anyone with Final Cut Pro v3 experience please

[Newbie 0]

hi - i have a finished project, its only a short 11min video. I want to burn it onto CD or DVD (im thinking CD would be best) for the guy who did all the camera work in the video - i havent done this before though. He wants it as a promo to be able to send to dz's to show off his camera work etc, and i was thinking, can i just export it from FCP as a Quicktime movie and burn it like that? That way everyone who has a laptop/PC just needs quicktime and they will be able to see it right?

Any suggestions on this would be really appreciated - thanks.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[murrays 0]

Exporting as a Quicktime movie will work. I like the Sorenson codec. File sizes can be quite large depending on the frame rate and key frame rate as well as the size of the video (i.e. - 480x320) If you go for 29.97 frames and a frequent key frame rate...like every frame, the quality will be wonderful but it will be a big file.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[Newbie 0]

thanks Murrays - is the Sorensen codec an option while exporting the file as a QT file?

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[murrays 0]

It is for me but I have QT Pro installed and don't know if that expands my options or not.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[slayer21016 2]

Well sense your wanting to put it on CD or DVD i would go with the CD because like you said most people have Quick Time on there computers and allot less have a DVD reader. i prefer the MPEG-4 codec for video and audio but people will need to have at least Quick Time 5 or newer to view an MPEG-4 video so Quick Time (.mov) is better for a larger viewing audience and Sorenson Video 3 like murrys said is the best codec for that. sense i don't know how much work was done on the video it's hard for me to give an exact answer. but if i was making a stand alone video for a CD I'd want to keep the Video Size at custom-600x480, Video Settings-MPEG-4 or the Sorenson Video 3 codec for video, Audio Settings-MPEG-4 (AAC) audio for an MPEG-4 video and QDesign2 audio for a .mov video and audio does not use that much space so 32,000 or 44,000 Khz should work fine, Video Quality-set at best, Keyframe every 5 frames, Frame Rate 30 (Quick Time compresses better with numbers that can be divided into 30 (10,15,30 ) even tho your video is 29.97 FPS), and I'd start with a max Data Rate of 300 KBytes/sec and see if i got a file size smaller than 670 MB's about the max a CD can hold. if the file size was larger than 670 MB's I'd lower the data rate to get the target size i wanted. you could also add Quick Time installers to the CD if you were concerned that people ether did not have Quick Time or you chose the MPEG-4 codec and you can get stand alone Quick Time Windows&Macintosh installers at Apple's Quick Time site for free. i hope this helps but i've probably just confused you even more.

Scott

[quade 3]

Quote

i hope this helps but i've probably just confused you even more.

It's a confusing subject!

The fact that there just doesn't seem to be -anything- that is a universal standard is what gets me. If somebody could just put a stake in the ground and say, "this is the minimum acceptable and -all- shall be able to read this file" it would be totally cool.

However, it's just not like that.

Unless you know for certain that the client will be able to read a particular file . . . it's all just guess work.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[slayer21016 2]

Quote

The fact that there just doesn't seem to be -anything- that is a universal standard is what gets me. If somebody could just put a stake in the ground and say, "this is the minimum acceptable and -all- shall be able to read this file" it would be totally cool.

I so agree with your statement. i thought that MPEG-4 was supposed to help with this problem but people keep putting out new codec's all of the time and just adding to the problem. I'm using Cleaner 6 for my encoding now and it's allot better than Quick Time Pro i can pick file types (Windows,Real or Quick Time) and overall file sizes and it does the rest but most people don't need Cleaner but it has made my life easier.

Scott

[Newbie 0]

nah that was great thanks very much for the detailed reply. It is somewhat confusing because this is all a hobby and not my day job, and it being my first "proper" project that needs to be exported out on to something other than just back onto a mini DV and then video, it's useful to have such a detailed response.

Thanks again!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Newbie 0]

hi Slayer - a few questions.

Most of your settings work great - the audio codec (QDesign2) made the entire audio sound like it had been run through a phaser effect though, so i ditched that and went straight for a standard 24 bit codec. Also, the video in the QT .mov is blocky, pixellated and interlaced. Do you know why this is? How can i get the video to output properly, do i have to use a different video codec?

Many thanks

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[slayer21016 2]

Sense i do not know the project size (total finished project) in uncompressed MB's i can only give my recommendations as to how to encode the video, and things like the number of effects and transitions added only decrease the quality when you encode unless your willing to give it more key frames and higher data rates to make it look better.

Try using the MPEG-4 codec for both the video and audio. yea QDesign music 2 gives the audio an echo type of sound unless you use really high data settings but MPEG-4 audio sounds more natural to me.

Quick Time pro does not offer a De-interlace option/filter when you compress, so if you click on the timeline tab in FCP3 and then select sequence in the FCP3 tool bar and nest item(s) you have now created just 1 big clip and then select video effects/video/De-interlace and then render and you've just saved your self allot of time by not having to add the De-interlace filter to every single clip in the timeline and you can still work on the project in the second timeline created when you nested, (nesting is a way to add filters to the whole video or sequence) but don't nest until your done with the whole project and your ready to encode. (and yes i'm contradicting myself from an earlier post about De-interlacing). but De-interlacing is still just an option but helps with skydiving video.

This is an explanation of the Key frame every setting (in QT Pro video settings) from another post and this setting has allot to do with quality when encoding.

Quote

Key Frame every: this is an important area that most people don't know what to select because they don't know what it means. what this does is to leave a single frame only slightly compressed. the default is set at every 24th frame which is set to a film format not DV (not an issue) so it only slightly compresses every 24th frame then it uses that frame as a guide for fully compressing the next 23 frames at which time it adds another Key Frame or slightly compressed frame and this continues thru the whole video compression. this setting will dictate how good your video will look. the number is not important but how often you add a key frame will dictate quality, if you add a key frame every 5 or 10 frames your going to get a much better looking video than if you left it at the every 24th frame setting but setting it to 5-10 will increase file size substantially, you have to weigh what you want in the end with this setting. i usually set this at 5 to 10 depending on how much work/tweaking/effects i've added to the video.

And if you can afford it Cleaner 6 (mac) http://www.discreet.com/products/cleaner/cleaner6/ is a great stand alone encoder that imports and exports Quick Time, Real Media and Windows Media files from one program and has more options than you know what to do with.

Scott


Godzilla Vs. Slayer

[Newbie 0]

thanks again Slayer, will work on this tonight and let you know.

Thanks for the info on the key frame rate - that had me boggled for a while too!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts