mrbl
Level 1 (8 points)
Video

Q: Combine all sub clips into a new clip

Not exactly necessary for my workflow, but something I was hoping to do. In a master clip with numerous intermittent imperfections, which I can clean up, either in the Viewer or the Timeline, my original single clips becomes a series of sub clips. With this master clip now cleaned up, I might not want to edit it in a way which matches the edits done to eliminate the imperfections. Kind of like having a $5, 4 $1s and the spare change to bring it to $10, and preferring to have a single $10 bill instead of that other handful.

 

The manual shows no way to do this inside FCE. If I export the series of clips as self-contained .mov, QT knocks the resolution from 1080 down to 720 (no thanks). If I export it to QT-conversion, the 1080 can be maintained but the resulting single file has its image reduced by 20% (?), surrounding it with black borders. When brought back inside FCE, the clip is still listed as 1080. But I have yet to successfully resize it, as the means for this apparently won't allow the borders to be cropped out.

 

TIA

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), FCE 4.0.1

Posted on Jul 8, 2016 11:23 AM

by Alchroma,Solvedanswer
Alchroma Alchroma
Level 6 (18,906 points)
Video
A:

Once an Easy Setup is selected it makes all other Sequences conform.

If you change the Easy Setup only NEW sequences are effected.

 

You could try creating a new Sequence with the appropriate Easy Setup selected and copy/paste the other clips into it.

 

Al

Posted on Jul 11, 2016 12:31 AM

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mrbl

Q: Combine all sub clips into a new clip

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Alchroma,Helpful

    Alchroma Alchroma Jul 9, 2016 8:06 AM in response to mrbl
    Level 6 (18,906 points)
    Video
    Jul 9, 2016 8:06 AM in response to mrbl

    Try this:

    Re: Exporting in best Quality

    Also check that the Project Properties are what you think they should be.

     

    Al

  • by mrbl,

    mrbl mrbl Jul 9, 2016 8:12 AM in response to Alchroma
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Video
    Jul 9, 2016 8:12 AM in response to Alchroma

    It's in the object qualities. The original clip is 1280x720 (misstated above), the sub clips are 1280, but the resulting sequence is 720x480. It's not as if FCE can't handle HD clips. Any guesses as how this down-verting happened during the editing of the original clip?

     

    TIA

  • by mrbl,

    mrbl mrbl Jul 9, 2016 8:21 AM in response to mrbl
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Video
    Jul 9, 2016 8:21 AM in response to mrbl

    I don't think it's in the auto-conform preference (set to "Ask"), because there was never any way for the sub clips to fail to match the original clip's frame-size.

  • by Alchroma,Helpful

    Alchroma Alchroma Jul 10, 2016 8:58 PM in response to mrbl
    Level 6 (18,906 points)
    Video
    Jul 10, 2016 8:58 PM in response to mrbl

    Choose an Easy Setup that matches the clips.

     

    Al

  • by mrbl,

    mrbl mrbl Jul 10, 2016 8:58 PM in response to Alchroma
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Video
    Jul 10, 2016 8:58 PM in response to Alchroma

    OK, I think I have this figured out. All my sequences have frame rate 720x480, because my initial Easy Set-up was DV-NTSC. If I really wanted to export in a larger frame size, I could chose an HD codec from those listed in the Custom Formats. But why would I want to? The ultimate format is DVD's MPEG-2 which is based on 720x480 frame size, and an HD-size frame would be wasted here. Plus, within FCE, if the master clip was originally 1280x720, I get to do all my editing in HD frame sizes. So, I'm accepting 720x480 as FCE output.

     

    I'd enjoy further comments on this, but I think the above is the answer.

  • by Alchroma,Solvedanswer

    Alchroma Alchroma Jul 11, 2016 12:31 AM in response to mrbl
    Level 6 (18,906 points)
    Video
    Jul 11, 2016 12:31 AM in response to mrbl

    Once an Easy Setup is selected it makes all other Sequences conform.

    If you change the Easy Setup only NEW sequences are effected.

     

    You could try creating a new Sequence with the appropriate Easy Setup selected and copy/paste the other clips into it.

     

    Al

  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H Jul 11, 2016 4:42 AM in response to mrbl
    Level 7 (21,760 points)
    Quicktime
    Jul 11, 2016 4:42 AM in response to mrbl

    Depends what application you want to do the down res. There are a lot of users who preferred to let Final Cut (Pro or Express) do it because they felt it did the best job. Others (me, included) preferred to use Compress because it has some adjustments that can reduce/prevent artifacts that are sometimes introduced going from HD - SD. If you're going to make your DVD in iDVD, it's not clear which is better. (FWIW, I used to let iDVD do all the work.) You could always take a short, representative section of your movie – test  and decide which method you find produces the best results.

     

    Russ

  • by mrbl,

    mrbl mrbl Jul 12, 2016 10:01 PM in response to Russ H
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Video
    Jul 12, 2016 10:01 PM in response to Russ H

    Wow, you and Alchroma  have just opened a huge door for me. Just on a whim, I imported an .mp4 video into iDVD, and sure enough it accepted it and encoded it. (For all I knew, iDVD only accepted the output of other Apple products like FCP or iMovie. It's certainly the only way to import anything with chapter markers.)

     

    I haven't tried any of the Apple Intermediate Codecs like AVCHD or HDV, but if iDVD will take the non-Apple .mp4, the  aforementioned will certainly be the way to get HD frame sizes exported from FCE. And I know just which short clip to run my test on.

     

    Thanks to both of you, this is a major step forward for me.

     

    Bill

  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H Jul 13, 2016 4:28 AM in response to mrbl
    Level 7 (21,760 points)
    Quicktime
    Jul 13, 2016 4:28 AM in response to mrbl

    Hey Bill.

     

    Just to say…Apple Intermediate Codec is an editing codec that Apple developed. It is a codec  that uses iFrame (intra frame) compression and is both easier for computers to play and stands up better to re-compression that inter-frame codecs. If you're interested, here's kind of a deep dive into the AVCHD format.

     

    Good luck