Does Final Cut Studio deliver better quality than Final Cut Express

If my export target is Apple-TV 720p, is there any difference between the quality delivered in Final Cut Express versus the new Final Cut Studio? E.g. is it the same because Quicktime is doing it? I read something on the FCS home page that it "adapted the quality to the video content"? So would FSC somehow be better at utilizing the maximum 5Mbps data stream compared to FCE? Thanks.
-Troels

+is there any difference between the quality delivered in Final Cut Express versus the new Final Cut Studio?+
Not really, not per se, for this purpose. There are many factors at play, very important among them is the nature of your source media - if it is shot on a high quality camera and captured in ProRes or one of the other higher quality codecs supported by FCS then maybe you would see a difference. What are you using?

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Motion playback window MUCH better quality than final output?

I'm puzzled. I export a straight DV NTSC. The Motion playback window pops up when the job is done. It plays back the finished clip and it looks just grand, very clean. I open the clip itself in the Quicktime Player and it is quite ugly, full of artifacting and waffling.
Can someone explain to me the difference between the Motion playback window (the one that pops up when a job has been exported) and the Quicktime Player (such that one looks great and the other looks horrible)?
B.

Cher Mark,
****. Isn't life curious. And my brain even more curioser (to me). I've got credits on hundreds of films, I've produced at least twenty films myself in the last five years, I've edited half of them myself ... and I never ever knew there was that option on the Quicktime Player. Duh. Maybe it has something to do with working in SD again ... back in prehistoric times when everybody was working in SD there was always a good external monitor; and when we switched to HD the difference in QT Player quality was less noticeable, actually, I just looked, not noticeable on my laptop.
Thank you thank you, again, Mark ... the light goes on ... now I'm going to race off and find, I bet it exists, a draft\best mode for the FCP canvas window: We've been using the canvas window - dragged and resized on a second HD monitor to get a full frame 4:3 to cut this IMAX film. I'm trying to convince the boys to switch over to Apple (it's mainly a PC pipeline right now): so they have a modest tower (no frills), and are cutting in SD. They are being converted by degrees.
Very much appreciated...
Ben

Can I install my new Final Cut Studio 2 on more than one of my computers.

Can I install my new Final Cut Studio 2 on more than one of my computers.
I have a Power Mac G5 and I am buying a iMac 2.8 Intel 24"
Can I install my Final Cut Studio 2 on both computers?
The G5 I leave at home and the iMac I travel with.
Message was edited by: The Bunnell Farm

Hi The Bunnell Farm-
Greetings and welcome to the Apple boards.
Legally you must have only one copy installed at any one time on any one machine. By definition, you would need a second purchased copy in order to run it legally on the 2nd Mac.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

Is m4v better quality than a remuxed MKV file via Subler?

I'm slowly building my home media server and putting my Blu-Ray's onto it. I normally do a Handbrake conversion for ATV3, so the MKV files end up being significantly smaller m4v's and the quality is outstanding. But I recently learned about the quick remux method using Subler, which quickly converts the MKV container into an m4v container without any quality loss and while keeping the same size file. But I noticed that, say, a 29GB MKV file is a much poorer softer picture on my plasma TV than the same movie that's only a 9GB MKV file (remuxed to m4v with subler for streaming over ATV3). I'm running a 300mbps cable modem so the streaming shouldn't be a problem over my home wifi. But I also noticed that the smaller m4v's (say a 3.5GB file that comes from a 9GB MKV file via Handbrake) seem to be slightly better quality than the 9GB file that was remuxed. So it seems like the larger file should be even higher quality -- but I'm getting better results with a smaller file that's Handbrake'd from MKV to m4v.
Is there some sort of streaming setting on the ATV3 that needs to be set or adjusted that will allow the full gorgeous pic quality of a 29GB file to stream right through to it, and look better than the Handbrake'd m4v file? It feels like there's a bottleneck somewhere that's not letting all of the complete picture information through, and an intact, perfect 29GB file should look light years better than that 29GB file Handbrake'd down to 4GB. Trying to figure this out before I continue down this home media server path cuz it's a lot of work to do these Blu's one at a time.
Kirby

I have no experience of the remuxing you describe, but interesting observations.
There is nothing you can adjust on AppleTV - it will either play the encoded movie or it won't.
AppleTv's generally playback the h264 codec (in an m4v container) - there are many many versions/levels of this codec and each generation of AppleTv has been able to play slightly more sophisticated versions.
I suspect but cannot prove that the issue you notice is due to AppleTV attempting to support advanced h264 features but making compromises which affect playback quality - in other words it is cutting corners to playback advanced h264 profile features rather than refusing. Handbrake on the other hand has time at its disposal - it has been refined over many years by dedicated enthusiasts so if a simple remux is all that's required i'd be surprised they have not implemented that. Instead I suspect it more accurately processes enhanced h264 features before transcoding into a new smaller m4v file. Equally there might be settings in HB which artificially sharpen or otherwise alter the video which you prefer. I'd compare the BluRay tothe remuxed or HB versions to attempt to decide which was more faithful to the original but even then it would be dependent on the BluRay player's settings in some cases.

Does Pro-Res codec yield better quality from AVCHD files than AIC?

Hi folks,
I use FCE4 and ingest AVCHD for editing. I'm wondering if, for example, I ingested with the Pro-Res codec (eg. such as when using Final Cut Pro or FCX), would that be a higher quality transcoder than the inherent Apple Intermediate Codec that is part of FCE4? In other words, if I upgraded my software, would I likely get better quality?
FYI: I shoot with a single chip AVCHD camcorder, in case that matters.
Thanks,
Vixter

If you are running Lion, then FCPX is the only way forward unless you go with a non-Apple editing suite. For what it's worth, I think FCPX has gotten a bum rap overall. It's quite powerful compared to the old FCE even with its current limitations. Apple will continue to improve the program over time, and no one should discount the foresight that Apple actually does have in its product lines. The FCPX user interface and the method of editing is quite different compared to FCE, and takes a lot of adjustment if you were familiar with FCE or FCP. For general purpose editing, even prosumer editing, FCPX is quite an application, even if it's not quite ready for broadcasters & professionally employed editors.
The best way to find out is to try it out - it's available as a free 30-day trial so you can see for yourself whether or not it works for you. You can read all about it elsewhere and of course people in these forums have their opinions one way or the other. As I long ago discovered about wine, there is no definitively good or bad wine ... just wine that we ourselves like because it satisfies our individual tastes and conditions. I don't concern myself with Robert Parker's opinions. In fact I think a lot of his 95+ rated wines stink! If you follow my drift ...

Final Cut Studio 2 Migration path from Final Cut Express

I'm currently using FCE HD 3.5, which I upgraded from FCE version 1.0
I understand that no migration path exists from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Studio 2.
However I have seen on ebay someone selling an upgrade to Final Cut Pro 5 HD from Final Cut express.
I was wondering.... if I got this then could I then get a Final Cut Studio 2 Upgrade from FCP 5 HD?
Does anyone see any problems with doing this? It seems to be a way to save money.
Thanks,
Steve.

And it's well worth it. you can recoup a little of
your cost by uninstalling fce and selling it.
What's required in order to sell it? Can the registration be transferred to a new owner?

Final Cut Studio Pro 2 Install - Skip Final Cut Pro itself - TT_NEWALREADYI

Dear All,
I hope you can help. I have just bought a new Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM, with OS X 10.4.10 running. It came with iLife 08.
I installed Logic Studio 8 (which was successful), and have been trying to install my copy of Final Cut Studio 2. When I run the installation, the options appear for custom install, but FInal Cut Pro, Compressor and QMaster are greyed out, and the action identified for them is "skip. If I rest the mouse over any of the options the text TT_NEWERALREADYINSTALLED appears.
I have tried uninstalling the Logic Studio components with AppZapper, and retrying the install of Final Cut Studio, but no matter what I try to do, it won't install Final Cut Pro.
Can anybody help?
Kind Regards,
Nick.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306567
-DH

If i buy final cut studio 2 and then get final cut studio 3 upgrade will it be final cut studio 3

ive been looking around to buy final cut studio 3 for weeks now with no success and i think ive found a solution i'm just wondering if it will work by buying final cut studio 2 full and then buying final cut studio 3 upgrade overall will everything be final cut studio 3?

You can still get the FCS3 upgrades from the apple shop
No you can not get FCS upgrades from Apple retail stores or Apple dealers, they have been recalled by Apple.
Only places that will stock is independant retailers and online used software vendors.
Apple have clearly stated that FCS is now ''end of life''

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I have been successfully using Final Cut Studio for the last two months, until it recently went out for lunch. I reinstalled the software. All of the applications (Soundtrack Pro, Motion, DVD Studio Pro) open and work fine EXCEPT FINAL CUT PRO 5.0.4! HELP. Suggestions?

If you recently updated to 10.4.4 then that might be the issue. If you weren't having any problems before the upgrade, then that is likely the problem. If so the answer is here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1686188#1686188

For composite editing, does DVCPRO yield better quality than AVCHD in FCE4?

Hi folks,
From what I understand, DVCPRO is much less compressed than AVCHD. If so, then, would it also be true that FCE4 would output a "cleaner" end product (i.e. for DVD, after undergoing significant composite editing/rendering) if I used DVCPRO rather than AVCHD? (It's my understanding that you should start with the highest quality... least compressed... raw footage as possible for composite editing).
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Vic

Panasonic does not make a camera with the HFC-150 model designation. Do you mean the AG HMC-150?
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Having said that, while the HMC-150 is capable of very good images, most consumer video is so badly recorded (really poor lighting, wandering auto white balance, wandering auto focus, hand shake, etc) there is no way one can tell what the camera is capable of let alone if one codec is better than another for output.
If you already have FCE, see what the material looks like. You may find it perfectly adequate, even splendid in telling your stories.
If you want to see other options, I believe Premiere has a trial version and Apple has a trial of FCX. Do your own A/B/C comparision.
Have fun.
x

Installing Final Cut Studio to disk other than the startup disk?

Is it posable? if so, how. My startup disk is only 20GB and I have an 80GB in the case too, but no tiger install disk. It takes 30GB to do a full install.

The applications need to reside in the default location - on the startup disk. However, all the support files can be placed in other locations.
The apps = 5GB or so. It is all the support files that take up the space.
good luck.
x

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I have a Mac and I use Skype to AV chat to a PC overseas. Would I see better picture quality If they used a Mac overseas and we went Ichat to Ichat?

According to this post ichat is better than skype when chatting mac-mac.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1238443

I can't afford an expensive microphone, but I want better quality than internal microphone to record voice. What's out there?

I can't afford an expensive microphone attachment, but I want higher quality to record my voice for eventual radio use. What's out there as far as inexpensive attachments that are easy to use? What can I do using my MacBook Pro?

Not sure what your idea of inexpensive is - have you searched for USB Microphones yet? There are hundreds of choices under $100 compatible with Mac or Pc. I'd be cautious and read reviews of the cheaper items as the built-in mic seems to be better than most $20-$30 ones.

Why are the iPhone/Apple TV export presets better quality than QT h.264

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Its really starting to frustrate us as we want to get that some quality but have a bit more flexibility with the data rate and resolutions.
Any ideas?

That's why I find this so puzzling. The extra blockiness is VERY apparent when watching the video played back. The main difference I see from the Media Info analysis is that F4V says "CABAC/3 ref frames" instead of just "2 ref frames". I suppose my main question is whether or not its possible to get the same quality in an mp4 file.

Are external DVD burners better quality than an internal on a laptop?

I've always had this prejudice that stock Powerbook G4 internal DVD drives are poor quality and prone to breaking down. I lost mine after less than a year of service and it seems to me that folks are regularly complaining about stock internal burners going out.
I've had no working DVD drive for a couple of years on my old G4 and I'm getting a new one this week. I also have a Sony external dual layer DVD burner that is a real workhorse for me. It's what I've been using for all these years.
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I've burned hundreds, maybe close to a thousand, DVDs on my external Sony and the machine is still good as gold. No sign of wear.
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Software is the key to quality. Period, along with the quality of the original content, if it is good quality then you will get good quality, if it's poor quailty then you will get poor quality.
Use the best.
http://www.roxio.com/

Does Final Cut Studio deliver better quality than Final Cut Express

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