Final Cut Workflow Help

[alexgutterson]

I am having some severe compression issues with my ex1 and final cut. Every time I export everything is jittery, frames are lost, and it is painfully clear that this is not being done correctly, as my results are very different from the video I am watching on my Final Cut player.


I shoot mostly just 1080/24p/VBR.

What easy setup should I have, what are acceptable exporting solutions, and what aren't (and why they don't work -- the theory)?

For now I am looking to just easily post an accurate representation of my product on the internet, however I will also need to know the best workflow solutions in terms of highest quality.

[alexgutterson]

Bump

[alexgutterson]

To be more specific, when I export from FCP and try to watch the video on QT the frame rate becomes horrendous and the first thing that happens is the picture is lightened. In addition, the same problem occurs in Compressor every-time I try to preview an export.

[RDykmans]

I've had that problem with QT conversions in the past with other codecs (DV and DVCPro HD to be specific) where there's a gamma change during the conversion and the video becomes lighter. Sorry I can't remember what the fix was but it's somewhere in the settings if I remember correctly. I don't think it's strictly an XDCam codec problem.

[Tweekme]

Alex,

Try the following:
In FCP,
File / Export / Quicktime Movie...

Set 'Setting' to Current Settings

That will get you a .mov that will play on your system using the same settings as your Timeline in FCP.

Depending on what you want to do with it from there, you will need to open it in Quicktime Player and 'Export' it. Here is what I do to prep a .mp4 movie for Vimeo or ExposureRoom:
In Quicktime Player,
I do File / Export, set 'Export' to Movie for MPEG-4. Go to 'Options', for 'Video Format' select H.264. for a 720p movie, I do 3500 for the Data Rate.

Give that a try and let us know what you get.


Scott K.