Maintaining quality and exporting correctly from FCP 7

west-coast

west-coast

Member
Hey NS,

Im curious as to how everyone goes about there post production process in terms of keeping the highest quality. I'll post the steps I take and others should post theirs!

>drag clips to external hard drive

>mpeg streamclip (batch files, proress 422 (LT), deselect deinterlace, drag quality 100%)

>FCP 7 sequence settings, HDTV

Exporting:

>compressor

>>h.264

>>>30p

 
I usually just export at the same settings Im editing in, then use compressor afterwards to make it h.264 so i have a final version in both formats. and as for frame rate i like to do 24p, easier on my eyes.

I did have a question for anyone though, I see alot of people saying they convert their footage to 422(LT). I have always just converted to prores 422. Thats what they told me to do in my production class and it has always worked great. Was wondering if someone could explain what the (LT) means and why you do it instead? Thanks.
 
this is usually how i go about it as well. export from fcp raw then compress it in compressor to web settings usually with 30 or 24 fps depending on the vid

and 422(LT) i think is a little bit watered down of regular 422 making it like the lighter version good for doing a lot of work on comps with a little less kick like some laptops and what not. I THINK. thats my understanding of it at least, i could be completely wrong
 
no need to export out of fcp then go to compressor. just go file>send to compressor and you can just export out of there.

the reason for LT is that yes, it is a lighter version. if you try doing 422 HQ or something, it will try to pull too much out of the footage in a sense. DSLR footage isn't meant to be handled like that, and so it can actually degrade the footage. LT won't do that. i'm basically repeating what landis has said, i don't really have a good understanding of it myself.

as far as your sequence settings go, you shouldn't ever need to set them yourself. you should open a new sequence, and your FIRST step should be to take the most common type of clip (i.e. if the majority of your clips are 720p60p, use one of those), and drag it into the sequence. fcp will ask if you want to have sequence settings match clip settings, and click ok.

as far as export settings, for web i do h.264, 24fps, i leave bit rate and keyframes as they are, single-pass encoding, set quality to high, add a gamma correction filter at 1.11, audio is AAC 44.1 khz at normal quality, and the resolution of the video is usually the resolution of my lowest HD resolution (so if i have a decent amount of 720p clips and some 1080p clips, ill export at 720p).
 
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