are four ways inside DVD Studio Pro to control how 16:9 video plays back on a 4:3 monitor. This article describes what you need to know and provides suggestions on which one is best to use.

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.