Final Cut Express! Does every thing need to be rendered?

[Surfing@Blacks]

Hey, I recently purchased a digital camera the SD 780 which takes HD videos in the format of .MOV. I have a macbook and it seems I have to render everything from putting the video clips in my final express timeline and if I want to change the speed of a clip. Everything seems to be re-rendered every time I make a change. Any help will be greatly appreciated.


Thanks

 

[TheVidEditor]

Yes, no need to worry; as soon as any clip is altered in any way, a red bar should appear on top of the area that is required to be rendered. So, when you see this bar, select that clip/area, and hit -> R, to render the clip.

 

[Surfing@Blacks]

Yes, no need to worry; as soon as any clip is altered in any way, a red bar should appear on top of the area that is required to be rendered. So, when you see this bar, select that clip/area, and hit -> R, to render the clip.

Hey, thanks for the quick reply. I was watching many tutorials and it seems like they don't need to render anything they do.... is that due to the speed of their computer?

 

[spinnerlys]

That camera of yours records videos using the QuickTime (.mov) container with the H264 codec (an MPEG-4 variant).

This codec is not meant for an editing application like FCE, as not every frame is stored, something FCE and other editing programs need to properly edit the footage.

In order for you to edit those videos without constant rendering, you need to convert H264 .mov files via MPEG Streamclip to .mov files using the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC), which you then can import into FCE and use without rendering.

You have to know, that the footage in the FCE bin and the sequence settings have to match, and as FCE does not have an H264 sequence setting (if you create one, you will create just more trouble as seen here), you have to use one of the Apple Intermediate Codec settings.

MPEG Streamclip has a Batch function (CMD+B), so you don't need to convert every single file by hand.

Also make sure you have the proper settings for the conversion, as far as I gather from the Specifications page from Canon's official representation of the SD 780, your footage needs to have a resolution of 1280 x 720 (720p) and a frame rate of 30fps (frames per second).

Be sure to also read the manual of FCE (Menu Bar > Help > Manual or look here).


PS: The constant rendering is due to the differing of the footage and the sequence in its properties, using a different codec mainly. The rendering solves that problem temporarily by creating AIC encoded footage for proper viewing, but every change to a clip in the timeline, being trimming it or moving it, results in another rendering of said clip.

 

[InsightsIE]

Hey, thanks for the quick reply. I was watching many tutorials and it seems like they don't need to render anything they do.... is that due to the speed of their computer?

No. Turn on RT extreme but that will cause shuttering FPS unless you have a 8 core mac pro. I usually work around after i get my footage to put it in quicktime 7 pro and export it as a Apple intimidating codec (my nick name on it) And then watch a TV Show while it does it's first encode. Pop it into FCE And woola no rendering. It usually comes up as green. You can then adjust the clip to an extent before rendering. Doing some Contrast and brightness adjustments etc!