Edit one scene using Final Cut Pro

[Morgan Mac]

I am trying to edit out one scene from 'American Psycho'. The scene is about 90 seconds long, with the movie at 8.5GB so the scene should be in and around 80-100mb when I chop it out.

I've edited out the scene and it is at the beginning of the timeline. I've exported it as a 'quicktime movie' and 're-compressed all frames'. Three problems occurred: the file size is very large (1.4GB), the subtitles are burnt onto the video, and black 'widescreen' bars are now burnt on too.

If you can solve any of these problems for me, I will listen to your favourite song and praise your name.

 

[CaptainChunk]

I am trying to edit out one scene from 'American Psycho'. The scene is about 90 seconds long, with the movie at 8.5GB so the scene should be in and around 80-100mb when I chop it out.

I've edited out the scene and it is at the beginning of the timeline. I've exported it as a 'quicktime movie' and 're-compressed all frames'. Three problems occurred: the file size is very large (1.4GB), the subtitles are burnt onto the video, and black 'widescreen' bars are now burnt on too.

If you can solve any of these problems for me, I will listen to your favourite song and praise your name.

We would need more specifics to help you better.

1. What version of FCP are you using?

2. How are you getting the video from the DVD to the timeline? Are you ripping it with a program like Handbrake? What codec is the timeline/sequence using?

3. What will your final delivery be? DVD? H.264?


When you export a Quicktime movie out of FCP, it's going to export using the codec the sequence/timeline is set to. "Editing" codecs such as AIC and ProRes will output very large files because they use far less compression than MPEG-2. The general idea here would be to compress into a delivery codec (like H.264) after export from FCP using a program like Compressor.

Secondly, subtitles are read from separate files on a commercial DVD and they would only be burned into picture if whatever you used to rip the disc was told to do so. This won't have anything to do with FCP.

Finally, regarding the "widescreen" bars (i.e. letterboxing)... Like many Hollywood films, American Psycho has a theatrical aspect ratio of 2:35:1. Since the DVD standard for widescreen is 1.78:1 (16:9), you're going to get black letterbox bars on such films no matter what. The only way around that would be to crop/scale the image in FCP, and you'll lose a lot of image quality doing that.

 

[floh]

Captain Chunk is right, we need some more info on what programs you used (what FCP and what tool to rip)...

If you want to get rid of the bars, you will have to manually set the resolution in FCP to a non-standard value and then crop the image. If you rip from a DVD, the black bars are there in the original footage. How to do this depends on the FCP version.

If you don't rip from a DVD but use a hard drive file that has no bars, everything changes. Then you would have to give us some information about this file. Easiest way: Select the file in Finder and press "Command-I" to bring up the information panel. It will hopefully give you some information on the codec, resolution and maybe even the subtitles.

I'm sure we can help you and afterwards think of a silly song for you to listen to...

 

[Morgan Mac]

1. I use Final Cut Pro 7.0.3

2. I downloaded the film. Now that I think of it, I could probably import the file into Handbrake, deselect the subtitles, and export the file free of subtitles. But that would take hours just for that. I just assumed FCP could handle that.

3. The file is mkv. I'd rather export the scene in mkv also, but it doesn't really matter. I just want the same quality. The sequence compressor is Apple ProRes 422.

4. I sorted out the bars problem. The sequence height was off by 263x.

To summarize, the file size is still too high, and I would like confirmation that FCP definitely cannot' handle deselection of subtitles already on the file.

 

[glynhughes]

1. I use Final Cut Pro 7.0.3

2. I downloaded the film. Now that I think of it, I could probably import the file into Handbrake, deselect the subtitles, and export the file free of subtitles. But that would take hours just for that. I just assumed FCP could handle that.

3. The file is mkv. I'd rather export the scene in mkv also, but it doesn't really matter. I just want the same quality. The sequence compressor is Apple ProRes 422.

4. I sorted out the bars problem. The sequence height was off by 263x.

To summarize, the file size is still too high, and I would like confirmation that FCP definitely cannot' handle deselection of subtitles already on the file.

I'd suggest this...

Install perian. Get a quicktime 7 pro serial number and open the mkv in that. Select the scene you want. copy and paste into a new viewer then export as a highish bitrate H.264 at the same resolution.

You should end up with a quicktime sans black bars and picture quality similar to the original. If the original had subtitles burnt in you won't be able to get rid of them. Try a different download to start with.

Use a conversion utility (try iSkysoft.com maybe) to convert to mkv if you need it

 

[floh]

If you downloaded the file and it is in a .mkv container, I am pretty sure that it is encoded in H.264 codec. If you just export it from FCP, it will be in a far less compressed codec and therefore much bigger.

But I have to say that I can't really help you with exporting in H.264, nor confirming that FCP can not handle the subtitles, since I have used FCP7 in the past but it was a long time ago and I don't have a copy anymore...

Still, I would recommend you to get rid of the MKV container, which will probably already solve the subtitle problem.

MKV is a container (not a codec) that holds the video and audio stream and also some information on the file. It can even include subtitles, which in your case it probably does if you don't have an additional file (.srt or something like that).
MKV sadly is not very well supported on Mac OS, so I would recommend you just exchange the container and copy the streams. This will be pretty fast and you will not lose any quality.

Maybe someone else can help you with that, I'm not very knowledgable about FCP7 and getting rid of MKV containers. I would expect Quicktime Pro can do this, but I don't think Apple sells it anymore...

 

[CaptainChunk]

2. I downloaded the film. Now that I think of it, I could probably import the file into Handbrake, deselect the subtitles, and export the file free of subtitles. But that would take hours just for that. I just assumed FCP could handle that.

FCP is a non-linear video editor (NLE). It doesn't read subtitle files at all. You would be correct in wanting to uncheck the subtitles in Handbrake prior to exporting. What kind of Mac are you on? Handbrake is a pretty fast ripper/encoder that scales across multiple CPU cores pretty well.

3. The file is mkv. I'd rather export the scene in mkv also, but it doesn't really matter. I just want the same quality. The sequence compressor is Apple ProRes 422.

ProRes 422 is completely overkill for DVD-sourced video. I would tell Handbrake to export the video as DV-NTSC 48KHz anamorphic (or PAL, if you're in Europe). DV-NTSC consumes about 13GB/hour (significantly less than most ProRes codecs) and edits very easily in FCP.

To summarize, the file size is still too high, and I would like confirmation that FCP definitely cannot' handle deselection of subtitles already on the file.

Once you edit (in a DV-NTSC anamorphic sequence, like I described earlier), you can export that portion out as a QT movie and then drop it into Compressor to get it down a manageable size (H.264 codec, for example). A 90-sec clip in SD resolution should only consume around 20-25MB at 2Mbps in H.264. If you intend on using this file for computer viewing, you'll want to output it at a frame size like 640x360 to correct for square pixels.

Unfortunately, Compressor can't encode files to .mkv wrappers. Sorenson Squeeze can, but that's a $500 encoder. You'll need to use something like .mov or .mp4.

And again, FCP most certainly does not read subtitle files. It's not designed for that. The only reason why they're showing up in your video in FCP to begin with is because they were burned into the image while exporting the video from Handbrake.