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Learning FCP7, just a couple questions about 1080p/60p

G

GFBurke

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 16, 2010
9
0
boise
Hello.

I'm coming from iMovie and going into FCP7. I LOVE imovie but think I have outgrown it. I'm shooting in 1080p 60p. The .mov files from the camera are too large to play smoothly on any machine I have, but normally I'd import to iMovie then kick it out as 720p. (http://vimeo.com/11065696)

When you start FCP, it gives you many options as to what format your going to use. I don't see any that say "1080p /60p". But I assume it doesn't matter right? It didn't seem too.

What I like about iMovie is that it does the processing when you import the video so all transitions and effects you can see on the fly. With FCP, it does all the work after your done. I cannot sit there and preview cool effects on the fly. I also get the error about drop frames, but when I click on "RT", I don't get the "Unlimited RT" like it suggests..

Anyways, what are some good compressions for exporting my video and settings for importing it? Assuming I want to kick out at the best quality (but I don't think I can do 60p because non of my core2duo machines can play it back anyways, so 30p is probably what I need in the end). Without compressing at all, it took 8hrs for a 6min clip that was 5.5GB. Yikes. I'm now telling it to use apple prores 1080p 30p. I'll see how that works in a couple hours.

What settings can I do so I can see edits or transitions on the fly like I did in imovie?

Thanks for any help when dealing with massive video!

----
Using a 13' macbook pro, core2duo, 2GB DDR3, 7200rmp HDD, nvidia dedicated video. Dragging .MOVs off the SD card directly.
 
What camcorder are you using? Can't say for sure without knowing that but it probably will be ProRes you want to transcode to. Really doubt you want to be converting to 30p though. And you really do need a separate hard drive to keep all of your media on.

As for RT, it has a number of requirements in order for it to work properly. You'd be best reading the section on it in the manual.
 
Ok, thanks.
This is the Sanyo FH-1.

I will get an external FW HDD pretty soon.

I guess what I'm looking for is: what settings should I export too for 1080p that's not totally massive?

Thanks!
 
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Where is your export going? YouTube? DVD? Staying on your Mac?

ProRes can do 1080p60, by the way. It's less processor-intensive than the H.264 your camcorder shoots in and you should just about be able to play it back and do some basic editing via a FW800 disk.

But if you're always going to end up at 720p, I'd recommend you shoot at that, as it takes an age to scale from 1080 to 720 at high quality. And I'd avoid changing frame rates too — chose between 30p and 60p, and shoot, edit and output at whichever you chose.
 
Thanks!
This is for the local (drobo), youtube, vimeo.. files. I don't do physical media.

I will shoot in the highest quality then tailer down to 720p most of the time. I was just testing FCP7, exporting some macros of flowers to see on the plasma htpc. I didn't know that the prores was a bit lesser proc intensive than h.264. Good to know.

Should I be doing "share" or "export" to get to these settings.
 
Less processor intensive for editing yes, but prores is not an appropriate delivery format. H264 is still the way to go for that. For exporting you need to be going to file>export>export to QuickTime. If you have QuickTime pro installed you can create a reference file through file>export>QuickTime movie and deselect make movie self contained. Then bring it in to QuickTime pro and transcode to mp4.

Another tip if you want to boost your final output quality is to conform your footage from 60p to 30 or 24. Less frames per second means less encoding so ultimately your file size will be smaller for the same amount of run time. You can conform your footage through cinema tools.

Lastly, I highly recommend you use the free program MPEG stream clip to transcode your files off the SD card before you bring them into FCP. You can bring them into Prores format and you'll be able to see some real time effects. Final Cut Loader is another essential if you have a lot of media but it's not a free app.

Good luck!
 
Well I googled around and it seems I'm not alone.
Thanks for the tips!

The issue really isn't importing or editing I think. Just exporting to a normal file size. From iMovie, my 720p export is about 500mb for 7min video. That would be nice and I'll keep trying to find out what I should be exporting as.
 
What are you still unsure over? Export to H.264 using Compressor and set a target size or data rate that suits your purposes. That's what all the cool kids do.
 
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