Confused about FCP5 Rendering...?

[ljump12]

I come from a windows, adobe premiere environment, and im a little confused with FCP5. Whenever i drop anything onto the timeline. and try to play it. It says "Unrendered" and i just hear beeps. For instance, if i drop an MP3 on the timeline it does this. I find it hard to believe that FCP cant just preview the file without rendering it for me. Everytime i drop a piece of video in, I have to re-render it...

I know in adobe premiere, i could edit a whole project without rendering once, assuming i added no effects. Premiere would play it back, albeit at a lower quality in some cases. but it still gave me an idea without having to render. Are my setting wrong or something? I haven't yet hooked up a camera, and am just messing around editing Media Files i already had on my computer..

Thanks for the help
-Brian

 

[killmoms]

This is likely because you are dropping in clips that are not in the target format for your project. Have you done an easy setup for your editing format? Are you using an editing format at all, or are you just dropping compressed files into the timeline? If you drop, say, DivX or XviD compressed movies into a timeline set up for DV, it will have to render them.

Also, FCP doesn't support compressed audio in the timeline very well. Convert to AIFF first.

Some clarification on what your sources are (and target is) would help us determine how you need to set up your FCP project.

You might benefit from changing your timeline to Unlimited RT. In your timeline window right below the tabs for sequences on the left there's a button w/ a drop-down arrow that says "RT." Set it to Unlimited.

 

[ljump12]

This is likely because you are dropping in clips that are not in the target format for your project. Have you done an easy setup for your editing format? Are you using an editing format at all, or are you just dropping compressed files into the timeline? If you drop, say, DivX or XviD compressed movies into a timeline set up for DV, it will have to render them.

Also, FCP doesn't support compressed audio in the timeline very well. Convert to AIFF first.

Some clarification on what your sources are (and target is) would help us determine how you need to set up your FCP project.

You might benefit from changing your timeline to Unlimited RT. In your timeline window right below the tabs for sequences on the left there's a button w/ a drop-down arrow that says "RT." Set it to Unlimited.

yea i've been dropping in ripped DivX files... And using MP3's which are both compressed. So if i should drop in a simple wav file instead, and change the format to be the same as the camera i import it on, it should work something like premiere?

 

[killmoms]

FCP will never work like Premiere, because FCP works like a real NLE. Premiere's... well, crap on crap basically. FCP is designed to edit real, editing-minded video (which is to say, true editing formats as would be found in a professional editing environment—DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO HD, HDV, 8/10-bit uncompressed, etc.). If you want to edit video effectively in FCP (or any other NLE, really), you need to have your video in an intraframe editing format (like one of the above mentioned), not an interframe delivery format like DivX.

 

[LethalWolfe]

yea i've been dropping in ripped DivX files... And using MP3's which are both compressed. So if i should drop in a simple wav file instead, and change the format to be the same as the camera i import it on, it should work something like premiere?

Yes. If you lasso all the video you have in Final Cuts Browser window, then select File->Export->QT movie, set "settings" to "DV NTSC 48kHz" and make sure "make movie self-contained" is checked then hit save. Import the resulting QT files back into final cut and you won't have to render anything (assuming you have final cut setup to use the DV NTSC "Easy Setup").


Lethal