H.264 in FCP

7

70mmDV

Member
Hi
I've got a bunch of 720p footage I'm about to start editing in FCP 4.5

Everything is fine, but I'd like to be able to compress all the footage to free up some HD space. This is a small personal project, and color correcting and custom curves have already been applied. I converted the footage to H.264 and it looks great (very impressed with apples new compression) but I can't open any of the compressed footage in FCP. Is this because H.264 was invented AFTER FCP4.5? Will it work on a mac pro running FCP 5?

Is there any way to work with H.264 footage directly in final cut?

Thanks
-John
 
You're probably right on both:

1. 4.5 is too old
2. h.264 was not intended for editing, so (for now) your best bet is to re-compress (into DVCPRO HD)

Your images will take a hit.

Gunleik
 
70mmDV said:
Is there any way to work with H.264 footage directly in final cut?
Click to expand...

Technically, you could work direct with H.264 by editing your project's sequence settings (project wise or just for a particular sequence).

You can do so by creating a new Sequence Preset (in the Sequence Presets tab of Audio/Video Settings) or by altering a particular sequence's settings directly (Sequence > Settings or command + 0 with an open sequence).

In that dialog, you'll need to change QuickTime Video Settings to H.264, the frame size, pixel aspect ratio, etc.

I've never tried this in FCP HD, but since H.264 is a Quicktime upgrade, so as long as you have the latest version of Quicktime installed on your system, you should be able to make these changes.

Now having said that, like gunleik mentioned, you'll be much better off using either the original footage or to re-compress back to something more "editing friendly", like DVCPRO HD, etc. Editing sequence presets can turn messy!
 
In FCP5 you can simply right click on the footage in the browser and make multi clip sequence using the clips in points. FCP automatically creates a sequence with the correct settings to be able to edit the h.264 footage without having to render. Might not be useful for those on FCHD but for those on 5 it can be handy.
 
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