highest quality .flv from FCP

R

raizman

Member
I've got a 720p24 (16X9) sequence in FCP 6 that I want to output as a letterboxed 640X480 .flv file. Can anyone suggests the best way to do this to get the highest quality results?

Thanks,
Dave
 
FCP doesn't do direct to .flv, so what I would do is get a copy of video2swf or adobe flash itself (which includes a great flash video encoder) and use one of those. video2swf has given me decent results and is relatively cheap, but it's not as good as the higher-priced encoders.
 
I've got a copy of Flash although I'm not very familiar with it. Can you clarify what the steps are? How should I export the timeline from FCP?

Thanks.
 
if you have flash here's what you do. in FCP have your sequence selected and go to export>qt conversion then change the file format to FLV. That's it, no need to even open flash. Flash comes with a plugin for qt if that's all you are using flash for, you'll never have to even open it.

and for others who do not have flash, I have heard that you can simply use compressor to export as h264 mov file then just chane the extension to flv and you've got a flash file. so i've heard, never needed to try it though.
 
The flv needs to be 640X480 but since the sequence is 16X9 it comes out to 640X360. How can I letterbox the original so that it comes out the proper size?

Dave
 
really simple. when you export to flv go to the options button. there you can change the frame size and crop the video to what you need.
 
smpproductions said:
and for others who do not have flash, I have heard that you can simply use compressor to export as h264 mov file then just chane the extension to flv and you've got a flash file. so i've heard, never needed to try it though.
Click to expand...
Only works with Flashplayer 9, which supports the H264 codec, for higher compatibility I´d still use Flash 8 video (On2 codec), I doubt a lot will have updated to version 9 yet...
 
When I export to flv I can resize the video but how do I change the frame size? It seems like I can only crop the frame smaller than the image but not add extra space for letter boxing.

Any idea?
 
i don't really understand what you mean. if you are changing a 16x9 frame to 4x3 then you won't be getting any letterboxing, you get letterboxing from changing 4x3 to 16x9. Going 16x9 to 4x3 you will have some footage on the left and right cut off.

I just exported a short clip to FLV which was 16x9, I changed the size of it to 640x480, exported, opened in flash, made a swf, played the swf file and it looked fine. changes to a 4x3 frame size and everything.

If you are wanting your 16x9 to be in a 4x3 frame with black bars at the top and bottom you will have to go back into your editor and change your 16x9 setup to 4x3. I still work on FCP 5 so it's pretty easy to do, FCP 6 might be different.
 
I do want my 16x9 to be in a 4x3 frame with black bars at the top and bottom. So it sounds like I need to go back into FCP and change my 16x9 setup to 4x3. How do you do that?
 
Look in your browser window, find your sequence and scroll through until you find the anamorphic column. it should NOT be checked. Then you will need to put all the clips in your sequence into your viewer and go to the motion tab, under distort type in -33. This will give you a letterboxed 16x9 in a 4x3 frame.
 
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