Final cut pro blurry!??

[coryokeefe]

So i imported my footage from my DVX and after color correcting it, when i am playing the clip everything looks a little blurry, but when its paused or stopped is super crisp and clear. What did I do wrong?

Import settings? Shooting? Would love to learn how to get that crisp look at all times.

[Alex H.]

You haven't rendered, and your RT preview is dumbing it down to keep up with playback. Either use a better RT setting, or if your computer can't handle that, render. Or, wait until you're done, then render everything before output to cut down on hard drive clutter.

[Shane Ross]

#2 Blurry Playback

Shane's Stock Answer #2: Blurry playback

ONLY JUDGE THE QUALITY OF YOUR MATERIAL ON AN EXTERNAL BROADCAST MONITOR, OR AT LEAST A TV.

The Canvas shows you what happens after the codec you are working with has been applied. The Viewer shows you the material in its native format. Once you drop the footage from the Viewer into the timeline, it inherits the attributes of the sequence. If it is a DV sequence, the footage will render out as DV.

1. Disable overlays on the Canvas.

2. Make sure you've rendered everything (no green bars at the top of the timeline).

Video playback requires large amounts of data and many computations. In order to maintain frame rate and be viewable at a normal size, only about one-fourth of the DV data is used in displaying the movie to the screen. However, the DV footage is still at full quality, and is best viewed thru a TV or broadcast monitor routed thru your camera or deck.

[Dingos8mybaby]

Yes. Get an external monitor. Even if it's an SD CRT.

OT: Shane, I'm just curious, do you actually have a list of these stock answers somewhere (@ lfhd for example)? Or are you just coming up with them on the spot? Either way, you usually give the most straight-forward advice. I admit that when I'm having a problem with FCP, I usually come here and search for your answers. lol Thanks for taking the time to post here man. :beer:

[Shane Ross]

I do have them in one location...broken up into 3 parts.

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/fcp_faq.php
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/fcp_faq2.php
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/fcp_faq3.php

I actually keep them stored in my STICKIES file. You can see what that looks like in Part 2...I have a picture posted. Although I have gotten a few more. This goes up to 45, I now have 50. I need 10 more to add a Part 4.

[ctb1010]

I agree with C2V hit Option R to render and you should be good to go.

[Alex H.]

I agree with C2V hit Option R to render and you should be good to go.

I only explained why the desktop preview was blurry. Shane hit on the deeper issue here: the need for external monitoring, which is a pretty standard need. I never rely on my desktop, using an external Sony broadcast monitor for all critical viewing.

[n8ture]

It's dynamic playback. It lowers the quality on playback so that you don't drop frames etc.
Render it out to a movie and play it and you'll see it's fine.

[Dingos8mybaby]

I do have them in one location...broken up into 3 parts.

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/fcp_faq.php
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/fcp_faq2.php
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/fcp_faq3.php

I actually keep them stored in my STICKIES file. You can see what that looks like in Part 2...I have a picture posted. Although I have gotten a few more. This goes up to 45, I now have 50. I need 10 more to add a Part 4.

Thanks for that. :)