FCP file to iDVD

Haven't done iDVD nor my aging FCP3 for awhile and am just getting confused by codecs. What is best file codec for iDVD, do I just make a QT file or do I choose one, ie Sorenson,etc... or just go Export>FCP>Quicktime and step back.

Go to File->Export->QuickTime Movie (on FCP 3 it may say "Final Cut Pro Movie" instead). Do NOT use the QuickTime Conversion export method.
You can make the movie self-contained or not, but do NOT Recompress All Frames. Include Chapter Markers if needed.
Drop the resulting file into iDVD.
-DH

Similar Messages

Output of Quicktime File from FCP 7 for iDVD

I just finished a client project using FCP 7 and he seems to have issues doing the following (on a MacBook Pro):
1) Placing the file on the main hard drive
2) Importing to QuickTime, or iMovie, iDVD
Ideally, my client would like to have the ability to burn the file onto iDVD. Is there an Intermediate Codec for SD that may be supported? My observations so far is the Intermediate Codec is in HD.

Does your client have the codec needed to read/play the file on his system?
-DH

How Do I Use DVD Studio Pro Files In iDVD?

I had somebody create a DVD for me using DVD Studio Pro. (This was a compilation of many different videos.) It turned out great.
I now want to make a DVD of one of those videos on my own using iDVD '08.
I have the raw video/audio files. But, my problem is the raw files that were used for the DVD Studio Pro project are separated into one video file and one audio file. I don't know how I can get them both into iDVD. I was told that I have to recombine these two files into one file. But, how do I do this and still maintain the best quality?
(I am not a video expert by any means, but I can tell you that the video file is a ".mpeg" and the audio file is an ".ac3". When looking at the .mpeg file in the finder it lists its Kind as "MPEG Movie" and when looking at the .ac3 file in the finder it lists its Kind as "Unix Executable File".)
(I'm using iDVD 7.0.1 - I do have Quicktime Pro - I do not have the Quicktime MPEG-2 Playback component - I do not have DVD Studio Pro)
Thanks in advance for your help!

Q: How Do I Use DVD Studio Pro Files In iDVD?
A: You don't, essentially.
DVDSP is apple's top end app and it is intended to be used with FCP > Compressor > DVDSP. All of these are pro apps.
i-Apps are consumer apps all of which are QT based. With that in mind ....
now that doesn't mean you can't use FCP > iDvd. You can. But you have to do it in a way that iDvd will read all the files (meaning you must think in terms of QuickTime and export in this way). So when you export your QT File / Movie from FCP over to iDvd, it will look something like this hopefully regardless of the raw image & audio files you have already compiled which unfortunately will NOT work with i-Apps BUT will work with apple's pro apps which is the intended workflow / direction of said files in the first place.
Btw ... if your QT movie has chapter markers then please use the following settings so iDvd can read these markers. (if on the other hand you were looking to export this file to DVDSP; then you would choose DVDSP Markers.
Let me know if the above helps. If not, just come on back.

Best way to export from FCP X to iDVD?

I believe this question must have been dealt with a number of times already but since I could not find a clear answer with a reasonable amount of searching I post my question here.
I have Apple ProRes 422 footage (HD 1920 x 1080) in FCP X out of which I would like to make a DVD in iDVD. What is the best way of transferring the content to iDVD so as to preserve the quality as good as possible?
As I understand it, two conversions need to take place until the material can end up on a DVD disk:
1) The format needs to be changed from ProRes to MPEG-2
2) The resolution needs to be reduced from 1920 x 1080 to 720 x 576
And I believe there are at least the following ways to achieve this:
a) Export the material as-is (ProRes 1920 x 1080) from FCP and let iDVD do the conversion to MPEG-2 720 x 576
b) Export the material with lowered resolution (720 x 576) from FCP but let iDVD do the conversion to MPEG-2
c) Export the material as-is to Compressor and let Compressor do the conversion to MPEG-2 720 x 576, which is then imported to iDVD
Now, what is the best method to perform these transformations from a quality perspective (don't care that much about processing time)?
I guess it would be good to not reencode the material more than once. Option a) would seem to achieve this but how good is the quality of the reencoding that iDVD does? Option c) could also achieve this and possibly with a better quality than a). However, I'm unsure whether iDVD really would use the material "as-is" without further conversion or whether iDVD anyway would do some sort of reencoding even if the material was imported in a DVD compliant format. And with option b) I'm unsure how much quality I lose if the rescaling and reencoding is done in separate processes.
Thanks for the advice!

Either a) or b) is fine.
However, c) will not work with iDVD, which wants a muxed file. The Compressor presets were designed ith DVD Studio Pro in mind.
I would let iDVD do the encoding and the resizing. In other words, give it a 1080 resolution Pro Res file with square pixel shape and it will do all the necessary math to preserve the wide screen aspect ratio (changing the pixel shape) and should produce very good looking image quality if you use the Professional quality setting.
Good luck.
Russ

Exporting from FCP HD to iDVD

I'm confused by this new QT/compressor set up in FCP. Can someone help me out?
I want to go from FCP HD to iDVD for a simple wedding dvd that I put together for some friends.
The edited wedding (one sequence) is about 50 mins long.
I go to Export < Quicktime movie < and use current settings + make it a self contained movie; using chapter markers and away we go!
The resulting file is over 10gigs! Do I drag this into iDVD and does it then compress the file? This may seem like a stupid question but I'm used to using DVDSP - well, my business partner usually does that part but I'm trying to do this on my own.
ack! Please help.
Thanks!
Carrie<br>
MacBook, black Mac OS X (10.4.3)

The resulting file is over 10gigs! Do I drag this into iDVD and does it then compress the file?<<</div>
That's the way to go. For iDVD, skip Compressor altogether. iDVD handles its own encoding/compression. 10gb for 50 minutes is about right for any DV25 format - you can figure on needing close to 13.3gb per hour of footage.
-DH

SOLUTION: Are you having problems using HDV in FCP X and iDVD?

If you edit HDV (TAPE) in FCP X and want to burn the video in iDVD you will find the following problem . . . iDVD squashes the image as shown in the screenshot below.
Whether you export as ProRes or H.264, iDVD will see it like this as a squashed image.
This is because iDVD does not recognise HDV anamorphic images unless they are in the Apple Intermediate Codec.
There are 2 solutions to this problem:-
1. Create a ProRes 422 Custom Compressor Preset with a frame size of 1920 x 1080.
The only downside to this is that the conversion process in my 2008 iMac takes about 5 times realtime.
2. Create an Apple Intermediate Codec preset for HDV. This encodes on my iMac in around realtime, so it is at least 4 times faster than the ProRes solution.
Unfortunately, if you have Compressor 4 you cannot create Apple Intermediate Codec presets, but Compressor 3.5 will and what is more important, that preset can be installed in Compressor 4.
So you can export your HDV project from FCP X using Compressor Presets in either ProRes or AIC and use the resulting file in iDVD to get a correctly proportioned image like this.
I prefer to use the AIC preset as it is 4 times faster and there is no quality difference on the final DVD.
What do you do if you haven't got Compressor 3.5 or 4?
Well you can email me for a 12KB copy of the preset as I believe FCP X can use it even though you don't have Compressor.

Ian,
Thanks for the tip!

SOLUTION: Are you having problems with using HDV, FCP X and iDVD?

If you edit HDV (TAPE) in FCP X and want to burn the video in iDVD you will find the following problem . . . iDVD squashes the image as shown in the screenshot below.
Whether you export as ProRes or H.264, iDVD will see it like this as a squashed image.
This is because iDVD does not recognise HDV anamorphic images unless they are in the Apple Intermediate Codec.
There are 2 solutions to this problem:-
1. Create a ProRes 422 Custom Compressor Preset with a frame size of 1920 x 1080.
The only downside to this is that the conversion process in my 2008 iMac takes about 5 times realtime.
2. Create an Apple Intermediate Codec preset for HDV. This encodes on my iMac in around realtime, so it is at least 4 times faster than the ProRes solution.
Unfortunately, if you have Compressor 4 you cannot create Apple Intermediate Codec presets, but Compressor 3.5 will and what is more important, that preset can be installed in Compressor 4.
So you can export your HDV project from FCP X using Compressor Presets in either ProRes or AIC and use the resulting file in iDVD to get a correctly proportioned image like this.
I prefer to use the AIC preset as it is 4 times faster and there is no quality difference on the final DVD.
What do you do if you haven't got Compressor?
Well you can email me for a 12KB copy of the preset as I believe FCP X can use it even though you don't have Compressor.

Ian,
Thanks for the tip!

After burning a successful DVD in iDVD out of FCPX, how can I see the settings it used? So I finally burned a DVD out of a Apple Pro Res file into iDVD in PAL format. My question now is how can I find out what the exact burn properties were so that I ca

After burning a successful DVD in iDVD out of FCPX, how can I see the settings it used?
So I finally burned a DVD out of a Apple Pro Res file into iDVD in PAL format. My question now is how can I find out what the exact burn properties were so that I can apply the same burn properties to a project in Compressor 4?
Is it possible to see what iDVD did?

I don't know any way you can interrogate iDVD to reveal settings to the extent that you can in a Compressor project. What you could do is open up the show's VOB in MPEG STreamclip, go to File and Reveal Stream Information; that will at least give you some rudimentary info like average bit rate. Perhaps someone, with more iDVD experience, can chime in here.
The broader question is why use Compressor at all if your current workflow is doing the job to your satisfaction?
The value of Compressor is that it gives you control over the many parameters that affect size quality. and playability. The Compressor presets can give you a starting point for DVD delivery, Web, etc. From those presets, people typically experiment by adjusting the parameters until they get the desired results for their specific show. It's a little bit science and a little bit art. After experimenting, you may be able to get slightly better quality for the project you've successfully burned in iDVD by using Compressor and something likeToast…or maybe not.
Good luck.
Russ

FCP files will not open after data recovery

We have a TV tech lab in our high school of 15 Apple editing workstations and we archive the completed projects to external firewire drives. Well, wouldn't you know it, one of the drives crashed with all of the previous school years senior projects. The drive would mount, but none of the files were accessible. I sent the drive to a data recovery company and they were successful to a point. They were able to recover the entire drive (about 140 GB). The QT files work fine, but the FCP files are a different story. When I attempt to open an FCP file, I get the error "wrong file type". All of the files do have the correct file extension. Is there anyone out there that has experienced this? Were you able to resolve the problem? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jay in WI

Milwaukee, eh? My mom grew up in La Crosse...
Can you zip one or more of these files and email it to me? I'll take a crack at it.
Patrick

Can't open FCP file (version 5.1.1)

I have a FCP file file that will not open. The movie file included 1) imported pictures 2) movie footage, 3) several sound tracks (two from Cds and about 5 sound track files from SoundTrak Pro for effects); the movie file has a duration of about 5 minutes. I’ve tried the following (in this order):
1. Checked the autosave vault. While I can recover the file, I’ve lost 14 hours of editing so I would like to find a better solution.
2. Moved the Soundtrack files so they are no longer referenceable (moved these to another folder); that didn’t work.
3. Repaired disk permission s (only had two differences) so I don’t think this was the problem; that didn’t work.
4. Moved the render files so they are no longer referenceable; that didn’t work.
5. Moved the media files offline; that didn’t work.
I am using FCP 5.1.1 on OS X Version 10.4.6, on a Dual 2 Ghz Power PC G5, 2 GB DDR SDRAM Memory. I started the project on FCP 5.1.1 I didn’t create the FCP file in an earlier version. I also haven’t moved the files from one disk to another (I created the movie file on my primary drive). I have checked the support postings but can’t find something with exactly the same situation (one of the above items seems to have worked for most people) but I’ve tried these and the FCP file will not open. I would really appreciate your help on this! Thanks.
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I got FCP Rescue and opened the application. There isn't much to this application except "Trash" as I understand it. So, I clicked on Trash. After the third try of reopening the FCP file, it OPENED! Yea, which is great! So, that is good. Thank you for the suggestion; that was helpful!
While I can see the file and can export it to Quicktime; for some reason the movie file will only play about 5 seconds and then stop/start/stop/start, etc. I am using "Safe RT", Playback Video Quality is set to "Low", and Frame rate is "low". I've tried various combinations of these including Dynamic; the movie won't play for more than two-five seconds which makes it very difficult to edit.
I have 40 gigabytes remaining on my hard drive; could this be causing a playback problem? The playback worked fine before I couldn't open the FCP file. For some reason after I opened the file it won't playback smoothly.

Quicktime codec for fcp files?

is there a way to view newer fcp files with out purchasing fcp?
any iMovie plugins or quicktime or quicktime pro codecs available?
I have fcp 6.0.6 on an old G5 dual processor runing Tiger 10.4.11, but now have a new MacBook Pro but not newest fcp and some one just gave me a newer fcp project on a firewire drive to simply author a DVD which I find I am unable to accomplish.
Any free or inexpensive solutions?

Transfer your FCP license to the new machine and upgrade?
Apple will allow that, I've done it before, for Aperture.
The new MacBook Pro quads are like twice as fast as the Dual G5 processors anyway.

Password protecting a .FCP file?

I have to use a shared workstation and we can not have separate login accounts. I would like to make sure that other users can not open some project files.
1. Is there a way to make sure that a .fcp file can not be opened by someone else? password protect it?
2. what about for a h.264 encoded file?
Thanks.

Create a small disc image in disk utility large enough to hold the project file.
Pass word protect it, and save the project file to it.

Final Cut Pro X not opening .fcp files

I just purchased Final Cut Pro X. I am trying to open a .fcp file that was created in a previous version of Final Cut Pro, however it keeps giving the error "final cut pro cannot open files of this type".
When I look at the details of the file, in shows as a "Unix Executable File", but the extension is still .fcp.
Can anyone help?

Thanks Tom. So...to open a previous version of a Final Cut Pro file there is no software that I can buy through Apple currently?

Is it possible to recover .fcp files from a reformatted drive?

Somehow — I still don't know exactly how this happened, but it appears to be my fault, and I feel like a complete moron for letting it get to this — in the process of reformatting a buggy drive with several FCP 7 projects and media on them, I managed to reformat BOTH the original drive and the back-up drive, thus losing all of the content. I'm now trying to figure out if it is possible to recover as much as possible from the drive so that whatever was on the drive is not a total loss.
I have done a scan with Wondershare Data recovery, which gave me a list of files that it could recover, but aparently it cannot recognize .fcp files, meaning that the media can be recovered (albeit with changed names and a lost file structure), but the project itself can't.
I am now attempting a scan with Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery, but it will be quite a while before I can find out if it sees the .fcp files.
If this doesn't work, I was hoping that someone might know of software that would recognize a .fcp file, which would be a big step closer to as much of a recovery as possible.
Hard drive is a 2TB G-Drive, connected through FireWire 800.
Thanks a lot.

I had a drive do a graceful swan dive and used an app called FileSalvage to recover the contents before it went totally bad. They were williing to work with me to craft the software to find file types that weren't in their standard database. It worked moderately well.
I thought long and hard about spending the money to send that drive to a data recovery firm (with no guarantee that they'd get more off it that was useable) and decided to spend the same amount on some good single malt. Didn't do much for data recovery but I was much happier.
Good luck,
x

Trying to COMPRESS FCP file to transfer/burn to DVDPRO

I have a project in FCP, it's 45 minutes long and I need to burn it to a disc. I submitted the file to be compressed and it compressed successfully, but DVD Pro said the files were not compatible. And I used the same AUDIO and VIDEO applications to compress many times before. I keep getting an exclamation point at the top of the project in the cue. I don't know where to look under Troublshooting index to find out the answer. thanks Andy H

**this is my information...**
I'm EXPORTING a FCP project which is 45 minutes in length. I EXPORT it to COMPRESSOR. COMPRESSOR opens and shows the FILE in up LEFT box where I drag Presets. It gives me the PROJECT NAME but in the little picture box it just shows the FCP ICON. I know when I EXPORT a QT movie of a FCP project, a frame of the project appears in the little box where I drag the presets. This time it doesn't. So I don't know if that's an issue. I'm using DVD preset "DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes". It begins to compress the FCP file which takes roughly 2 hours. I check and it says it's "successful". BUT when I open DVDPRO and import the project to burn there is only ONE FILE not TWO FILES which would be the AUDIO and the VIDEO file. so DVDPRO does not recognize this and it won't burn. What do I do? THANKS for you help. Andy

FCP file to iDVD

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