Old Timers who used v 4.5

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Level 1

4 points

Old Timers who used v 4.5

Hi, I am a self taught editor who edited a punk documentary on FCPro a decade ago using v4.5. A fellow filmmaker & I want to release a Blu-Ray of our 2 movies together. My doc is on an external drive which I connect to an old Mac that was upgraded. I want to get the best possible copy off of this computer to use. If anyone recalls form this old version of FCPro it is old school and has export options that are limited.

Any advice on getting a good copy off of it? I tried export/using QT/ checked off "self contained", did not check off "re compress frames" and got a copy that is about 1.91 GB. However having nothing to compare it to, not sure it is the best i can do. I can also do "print to tape". Would that be a better copy?

I have it set to H.264 compression and it says the ratio is 682 x 498. I see as other options uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 and uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2.

One thought I could make a copy of the whole project on this external drive and take it to a newer computer with the newest FCPro but will it even open it with the project this old? I could then "share it" as I see this is the new export menu.

computer is a MAC OS X v10.4.11 733 MGh pro power PC G4

mem 1.25 GB This computer does not connect to the internet either-so limits some things.

Thanks in advance for some ideas.

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Mar 26, 2024 12:43 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

65,144 points

May 6, 2024 12:31 AM in response to SicCze

There is no way to directly open an old FCP project in a current version.

The only possible way is via XML, but even then I have no idea how that would work in version 4.5. The last legacy version was FCP 7 in 2009. Projects from that version would be exported to XML and then a third party tool could be used to convert that XML to a format compatible with the new FCP.

There are quite a lot of hurdles. Since you have the media, perhaps it would be best to edit anew in current FCP.

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Answer 2

MartinR

Level 6

19,651 points

May 13, 2024 1:23 PM in response to SicCze

SicCze wrote:

Any advice on getting a good copy off of it? I tried export/using QT/ checked off "self contained", did not check off "re compress frames" and got a copy that is about 1.91 GB. However having nothing to compare it to, not sure it is the best i can do. I can also do "print to tape". Would that be a better copy?

I have it set to H.264 compression and it says the ratio is 682 x 498. I see as other options uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 and uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2.

Without knowing the clip & sequence characteristics or the sequence length it's difficult to tell if 1.91 GB size is good or not; or whether or not it's the "best quality" you could achieve.

However, if your source material was DV and your output was QuickTime H.264 then your 1.91 GB file represents about 1 hour of video. And it's probably the best quality you are going to get from the DV source material for viewing purposes. (Even moreso if your truly original source was VHS transferred to DV.) DV video is 4:1:1. Rendering it to 4:2:2 may result in some image degradation.

My suggestion is that if the source material was DV and you intend to transfer this yet again to BluRay, do another export to QuickTime Movie, self-contained, DV ... not MPEG4 or H.264. Yes, it will be a much larger output file. Quality is limited by the source material, you just don't want to do anything that would reduce quality from that.

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Answer 3

Alchroma

Level 7

23,815 points

Mar 26, 2024 5:41 PM in response to SicCze

See if this old post helps:

3949525

Al

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Answer 4

SicCze Author

Level 1

4 points

May 5, 2024 7:28 PM in response to SicCze

Thought I would update on where I am at with this. I had another project I had to put ahead of this one but I tried taking a copy of the project and all its elements gathered using media manager (chose copy) within the old FCPro app. I brought those on a USB drive to a new MAC running the latest FCPro and tried to open the project and it would not recognize the project file as the project file. All the elements were there but no way they were connected to a timeline so useless. I will try again using the media manager choosing something other than copy and see if I have success. Also going to try "print to tape" and see if I can get a copy that way.

If that fails I will take the whole CPU to someone somewhere that has old FCPro on it hopefully the last version before going to the creative cloud suite.

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Answer 5

SicCze Author

Level 1

4 points

May 13, 2024 12:52 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thank you but that sounds like **** to re-edit. I have original tapes of S-VHS. All transferred to min-DV and then about 30 of them. Have an EDL from then.

Going to try "print to tape" or find someone with FCP 7 in 2009. Was going to look up the most recent legacy version, thank you.

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Answer 6

SicCze Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 26, 2024 8:42 PM in response to Alchroma

Thank you Alchroma, some good info-provides some context.

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Old Timers who used v 4.5

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