DV Video Rendering

Question

Hi, I'm a new user to Final Cut, previously using iMovie 6. I'm making a documentary, and I shot hours upon hours of video with my Mini-DV camera in .DV format. When I import these files into FCE 4.0, the red render bar appears above the file, and the audio is simply beeps. Is there a way around this? Because if not, I'd have to render EVERY SINGLE FILE that I have, or convert EVERY SINGLE FILE to a correct format, which is insanely frustrating, and would send me back to working on iMovie. Any help is great. Thanks.

Answer 1

I normally use QuickTime Pro or Compressor for most conversions, but MPEG Streamclip should be able to do it also.
You'll want to convert so the clips will match your Sequence settings in FCE. So if you're using DV NTSC, you'd convert to QuickTime, then choose the DV/DVCPro NTSC compressor.
Here's a good tutorial for MPEG Streamclip by Nick Holmes:
Part 1: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2059475&tstart=0
Part 2: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2070861&tstart=0
The first part of the tutorial deals with converting DVD footage, but the principal os the same no matter what your source footage is.
-DH