Basic FCP Questions

[bayswater]

I don't do much video, and don't have FCP, but I've been asked by the family to deal with about 100 hours of videos, basically edit out the rubbish, and make a few DVDs people can watch. A neighbour in film has lent me a recent MBP with OS X 10.8.5 and FCP 10.1 on it. I've created about 50 .dv files, and put them in a FCP library to try basic editing.

I am used to using QT Pro, and found a lot of the basic keyboard shortcuts translate, so that's good. I would have used QT Pro for this, but can't find export settings that don't degrade video quality. FCP exports appear equivalent to the original. This seems odd to me -- I would have thought FCP would use all the QT code and they'd export the same quality levels.

First, I'm trying to just cut out many hours of blank screen. I thought I would be able to export the smaller clips, but don't see anywhere in FCP to export in the original .dv format. Should I care about this? Should I just load clips into a project, cut the blank stuff, and export to a final version?

Second, I find FCP often just sits and spins a lot. For example, if I use the J/K/L keyboard commands to move the transport, it works, but if I hit L three times to get a fast forward, FCP takes about 30 seconds to respond, and then plays with jerky motion. QT Pro responds immediately with the same file and commands, and plays smoothly. Is this normal?

[Shooshie]

When you speak of QT Pro, are you talking about QT Player 7? (Pro) Or are you talking about the new QT?

I've found that when I try to export MP4, the result is about on par with 1995 internet movie downloads; barely watchable. When I export from Screenflow, the files are a fraction of the size of .movies from QT pro, and yet they are HD. I've always wondered what was up with QT Pro, and why I could never get good movies at a decent file size. Why should a 5 minute movie require a GB in size to offer HD, as it does in QT Pro? I can get a 15 minute movie under 100MB in Screenflow.

You might try using iMovie or ScreenFlow or some other 3rd party movie software.

I still love QT Pro for editing movies quickly. You can't beat it for that, but the output? Whew!

Shooshie

[billf]

First, I'm trying to just cut out many hours of blank screen. I thought I would be able to export the smaller clips, but don't see anywhere in FCP to export in the original .dv format.

You don't really need to export all the clips once you have them in FCP. FYI, the supported export formats are here:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH17903

Should I care about this? Should I just load clips into a project, cut the blank stuff, and export to a final version?

The "project" will contain all the clips and your edits. Think of it like a DAW and imported audio files that have been edited. There is the master project and all the associated raw files, and then there is the final exported product file.

You can use FCP to then export your finished project to various formats as shown above as movies.

[bayswater]

When you speak of QT Pro, are you talking about QT Player 7? (Pro) Or are you talking about the new QT?

I'm talking about QT 7 with the purchased SN to activate the edit functions. Not the new QT, although I use that if I'm just going to look at a video.

[bayswater]

Think of it like a DAW and imported audio files that have been edited.

OK, thanks, that's what I was hoping. No fooling around with the video files. I'm still getting the spinning beach ball, although now I see that it only happens once for each section of video. Hoping there is some function to deal with that.

[billf]

I'm still getting the spinning beach ball, although now I see that it only happens once for each section of video. Hoping there is some function to deal with that.

Check this thread and see if anything helps resolve that issue:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/31 ... 0&tstart=0

[bayswater]

Thanks. A lot of ideas and suggestions there.