Here’s a cool new plug-in for Final Cut Pro that makes the task of syncing multiple cameras without timecode easy. In the age of consumer and pro-sumer HD camcorders this looks like it could be a real winner if shooting any project or event with 2 or more cameras. From Singular Software it’s currently in beta and a free download.
According to an AppleInsider post here we can look forward to updates around NAB time. Well all I can say is it’s about time! With AVID and Adobe actively upgrading and developing their NLE software , Apple has fallen behind in features. The last major upgrade to Final Cut was almost 2 years ago. A lifetime in software years. The rumors also includes updates to Shake and Final Cut Server. Got my fingers crossed this rumor comes true.
Here’s a really nice look at the Apple ProRes codec that we are now adapting as our own. According to Gary Adcock’s tests, there are very few instances where using the HQ version is necessary. Click here to read his entire post. Bottom line… great looking video at very small data sizes.
This post from Larry Jordan’s monthly newsletter explains why when viewing DV or DVCPro50 quicktimes the image looks so soft. Seems there’s a setting in quicktime to display these codecs in high quality. Mmmmm….interesting and I did not know that.
IMPROVING EXPORT QUALITY
Paolo Raho sent in a question I’ve been getting a lot recently:
I’m very familiar with all of your tutorials, and I know for the highest quality it is always recommended to export the sequence under the settings in which the footage was shot and captured. I was reading a couple of forums lately and they were discussing the idea of exporting a DV sequence as 8 or 10 bit uncompressed; a process that would yield a higher quality image, specifically for text and graphics. I wanted to get your opinion on this, whether there was any truth to it.
And one other question along the same lines, let’s say I have shot and captured in DVCPRO HD, and exported a sequence under the same settings, has my exported movie suffered any quality loss, or has it remained identical to the captured footage? That is to say, does exporting, even under the correct settings, result in an quality loss?
Larry replies:Paolo, Damon Jamal echoes your questions with his own:
Can you explain:
1) why when exporting using animation or prores the resulting quicktime movie looks better and
2) why that doesn’t matter?
Also you wrote to export as quicktime using current settings but if your sequence is set to prores (for example) then wouldn’t that result in what I wrote above in #1?
I’m just a little confused, so I would appreciate it if you can shed some light on this…
Larry continues: Here’s the basic problem. As Martin Baker describes in the Update below, on many systems DV is SAVED at high-quality, but not DISPLAYED at high-quality.
Here is an example. The image on the top is a portion of an exported DV clip displayed in QuickTime, the image on the bottom is the same portion using the Animation codec. Clearly, at this level, the Animation codec is FAR superior.
But, let’s run both of these through Compressor and check the compressed images. Now, the two variations look very, very similar. (Both of these sets of images were further compressed into JPEG from Photoshop using the Maximum quality setting. – so some additional quality loss has occured.)
Again, the difference is that DV requires a hardware chip for high-quality display in real-time. Compressor contains all the necessary algorithms to properly compress the image, but it can’t do so in real-time. For this reason, be sure to make your quality decisions after a file goes thru compression, and not before.
So, to answer your questions more specifically:
1. Is it better to export as 8 or 10 bit uncompressed? My feeling is that if you are shooting DV, no. If you are working with 8-bit or 10-bit source material – yes. The problem is that DV does not display at high quality on a Mac monitor. For this reason, people assume that the video is poor quality. This is a display issue, not a video quality issue.
I’ve done a test where I export DV footage using the Animation codec – the highest quality SD codec on the Mac – and the DV codec. I compressed both and compared them. To the eye, the compressed versions were identical. The intermediate versions looked significantly different – DV looked far poorer than the Animation codec. But after compression they looked the same.
2. Does DVCPRO HD change? Well, that depends. If you are adding effects, transitions, or something requiring rendering, then, yes, the video is being altered from its original state. On the other hand, that’s why you applied the filter in the first place. As to whether that’s a quality “loss” that depends on the filter you added – I would suggest that a color correction filter, properly applied, will make the clip look better.
If you are simply putting the video to the timeline and not adding effects what you get out is the same as what went in.
UPDATE – Dec. 18
Martin Baker, from Digital Heaven, wanted to clarify this a bit more, so he wrote:
It’s not a lack of hardware that causes the softness, it’s historical reasons. When DV was the new kid on the block and Macs were way less powerful than they are today, QuickTime Player decoded DV at half res to reduce the amount of processing required. Apple did this by adding a “High Quality” playback flag to the DV video track and disabling it by default when exporting a movie from FCP.
- High Quality disabled = half res
- High Quality enabled = full res
Most people freaked out when they saw their videos looking soft but weren’t aware this is purely a playback issue inside QuickTime Player and isn’t connected with the quality of the export. The DV file is full res, which explains why recompressing it to another format gives the same results as Animation codec.
The old “fix” was to enable the flag manually by opening Window > Movie Properties, or typing Command+J,selecting the Video Track, and checking the “High Quality” checkbox inside Visual Settings tab.
When Apple released QuickTime Player 7, they added a preference (QuickTime Player > Preferences > General > “Use high-quality video setting when available”). If this is enabled, then QuickTime Player will override the flag in the movie and always play DV movies at full res.
Larry continues: Thanks, Martin, for the update. The only point I want to add is that in most systems I see, this High-Quality default is turned off — which probably adds to the confusion. And thinking of preferences, Ben Balser wrote in with another that we need to pay attention to.
UPDATE – Dec. 20
Ben Balser, from the South Louisiana Final Cut Pro User Groups, added this:
To add to the discussion about QT Player’s video quality settings for playing back video, there’s also this preference folks should look for. I’ve found many of my User Group members complain about color shifts between the QT version and the FCP versions. Here’s how to fix it. By the way, I’m running QT Pro 7.5.5.
In QuickTime Player go to the “QuickTime Player” menu, to Preferences, in the General settings, at the very bottom of this window, make sure the last setting, “Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility” is also checked off, as QT Player uses a different gama than FCP does.
Larry replies: Thanks, Ben and Martin, for these updates.
Love when someone out there does all the hard work and all I have to do is write a little post and link to their work. In this case it has to do with encoding your video for Youtube in their new 16×9 format and HD settings. In this case, Brian Gary over at kenstone.net does the hard work and includes some handy Compressor presets as well. Download, tweak, encode, upload and enjoy.
Great thing about the blogworld is whenever you’re thinking about writing a post, chances are someone has already written about what you’re thinking, especially in this production/post-production world.
I was working on a HD project the other day where I had 4 stock shots from Getty. 1 of the shots was SD so of course I was confronted with that issue of having to upconvert the SD shot to HD. I tried every which way to do it.
1. Compressor
2. Magic Bullet Instant HD in Final Cut Pro
3. Magic Bullet Instant HD in After Effects
4. Kona 3 Hardware.
Not having used Instant HD I had high hopes that this could be done in software. While the process of using the plug-in isn’t very intuitive, it did give decent results but I noticed interlace issues in both Final Cut and After Effects. With Instant HD you’re meant to work with progressive footage only and as the file I was upconverting was downloaded from Getty in the Photo JPEG codec, I assumed it was already de-interlaced. Compressor was having the same issues as Instant HD. It wasn’t a frame rate issue, the software conversion just couldn’t give me decent frame blending on the slight panning motion in the shot. So last but not least was the Kona 3. Since the shot was originally a download, I had to output the shot to Digital Betacam first then capture using the Kona 3 hardware upconversion. I brought it in 2 ways, once with the image zoomed to fill the 16:9 frame and once with pillar bars left and right. I ended up using the zoomed version and when edited into the final sequence, it played great with the other 3 HD shots.
So this all leads me to this… Shane Ross on Creative Cow goes into great depth about using the Kona 3 to do your upconversions for you. Thanks Shane and now I know whenvever I’m given the challenge of upconverting SD to HD, I’ll always think of hardware first. If you’re lucky enough to have a Kona 3 in your workflow Shane’s article is a must read for hardware upconversion.
With all the hard work done by Alex Gollner from the Editing Organized blog. He makes it very simple to cut and paste the code and create a new generator for Final Cut Pro. In this case the example is white.
How many times to find yourself selecting Matte>Color and changing the color to white? There’s no way to change the default color but this handy little trick creates a whole new generator with the color white. In the past I’ve just imported a frame of white I created in Photoshop. Follow his very simple instructions here. I think I’ll make one for black too!
For a long time there was one default application for capturing video from your computer screen on the Mac. SnapZPro has been available on the Mac for many years and while it has served us well it may be time to move on for good.
For the last year or more I’ve been using a program called iShowU from shinywhitebox software. I’ve liked the ease of use and the speed at which it will build my captures after finishing a record. One of the biggest drawbacks for me with SnapZPro is the time it takes to build the file after recording. When deadlines are tight it just doesn’t cut it, especially on long records. Well now there even more reason to make the switch.
With the introduction of iShowU HD, you now have the ability to record in HD, post directly to YouTube and other video hosting sites, record keystrokes, import directly into Final Cut Pro, plus a slew of other new features. The standard version costs $29.95 with the Pro version cost $59.95. For Leopard only so if you’re still running Tiger, you’ve got to stick with iShowU or upgrade your OS. Lots of video tutorials available on their site. Of course there are other choices for screen capturing like ScreenFlow from Flip4mac. ScreenFlow is great for doing screencasts with it’s integrated editing functionality. It’s pricier at $99 too. But for simple screen captures for use in your Final Cut sequences I don’t think you can go wrong with iShowU HD. I’m upgrading today!
Was watching MacBreak Studio last night and learned something I thought was really cool.
How many times are you in a pinch for a music track and don’t have the time to look for or the $$ for a library cut? Now we all know about GarageBand, but when was the last time you opened it up? Well the newest version that comes with iLife ’08 has a cool new feature called Magic GarageBand. If you have a new Mac then you already have iLife ’08. If you’ve got an older Mac then you might need to upgrade to get this new feature. Basically, Magic GarageBand lets you select a genre of music, pick the types of instruments and presto…instant music tracks for free.
Rather than get too much into how it works and what it does, I recommend taking a look at the episode of MacBreak Studio.
I think you’ll be surprised how easy a process it is to create your own music to the desired length you need. Be sure to stop by PixelCorps for more podcasts too!
We all know how tough it is to get smooth pans and zooms on stills and video in Final Cut Pro. Well now thanks to FxFactory you can download their free plugin and achieve those Ken Burns effects you’ve always wished for. Check out their site and demos and then download for free. Only runs on Leopard and FCP 6 and Motion 3. Time to upgrade!
