Getting Started with HD editing

[Hal9000]

Thanks! And, does anyone know the best way to export in FCE? I'm exporting a test clip, and no matter what settings I choose, usually the most direct, it comes out looking horribly aliased.

[seciors]

I found out that FCE doesn't export to surround sound, but I'm planning on taking a page from ADigitalMan and putting the soundtrack together in another application, then muxing the two later.

That could be a bit challenging. I'm actually not sure how you would even do that, since the other application would need to have the exact timing and transitions of all the edits you made in FCE. ADigitalman has done this somehow for his edits? I'm really curious as to how this would work.

However, I may borrow the occasional audio or clip from another edit. (For example, I might use another editor's take on the podrace.) So I was wondering if the end result would show a (slight) drop in quality when I cut to that source.

The best thing to do is to try and recreate the scene yourself; that would be my own approach, since that gives you the most flexibility...and that would give you the best quality. However, this can be done, but you would have to make sure you obtain the highest quality version of the edit you are taking the clip from. As long as the editor didn't do any color correction, things should be ok. You will need to ensure you have the same frame rate and audio type (stereo vs surround).

but now you say that I can't export in 23.9fps, which would be ideal. I'll have to look into that; that sucks. (In the export settings, I can select to output to Apple Intermediate Codec, which allows me to export to the current framerate. And even so, it allows me to enter a custom framerate. Would that work?)

Ok, so the problem here is that you don't want to keep changing the frame rate back and forth. FCE will not let you edit using 23.976 footage, it has to be 29.97. So at that point, is is not a good idea to export at a different frame rate for your final product. You will not be gaining anything, in fact, doing so could definitely cause both sync issues with your audio, as well as possible flash frames in the video. So if you are going to use FCE, you need to stick with 29.97. It's not the end of the world.

FCE seems to perform better on my machine than iMovie, honestly.

I'm not surprised. FCE is an old product, which can run fine on older hardware like you have. iMovie (especially the versions that are recent) are much more resource intensive.

I only mentioned iMovie because it is much more similar to FCPX. I just took a quick look at the info about the latest version of iMovie, and while it does support 24fps, it won't export in surround sound (though like FCE I think you can work with surround sound...though I can't tell you how much control you get on individual channels. In FCE you definitely have access to all 6 channels.). I do know that FCPX imports iMovie projects, while it won't import FCE stuff.

Bottom line advice: don't make things harder for yourself! If you can't get a new computer, then you should probably work with FCE and accept the fact that your edits will be in 29.97 / stereo on output. FCE gives you plenty of editing power. And if it can perform well enough on your computer, I think it's your best option.

One final option is to look for a copy of cheap copy of FCP7 on ebay or some other source. If FCE runs on your computer, so should FCP7. And FCP7 will give you access to prores, 23.976, and surround sound. I have no idea what the viability of getting a copy of FCP7 is, but I just thought I'd throw it out there...

[Hal9000]

I thought of that, but FCP7 is not compatible with my graphics card either.
About the audio, I could use Womble if nothing else. I'd put the resultant video and temp audio into Womble, lay down the new audio in its native 5.1, then export only the audio.
Even without mucking with frame rate settings, I can't seem to export from FCE without a horrid looking resultant file. Am I missing something simple?

[seciors]

I thought of that, but FCP7 is not compatible with my graphics card either.

oh well, was worth a try...

About the audio, I could use Womble if nothing else. I'd put the resultant video and temp audio into Womble, lay down the new audio in its native 5.1, then export only the audio.

Still don't really follow how you are going to do this, unless you are saying you are going to convert the stereo mix into surround? Also, womble doesn't seem to be a mac application, at least according to their web site. But maybe I'm missing something.

Even without mucking with frame rate settings, I can't seem to export from FCE without a horrid looking resultant file. Am I missing something simple?

What are you trying to export into, and what are you using to play the resultant file? There should be an option to export to quicktime without any transcoding. e.g., using project settings. Is that what you are choosing? (Export to Quicktime Movie I think it is called).

Also, what format is your content in with regards to FCE? I'm assuming it looks good when you play it inside FCE?

[Hal9000]

I'd recreate the audio from scratch inside Womble, using the video and temp audio from FCE as reference.

And the video doesn't look great in FCE once it's on the timeline because I set it to show at lower resolution for speed reasons. (The footage looks fine on the left preview window, but rough on the output preview window on the right.)
I even went and changed them all to full resolution first but when exported into a large Apple Intermediary file and opened in QuickTime, it looks like a zoomed in thumbnail.

[seciors]

it's possible you can't view AIC files outside of FCE, unless you have quicktime pro. Try doing an export using quicktime conversion, and choose the h264 codec, and make sure you check the video resolution to match the resolution of your video file. Keep the frame rate the same as well.

[Hal9000]

Thanks; will do when I get home late tonight. I know it's possible, otherwise nobody would have ever used it.

[seciors]

Also, double-check your sequence settings. It's possible they aren't actually set correctly. They take on whatever your easy setup settings are, unless you changed that in preferences to ask you what settings you want to use when creating a new sequence. So it's quite possible your sequence is not in HD. To check sequence settings, select the sequence and go to Sequence --> Settings.

FYI, here's apple's main support page for FCE:
http://www.apple.com/support/finalcutexpress/

you can access user manuals as well as other info there that can help you figure out issues like this.

[Hal9000]

That is probably it. I probably created the sequence in SD because I was just practicing, and I did not create a new sequence when I practiced on an HD source. However, the resultant file looks an upscaled thumbnail, not even SD. I'll try again later.

[Hal9000]

Well, that definitely solved the resolution problem. However, when played in Quicktime the video drags on while the audio plays at normal speed and leaves it in the dust. I'm going to see if I can transcode from L8's BD25 (as practice for the real thing) into an Apple lossless format in 29.97 fps and see what THAT looks like when exported from FCE.