FCP Geometry

Gurus, how does FCP resolve odd geometry? If I have an odd sized clip and I Insert Paste into a standard fixed-sized Timeline, does FCP force the clip to fit into that size?
Here was my dilemma with some video from a television newsroom (and you can expect anything!): an off-air QT clip 864x486 square pixels editing into a 720x480 anamorphic sequence for a standard def DVD. Interestingly enough, the 864x486 was almost correct 16:9, maybe a hair wide. I corrected with Motion Distort. What I saw in the Timeline display was not what the Timeline displayed. It appeared FCP endeavored to display as much of the 864x486 in the 720x480 anamorphic space.
The result was acceptable -- don't know how I got there. :--)

Thank ya, gents. Look, the final result was OK -- I just dunno how we got there. And this is a problem in television newsrooms nationally that is oh so very slowly resolving itself as we advance beyond 4:3 analog into 16:9 digital in about five different systems. I was thrilled to get a call last week from an editor in a small television station who was struggling to follow my instructions about exporting in Quicktime so that I could edit in FCP. He was trying to figure out how he could export his Timeline. He says, I'm using Final Cut Pro. Thrilled, I said, just give me the whole project on a hard drive! No Avid, No Edius. No DVC Pro tape. Done. Nice.

Similar Messages

Can't get geometry changes back to FCP

When I change geometry in FCP (like scaling or cropping) it's carried over to Color. But when I change anything in the "Geometry Room", it doesn't show in FCP. I know that such things are not rendered by Color, but the manual states that FCP should take care of it.
TIA,
Uli

Thank you, but that's not what the manual states, so I'd consider it a bug.
In an environment where you're working with other people and the director considers a change in geometry appropriate while sitting with the colorist, it would be nice to carry that over to FCP. Yes, I can always take notes, but that's not what I'd call integration...
Regards,
Uli

Geometry not translating into FCP

Hi, all. Just curious if anyone has figured out an FCP-->Color-->FCP round trip workaround scenario that includes Geometry room parameters. I'm striking out.
The media was shot on 16:9 720P/24, and I'm cutting it in (amazingly, in real time--nice work, Apple) with a ProRes HQ 4:3 NTSC sequence. After a round trip, everything else looks great: primary/seconday color settings, pulldown insertion, etc. However, I've done a number of repos and small camera moves in Color, and they disappear back in FCP. Experimenting with the first :30, I've got to say the autofeathering keyframes LOOK GREAT in Color, (very natural, quick and easy to set up, and smooth) but they do not come back in after rendering, no matter what I try.
It says in the manual and on the FCPS 2 site that Geometry room settings get translated into FCP motion parameters. That's not happening. Is this a known bug? FCP's motion control is so clunky, I'd be more likely to do it in After Effects, but that's a pain, since the controls are right here in front of me in Color.
Many thanks.

I realize this is an old thread, but here's the solution:
Just delete the .xml file from your project's container. You'll have to right-click on the project, choose "Show Package Contents", then delete the .xml file that's in there. Actually, maybe move it some place safe, even though it is a clone of the file you actually did use.
Once it's gone, Color is fooled into thinking that you didn't import this form XML, and you're good to go.
You might also have to delete the line in the project's .PDL file that has the <IMPORTFROMFCP> tag, I'm not sure. It was the first thing I tried and it didn't have any effect, but since I never put it back I can't be sure you don't need to do both things.
And I respectfully disagree about doing it there way or the highway. Since FinalTouch 1.x I've been doing all sorts of XML hacks and workarounds to make it do some things MY WAY I still can't get it to 4K with this DALSA footage I'm on right now, though
Tyler Hawes, DI Colorist
Liquid DI
www.liquidcompanies.com

Changing seq. aspect ratio: crashes FCP

Hi all,
Despite my best intentions, my project contains sequences with different settings, which is causing problems on export. A quick overview of sequence contents and field dominance settings:
- SEQUENCE FIELD DOMINANCE: NONE
- PSD frame-graphic overlay (FD: None)
- QT titles from Keynote w/ transparency (FD: None)
- regular footage (FD: lower)
These field dom settings are the only ones that allow the titles to render crisply.
Rendering out using Compressor, DVD-90 settings. Some sequences render perfectly, but in others, the titles are jagged & blurry when rendered out. The only difference I can find, is in the sequence aspect ratios.
The sequences that render properly, are set at 720x480 NTSC DV (3:2).
The ones that render jagged/blurry titles, are 720x486 CCIR 601 NTSC (40:27). (These display crisply in FCP Canvas, but render improperly.)
When I change a sequence's aspect ratio to NTSC DV 3:2, I get "Operation Not Allowed," then "Out of memory," then the canvas turns red with the words "Display unavailable. Close and reopen window to restore." Sometimes, I get the beachball and then FCP crashes.
Closing and reopening doesn't help; I still have the red window. Only changing back to CCIR 601 brings the sequence back online.
I have tried creating a new sequence and copy/pasting, but I get "Out of memory" etc.
Can anyone advise??
Thanks very much,
Brett

By default Compressor assumes you're providing a 720x480 media file for compression to DVD. This is because DVD players can display only a 720x480 image.
If you send a 720x486 media file through the default Compressor settings, it will squeeze the image vertically to fit 720x480. It typically does not do this well.
If you suspect this is the problem, duplicate the DVD-90 setting, use the Inspector window and click on the Geometry button, select a Custom crop and crop 2 lines from the top and 4 lines from the bottom (always crop in even numbers for DVD playback). Rename and save the setting.

Sequence Settings FCP to Color and back again

Sorry in advance if i missed the answer to this when previously searching the forum.
Ok, I have a sequence in FCP. I duplicate it removing any problematic effects and place it all on one time line. I send the sequence to Color. In the settings I notice that the quick time settings are a different ratio to my fcp settings. I change them to 1440 x 1080 (same as FCP). When I send the rendered graded sequence back to FCP the sequence changes to a different frame size?
I can go into sequence settings in FCP and change them but is there a way of keeping the same aspect ratio / pixel ratio and dimensions between the 2 applications.
It feels like I have missed a step when setting the applications up but I can't find where.
Any help will be much appreciated

morphretouch,
Since you are working w/an interlaced format you should be aware of a couple of bugs in Color that will cause the program to mess up your field order. The first bug is using certain nodes in the Color FX room and the second bug is caused by resizing/reframing in the Geometry room (this includes resizes that are done in FCP as that information is carried over into Color). Even if you resize something in Color and then hit the "reset" button the bug will still happen because Color still thinks you resized the image (the border of the frame in the Geometry room will be red instead of white).
More details about the Color FX bug can be found here:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/using_color_fxnode.html
A work around for the Geometry room bug can be found here:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/223/7110
The work around is in a post by Saul Budd, about half down the page, and starts with the line "I've just had a "D'oh!" moment ..."
-Andrew

Fcp - color - fcp ALL BLURRY in PAL Anamorphic - any ideas?

ok, so admittedly i'm not working on my normal system but i've been using color (and final touch before that) for a while on a number of small and large fcp projects (dv, hdv, prores) and now i'm working on a small tv show for austrian broadcasting.
naturally the project is in pal and it is in standard pal anamorphic.
when i send to color everything looks ok, my viewer is squeezed (there is no pal anamorphic setting for color it seems, just regular pal 4x3) but checking the geometry it all looks good so i wasn't concerned.
i do a correct on a 2-minute section to test everything and it all looks good in color.
i render everything out and send it back to fcp and lo and behold EVERYTHING is BLURRY.
as if a defocus filter has been applied.
i've tried a bunch of different settings, i've removed grades, de-interlace, everything and it still comes back blurry.
any ideas?
thanks,
nick.

FCP issue?
Check the rendered clips OUTSIDE of FCP, ie in Quicktime. There may be a scaling/RTE/proxy thing happening if there is not an exact match between the rendered material and the way FCP wants to handle it. Check Audio/Video settings. The anamorphic nature may be throwing a curve.
jPo

FCP X 16:9 standard def project is squashed in iDVD?

This request for info is for a friend.
He shot a 16:9 standard definition project on DV TAPE and edited it in FCP X using the Anamorphic DV preset.
When exported as a Master File and put into iDVD it plays squashed as 4:3
I believe this is connected with the fact that iDVD does not recognise anamorphic markers.
So exactly how should he have set up his FCP X project initially?

Ian R. Brown wrote:
I believe this is connected with the fact that iDVD does not recognise anamorphic markers.
That is correct. A bug that was never fixed. But I think setting the project up automatically as 480 anamorphic is the still the best way.
It's been a while since I've run into this, but the Quick TIme 7 solution that I know I used at one time doesn't seem to work for me any more. (Just tested it.) Maybe I'm doing something wrong. So tell him or her to give that a try.
Alternatively, if I bring a 480 anamorphic clip into Compressor and in Geometry make the custom settings Up To 854X480 and square pixels, iDVD displays it properly.
Good luck.
Russ

Creating video screen ads 384 x 240 px quality problem in FCP

I am a creating video ads for my client for an outdoor event which will be shown on a big video screen.
I contacted the Audio visual company who are supplying the equipment and techy guys for the event and they told me to create the ads at 384 x 240 pixels in Quicktime.
So i have created a custom sequence in FCP of 384 x 240 pixels with a pixel aspect ratio of (PAL- CCIR 601 720X576), field dom is lower (even) and qt settings as DV-PAL but when I bring in any graphics or film or motion graphics to that sequence and render it the quality is awful...any ideas?

Well, part of the reason your quality has been awful is because you're using DV compression settings on your sequence.
Create a 1080i ProRes sequence. Bring all your elements into that. Create a 16x10 matte in photoshop and overlay it on top of your sequence, to avoid losing anything when you make your final crop.
Edit your sequence. Remove the matte. Export a self contained QT at the sequence settings.
Open that file in Compressor. Select your desired video settings. In the geometry tab, resize to "Custom", enter 384x240, maintain aspect ration by cropping.
Submit.

How do I enable the flip/flop image button in the geometry room?

How do I enable the flip/flop buttons in the geometry room. A noob question to be sure, but I just can't figure it out. The buttons are grey, and won't respond when I click on them.
I shot on the HVX using the brevis adaptor, so the footage is all upside down. In FCP I corrected this, but upon importing the project into Color, the images were upside down again. Do I need to re-flip them in color for the final output? Or will they automatically be subject to the effects already in my time line when I export back to FCP? Either way I'd like to temporarily flip them in Color so I don't have to stand on my head while color correcting.
Anyone out there who can clue me in?

Use FCP... the geometry in COLOR was never meant to be more than a convenience, sort of... Final Touch always ignored everything in the Motion tab until recently, with ambiguous results. Now one doesn't really know where the flips flops and flies are coming from unless you've done them yourself but I do notice that keyframed geometry-composed camera moves rarely import or export correctly, and interlace is poison.
jPo

Color Changing Clip Aspect Ratio When Sent Back To FCP

Color... Love it...BUT...
When I send my sequence from FCP to Color, grade it, then send it back, the aspect ratio of all the clips is changed to 6.67.
I only corrected our new TV shows teaser so I was not to concerned with having to go into the motion tab in FCP to change each clips aspect ratio back to 0. However, I will grade the whole 80 minutes tomorrow and I don't have time to change each clip back.
In color I only change the Primary In.
Did not mess with the geometry.
I have the latest update.
And I have no clue....
Any help would be great.
Peace

Yup,
Like Fearless I find its best to not have FCP do the anamorphic squeeze. I never tag anything as anamorphic and just do it on the monitor. At the end of the project I'll nest into a timeline for output and do the squeeze there.
If everyone on this thread goes from within Color:
Color > Send Color Feedback
Please log this bug. The more of us that complain, the quicker they'll fix it. And this one is a killer.
- pi

XL-H1 aspect ratio error when exporting from FCP 1080p24 to compressor

PLEASE HELP
I have a finished project in fcp in a 1080p24 project.
My source footage is 1440 x 1080i 24f from an xl-h1.
When i export from final cut pro to compressor, compressor squeezes my footage into a square.
if i export to dvd from compressor the ratio is fine.
when i export in quicktime thats where the skewed image happens.
Please help
thanks

Hi StingoArmy,
There is an easy fix for this. Once you export your file to Compressor, you can apply an export option, let's say we're going to export a LAN Streaming Quicktime movie for Internet. Now click on the new bar that's been placed inside your media tab. The settings for this export item appear below in the Inspector. Just below the DESCRIPTION line are a series of options buttons. Clicking the option 2nd from the right (Geometry) opens up a new tab where you can change the dimensions. There are several ways to go about exporting to 16:9, the one I use is to change the Frame Size to "Custom (16:9)", however, you can also do the same thing by changing the Pixel Aspect to "HDV 1080i (16:9)" You should test results for both and see which is the preferred method for your final output, depending on what type of Quicktime movie you are creating.

Exporting FCP HDV Sequence To MPG-1

(Re-Posted From FCP Forum)
I need to compress a 60 minute 16:9 video for the web.
It's HDV, in an HDV timeline, in FCP5.
I'm using a 2 minute test clip while I try to figure it out.
I've tried using Quicktime Conversion (since I'm a little bit familiar with it) and it doesn't offer MPG-1. I see MPG-4 and MPG IMX, etc.
I've also tried the MPG-1 setting in Compressor but it dims out the frame size options in the geometry pane. So the resulting MPG's are the wrong aspect ratio.
I have a workflow on the PC that I used prior to HDV by exporting AVI from Premiere into TMPGEnc Plus for MPG compression. So I decided to try and get an AVI to use with that. I used the Quicktime conversion to AVI and my two minute clip ended up at 16GB. Something's not quite right with that.
SO... hopefully somebody knows the magic word to make compressor let me change the frame size of my MPG (don't know why it wouldn't let me). OR... someone knows how to make Quicktime let me make an MPG1.
Thanks in advance...
G5 Dual 2.7Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.3) FCP Studio, G-Raid, Sony HDV

Compressor will only output MPEG-1 at 320 x 240 or 352 x 240. Thus, you can't output HD resolution using Compressor's or QuickTime's MPEG-1 codec.
If you really need to do HD resolution with MPEG-1 on the Macintosh then you should check out Digigami's MegaPEG product.
http://www.digigami.com/megapeg/
Also, the ten to twenty-five dollar MPEG2 Works product(s) supports custom MPEG-1 sizes, but I don't know if they will support something as large as HD.
http://www.mpeg2works.com/

Shots come back to FCP looking blurry (and shifted!)

Here's the deal:
DVCPRO HD 720p60 footage sent to COLOR (from FCP). Minor adjustments made (color grading in a basic mask shape, NOT using the geometry room). I am NOT reframing anything. I render using the original clip settings. I also tried 12 bit, 16 bit, and floating bits.
When shots come back to FCP, they look blurred. Something like a 1-2 pixel blur. Also, the shots are displaced by 1 or 2 pixels upwards, and to the left. The "shift", I can live with. The blur, I cannot.
I read a lot of messages on this board, but nothing helps so far.
Any tips???
Thanks!

1248x702 -- not a typo?
DVC Pro is an anamorphic format and the native aspect ratio is 4x3. Quicktime is fixing this because it recognizes the codec and can deal with the non-square intended/implied aspect ratio.
COLOR doesn't deal with this at all, and will send back whatever you submit as if it were square.
FCP is trying to fit the new square footage into the codec's "round hole". The blur and shift are obvious in your resolution settings ... 702 is going to shift the image 18 pixels. and 1248 should be 1280.
You get the real truth, and not some interpretation of it, when you navigate to the original media through COLOR's browser. You'll probably find another set of interesting numbers if you do that.
Even codecs that you thought were one thing are being masked sometimes by Quicktime and FCP. The AJA 10-bitRGB codec is a good example of mis-reporting under the various applications.
I expect you are getting either a red or green RTE line on the FCP sequence?
jPo

16x9 HD FCP Quicktime Export to 4x3 with Letterbox in Compressor

Okay I'm sorry if this has been posted on here, but I've searched a bunch of post and no one seemed to answer this the way I need it done.
First I have a 16x9 HD file that was edited in FCP and rendered out to a "Quicktime Movie" (the one that renders it out to your timeline specs with no compression).
I then want to take this file and put it in Compressor. Because I want to give Compressor the best version of the file. I now want to render out a Quicktime H.264 file to 4x3 with a 16x9 letterbox. Meaning I DO NOT WANT TO CROP the image, but rather keep the 16x9 aspect ratio using black bars above and bellow the video to deliver a 4x3 SD video file.
I've played with a variety of settings and have had no luck. I
I've used the "Geometry Tab" and played with "Source Insert (Cropping) and Padding, but it always distorts the image.
I also have tried the "Letterbox" option in the "Filters" tab with no luck.
I find it hard to believe that this cannot be done in Compressor. So if someone could please walk me through this in Compressor I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for reading!

I did change those settings, but the section in the geometry tab that I need to change is still grayed...
Yes but the setting had changed as need right?
and the preview window shows the dimensions still at 16x9.
Switch between source settings and preview settings view (using the two buttons at top right of the preview window) and it should refresh the preview display correctly.
I don't understand why I things have to be grayed out. I wish I could have full control over everything.
Am not conversant enough with Compressor to answer as to the why Stew, it may be that it really is possible to enable the setting by some specific method ... but I appreciate your point that the controls as they appear to exist are not intuitive in this regard, display controls for frame size but making you switch to another tab to actually change those settings is bizarre ... but nonetheless you DO have the control over these settings, and that's the main thing.
Best
Andy

Geometry Room Scaling not rendering? (help)

I'm trying to do some reframing of some video clips in Color by setting keyframes in Geometry Room. Preview playback reflects these keyframes, but they seem to be ignored once I render. Anyone know why this is? I'd prefer to do the scaling/reframing in Color rather than FCP because of the smoother keyframe transitions.

dcarstens wrote:
Preview playback reflects these keyframes, but they seem to be ignored once I render. Anyone know why this is? I'd prefer to do the scaling/reframing in Color rather than FCP because of the smoother keyframe transitions.
Geometery Room repo's only get baked in with DPX workflows.
After sending back to FCP you could send to Motion for its keyframing.
Not ideal - but currently the only option.
- pi

FCP Geometry

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