Why not send clips to Compressor after done editing your project?

[asteele10]

Why not? This way you only compress the clips you use. If its a big project, there are lots of clips, and parts of clips that you'll never use.

I've done this 2 times and its worked. Or am I sacrificing quality by not doing the pulldown before I edit in FCP?

Also, I'm following Isaac's directions for pulldown with compressor. I know I'm missing something because there's always small glitches in my footy and it never looks as clean and crisp as some other peoples? Whats wrong here?!

Thanks.

 

[asteele10]

Also, what are the best settings to export from FCP? I've been doing: Quicktime movie, 1080x720 Apple ProRes HQ. And checking self contained.

I've also had a problem with 2 projects that begin with nested clips. For some reason, everytime I export (tried a million different ways) these first nested clips are all messed up but the rest of the video is fine. Anyone else have this issue or know why its happening?

Thanks.

 

[dvbrother]

The reason you're getting glitches in your footage, and the reason you should remove pulldown BEFORE you edit are directly related. When you drop footage without pulldown removed (i.e. 29.97 footage) into a 23.98 timeline, most of the time the pulldown cadence is going to be wrong. Occasionally, you'll get lucky and FCP intreprets the clip correctly, but most of the time it will look jerky because FCP's pulldown removal vs. the ACTUAL pulldown cadence of a clip don't match. It gets worse when you send to Compressor because you have now a bunch of edits with different pulldown cadences, but you're telling Compressor it's all one clip with a certain cadence. This is a recipe for disaster which may cause black frames between edits, etc.

This is why it's recommended to remove pulldown before editing.

 

[dvbrother]

Also, what are the best settings to export from FCP? I've been doing: Quicktime movie, 1080x720 Apple ProRes HQ. And checking self contained.

I'm assuming that you're shooting 1080p footage, otherwise you wouldn't be asking about pulldown removal. If you are shooting 1080p (not 720p), your settings should be 1920x1080, not 1080x720. Also, Pro Res HQ (emphasis on the HQ) is a bit of overkill for GH1 footage and probably creates huge files. I'd recommend using just plain old Apple Pro Res (instead of the higher quality"HQ" version). If you're exporting using Quicktime Movie and checking "self-contained", don't change anything else and it'll default to exporting whatever the sequence settings are.
If you're using "Log & Transfer" and converting your GH1 files to Apple Pro Res, your timeline should become the correct 1920x1080 Apple Pro Res 23.98fps timeline when you drop your first clip into the empty Sequence.

I've also had a problem with 2 projects that begin with nested clips. For some reason, everytime I export (tried a million different ways) these first nested clips are all messed up but the rest of the video is fine. Anyone else have this issue or know why its happening?

My guess is that the nested clips have a different frame rate or different frame size and so are acting goofy. This may all be related to your Pulldown error explained in an earlier post.
Once you properly remove pulldown, if you edit EVERYTHING in a 1920x1080 Apple Pro Res 23.98 timeline (nested clips and all), then export Quicktime Movie (and don't touch anything except making sure "self-contained" is checked), you should be fine.