URGENT! noob tutorials for exporting uncompressed needed

morten

morten

Well-known member
I am cutting together 16 entries for a local film festival and I've run into a major problem:

People don't know how to export their projects properly!

As a result about half of the movies (interestingly all but one edited on a Mac) are exported with horrible compression. The instructions clearly stated only uncompressed films would be accepted but it's quite obvious exporting uncompressed form iMovie, Final Cut and Final Cut Pro is far from easy.

I am under extreme time constraints here and I need all these people who don't know what they are doing to re-export their movies without compression. Since I'm not a Mac guy I can't walk them through how to do this so I'm reaching out to the good people of this forum to help me.

Can someone please make simple noob down-to-earth man-on-the-street tutorials on how to export your iMovie/FCP movie uncompressed to an mov/dv file?

I thought that since Mac is such a user friendly and intuitive system this would be a piece of cake but considering how many of these movies are exported improperly I'm guessing it's not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

mor10
*quite desperate at this point*
 
well yeah but it's like a BMW- it's smooth but it don't drive itself. :)

You've also asked like 6 different things. Uncompressed and DV are not the same thing. DV is compressed. Also iMovie and FCP have totally different export modes and that might not even be your problem if you've set up your sequences incorrectly.

So- take a deep breath and let's start with FCP. Tell us what you are using as your sequence and export settings currently. And please explain it to us as if we're not sitting next to you at the computer so we can help you out.

Noah
 
OK. clearly I need to clarify:

- There are 8 movies that have problems. I did not make any of them. They came to me on DVDs as .mov files.

- I know for a fact that two of them are edited on FCP and three are edited on iMovie. no clue what the rest of them used but since they were made on Macs I'm assuming it was one of the above

- all 8 movies have some form of compression issues. Two of them are about 320x240, 15fps and others have huge artefacts - some diamond shaped and some squared

- one of them was shot in 24pa but somehow was exported interlaced causing all sorts of problems

- the audio is horrendous on a couple

Now, if this was Adobe Premiere world (where I live) this would be an easy fix. Simply click "Export" and "Microsoft DV AVI" and the output is uncompressed. Apparently it's not that easy using whatever Mac software these people are using.

What I need is a simple breakdown I can send out to these editors that explains to them how to export uncompressed .mov files for me. There must be some generic setting that will export the movie at as high quality as possible no matter what the original settings are. At least that's the way it is in "complicated user-unfriendly" PC land.

I have no clue what their settings, systems or programs are. I just want raw material that doesn't look like complete crap

mor10
 
It's the same in FCP- you go File>Export>Use current settings, check make movie self-contained. And again assuming the sequence settings were correct you'll get a DV-NTSC with AIF audio. If the sequence settings were wrong you have a whole other issue on your hands. Someone else will have to chime in on iMovie but I assume it's the same.

Noah
 
They broke the rules so why are you suffering. Reject the problematic entries and save yourself the grief or ask them to sort it out themselves.
 
Shooter said:
They broke the rules so why are you suffering. Reject the problematic entries and save yourself the grief or ask them to sort it out themselves.
Click to expand...

tempting, but it's not my decision to make. I just don't want to use the crappy versions because it will invariably look like I'm the one that screwed up

mor10
 
Also if all of these movies failed that's as much a failure in the training as it is in the editors who clearly had no clue or guidance. Share the responsibility for the cluster-f. :beer:

Noah
 
I have a stock answer for this, and it any of them bothered to ask on any of the 5 forums that I peruse (and the 3-4 that Noah appears on) then they would have gotten their answer:

#3 output lossless DV

Shane's Stock Answer #3:

To export your DV project so there is no loss in quality, simply go to the File Menu and select EXPORT>QUICKTIME MOVIE. Not Quicktime Conversion, fot this will compress the footage. Make sure the settings match your timeline settings, make it self contained and you are set.

As for iMovie...got me there...like Noah, I don't use it.
 
thank you shane, that's exactly what I was looking for

now I just need one for iMovie
 
BTW :Its also basically the same for Premiere Pro.

"Export Movie" will export as per timeline and project setting. (ie if the project setting is correct, the export will be the same)

Do not use Media Encoder.
 
I've found a second even more bizarre problem:

Two movies edited and exported by two different people on two different FCP Macs have the exact same problem: The last couple of minutes of the export is pure digital noise - the image is just garbled pixels and the audio is a wall of static. At first I thought it was just a glitch in the copying but since there are two movies that exhibit the exact same problem I'm starting to think it's an FCP issue. and no, it has nothing to do with me importing it into Premiere. The problem is in the file itself and is present on the original files.

Again I reiterate: I know how to do this in Premiere. It's the people who made these movies in FCP who are screwing up and I'm trying to help them fix their problems so all the time and money they've invested in their projects aren't wasted.

mor10
morten
 
Well we've already given you what you need to know to get this done. Why not go back to the editors and find out what there sequence settings and export settings were. Is there no one else around who actually knows FCP?
 
My guess is that the FCP users are using Compressor and they are starting with the "wrong" set up for the desired export and wrong choices in Compressor.

BTW - FCP is known to have its own "flavour" of QT (.mov) Generally if it occurs, it just displays a white screen in other apps and platforms (eg After Effects)
 
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