FCP to PC, Mac and Television Pal and NTSC

I am editing a DVD for a French dancer who wants to send out the footage as a promotional piece. Target is Europe, North and South America. PC, Mac and Television. When things looked OK on the Mac I burned a dvd from DVD studio Pro. Checked on two PC laptops, a PC tower, a pal system television with dvd player and my Mac tower and powerbook G4.
I have now been reading articles and talking with people about the difference between the gamma
of 1.8 for Mac and 2.2 for PC and 2.5 for television. CRT and LCDs. What is the best we can do today when editing for people who are going to receive and play on different machines?
The new Mac cinema display does not change every time I move my head like the less expensive
LCD monitor I used in France and the PC and Mac laptops. Is it recommended in the video editing
world to buy a pal and/or ntsc monitor to color correct for Pal and NTSC? Does one have to linearize in some way on both?
Both Pal and NTSC seem to play on all computers.
thanks for help
Bill

I'd just monitor it on a well calibrated external monitor and leave it at that.
If people will be playing it on a PC it will look like any other well calibrated thing would look on a PC and again on the mac.
If people thought PCs were too dark then they'd complain about them and never use them and you wouldn't have to ever worry about it... but they don't.
Just do a normal calibration and leave it at that. You'll kill yourself over EVERY combination!!
CaptM

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Transferring the film to video best practice and combining PAL and NTSC

Could anyone help me with the following 2 questions that I was asked in our small school video lab, I don't really have much experience with negative film and NTSC. Thankyou so much.
1. "I may be going back to the film negative to cut it, based on the FCP EDL. This means that Final Cut has to maintain perfect synch. I know that with AVID, it's more reliable to transfer the film to video at 25 fps rather than 24 fps. Do you have any idea whether this is also the case with Final Cut??"
2. "Some of my source materials is on PAL and some is on NTSC. Is that going to be a nightmare?? Will I be able to convert from one to the other when I import?? Or will I need to get the NTSC miniDV tapes transfered to PAL so that your PAL deck can read them? "
we normally use PAL (In UK).

1. This is where Cinema Tools comes into play. It can conform your edit list from FCP back to film.
There is a wealth of information in the Cinama Tools handbook and Help menu item.
Someone else might be able to contribute more information, my experience with CT is very limited.
2. Some decks are switchable between PAL and NTSC. If yours can do this then you can capture your footage in a preliminary project and convert it for free with [JES Deinterlacer|http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html] which does a decent job or for $100 with [Natress Standards Conversion|http://www.nattress.com/Products/standardsconversion/standardsconver sion.htm] which does a very good job. Both will take some time, best to capture only what you really need.
The best possible conversion is done with dedicated hardware solutions such as those offered by Snell & Wilcox. Real time with excellent results. This would be the way to go if you have a lot of material or if your deck is not PAL - NTSC switchable.

PAL and US FCP

I have a Sony DSR-11 deck hooked up to my G5 tower. Can I put a Pal Mini DV tape in there and capture it in FCP and then output it again as NTSC? I think it can be done, but I'm not sure. Thanks.

> You could try to capture it in PAL, switch your Easy
Setup to NTSC, drop the PAL footage into a new
Sequence (that will now be NTSC)
Ughhh!
NO - PLEASE?
I’ve found the best overall PAL to NTSC Standards Conversion comes from Hanumang’s Compressor method:
"Load your DV PAL movie into Compressor 2, then choose Advanced Format Conversions > DV NTSC from the settings. Then, under the Frame Controls tab, alter your settings to:
Frame Controls: Custom
Resize Filter: Better (Linear Filter)
Output Fields: Bottom First
Deinterlace: Better Motion Adaptive
Adaptive Details: checked
Rate Conversion: Better (Motion Compensated)"
Results are stunning and once set up, it’s dead simple to use again because the settings are saved in Compressor.
The only downside is that it’s slower to process than other methods – but I find the results are better and I can use the Mac for other work whilst compressor’s working in the background.
If you want quick conversion, go to:
http://www.nattress.com
It's fiddley but quicker - and the quality's great.
Andy
G5 Quad 8GB. 250+500 GB HDs. G-Raid 1TB. FCP 5.1.1. Shake 4.1. Sony HVR Z1E Mac OS X (10.4.7)
"I've taught you all I know, and still you know nothing".

Hi guys, I've been given some .mov files to use. When I play them I can hear the audio but the pictures are green. The client says they play for him. I am on mac 10.5.8 and FCP 6.0.6. Any clues as to why this is happening?

Hi guys,
I've been given some .mov files to use on FCP.
When I play them I can hear the audio but the pictures are green. The client says they play for him.
I am on mac 10.5.8 and FCP 6.0.6.
The files details are the same as a file that will play.
Apple Mpeg IMX 625/50
(50 Mbs)
720 x 576 millions
16-bit Integer (Little Edition)
I've been told this happened to somebody else last week, but didn't get a resaon why.
Any clues as to why this is happening? I suspect it's a codec issue of some sort
Cheers,
G

FC 6 supports 29.97 & 25 IMX frame rates but a third party plug-in is required:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/FCP6_HD_and_Broadcast_Formats.pdf
This plug-in costs $100
http://www.nanocosmos.de/v4/en/products/quicktimeIMX.html
This software is cheaper at $30 and will let you test drive it for free
http://www.pavtube.com/guide/working-with-xdcam-imx-media-in-fcp-avid-imovie-ppr o.html
There may be a free option available but I'm not aware of it.

New Mac Pro with Lion and can't install FCP.

I got a new Mac Pro with Lion and can't install FCP that worked fine in SL. Is it not compatible? Is it really a PowerPC program??? I'm a videographer and rely on this software and to spend $300 to continue to use it after spending a lot more for this software 4 years ago! Tell me this is not the case and there is a solution to installing FCP.

How to run FCP 6 (FCS 2) under Lion.
The installer for FCP 6 (FCS 2) is a PPC app. The Programs themselves are Intel. If your trying to install FCP 6 (FCS 2) this work-around will work...
First you need to install Rosetta from your Snow Leopard OS installation disc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/27987.html
After doing that you can install FCP 6 (FCS 2). Remember, after installing FCP 6 (FCS 2) you need to apply the updates. This has been discuss many times in the Final Cut Studio forum.
If your trying to install FCP version 5.1 (FCS 1) (a PPC app) and below your out of luck....
If you need further help, here is the URL for the Final Cut Studio forum:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/professional_applications/final_cut_stud io?view=discussions
R

Can I author a video (slidedshow / video ) for european pal and burn it?

Hello
I have been creating videos with FCP a while now but never for Germany. I need to create a a slideshow for my family (mother is ill) which includes footage from video and scanned images. I want to make some that play on a US dvd but also convert it to be used as Pal version. Can I create a Pal version and burn it with DVD studio pro for people to view it in Germany (pal) with my mac ?
Please help thanks
Bernadette

Hi:
Most (if not all!) stand alone PAL DVD players will play NTSC discs.
And about your specific question, yes you can, but you must encode your video to PAL and create a separate DVDSP project with new menus.
This thread could help for the transcoding:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1015451&tstart=0
For DVD menus you must use these sizes for each project:
Hope that helps !
Alberto

25fps footage to put on PAL and NTSC DVDs - Inverse Telecine?

So, I've shot and edited a short item in 25P from my PAL HVX200...
I'd like to create a 'movie feature'-style NTSC DVD. One that has MPEG-2 files with inverse telecine flags to tell the NTSC decoder to repeat the fields to pull up the footage to 29.97fps.
Does that mean I need to scale my footage from 720w by 576h down to 720w by 480h, set the speed to 95.904% to 23.976fps? Can I do this in Compressor? Will Compressor take the audio and speed it up too, but keep the pitch the same?
That will get me a 24P NTSC file. How do I encode this as an MPEG for an NTSC DVD?
If I wanted to create a 'progressive' PAL MPEG for DVD (with the inverse telecine flags), are they encoded as 576 by 720 frames at 23.976fps, or at 24fps?
In the PAL world, a bit in one of the 50 non-broadcast lines is used to tell TVs and DVD players that the content is anamorphic. Is there an equivalent for NTSC? Does Compressor take care of that?
G5 2x2.5GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hey Alex
a little confused here, but from what i can gather:
you have a movie shot @ 25 fps (PAL)
you want to make a NTSC dvd and a PAL DVD, is this correct from the above source and make sure they are progressive?
well ok the PAL one is easy, just take your source video into compressor and in the frame control tab, make sure that your ouput field is progressive.
the NTSC DVD is a little tougher. do you have FCP?
the only difficulty i do see, like you said was the audio pitch/speed.
i guess you CAN do a conversion in compressor, but how well it looks.. dont know i will run some tests and let you know
Mikey

PAL and NTSC project.

I was wondering if you could give me some advice on when/ how to best convert a project that I have to NTSC? At the moment it is editted as a PAL DV file, it's going to be formatted for DVD to be used both in Australia and in the US. Should I export the clips as NTSC from FCP then encode for DVD or should I let DVD Studio convert the project to NTSC from the PAL clips?

I’ve found the best overall PAL to NTSC Standards Conversion comes from Hanumang’s Compressor method:
"Load your DV PAL movie into Compressor 2, then choose
Advanced Format Conversions > DV NTSC from the settings.
Then, under the Frame Controls tab, alter your settings to:
Frame Controls: Custom
Resize Filter: Better (Linear Filter)
Output Fields: Bottom First
Deinterlace: Better Motion Adaptive
Adaptive Details: checked
Rate Conversion: Better (Motion Compensated)"
Results are stunning and once set up, it’s dead simple to use again because the settings are saved in Compressor.
The only downside is that it’s slower to process than other methods – but I find the results are better and I can use the Mac for other work whilst compressor’s working in the background.
A quicker (but I find, more fiddly) method is Graeme Nattress’ Standards Conversion:
http://www.nattress.com.
This method gives outstanding results too.
Andy
Quad 8GB. 250+500 HDs. G-Raid 1TB. NORTON. FCP 5.1.1. Shake 4.1. Sony HVR Z1E Mac OS X (10.4.7)
"I've taught you all I know, and still you know nothing".

How to edit together NTSC, PAL, and Mpeg Formats

for this Museum installation that I am compiling I have to get footage from a variety of sources and media, mostly VHS and DVD. The final output would be as a Mpeg2 to be played on a server. What is the best compression to use for editing? DVpal, was my first guess, but then I also have some NTSC material which would have to be edited together with PAL stuff. How do I convert one to the other. Should I use an uncompressed format for quality, or edit in the Mpeg2 format I hope to export.
Thanks very much for your help on this confusing subject
Peter

If your final output will be in PAL then it would likely be best to edit using DV-PAL as was your first guess, especially as most of your footage will be coming from low resolution sources anyway. Of course, higher quality will always be better, but if its not for projection and/or broadcast then the relatively lower quality of DV or DV50 woud be ample.
For capture from VHS you would definately benefit if you could run it through a TBC (timebase corrector), see if you can get hold of one.
For converting NTSC to PAL you can go with a cheap convertor (you'll get a cheap looking conversion) or you could just render it out from FCP (you'll have long render times and a cheap looking conversion) ... you could use Compressor, which would get you a much better conversion, but if you have any kind of budget, then invest in Graeme Natress's very affordable Standards Converter plugins - they'll give you top quality conversions that would give a very expensive hardware based converter a run for its money ... and they render faster than Apple's bulit-in conversion too.
Good luck
Andy

Converting PAL to NTSC and making a DVD

I have a couple of .avi files, some are in PAL and others in NTSC, I wanna make a DVD in NTSC mode, How can I convert the files?

Hi
This is not easy and You need other programs to do this.
.avi.
You can use MPEG-Streamclip to convert the AVI files so that QuickTime can play them
and to streamingDV for iMovie.
This may work - I had great problems to get .avi into anything usably.
*PAL to NTSC or other way*
A. Commersial DVDs - No Not at all - Not even legal to discuss.
B. Home made DVDs (without copy protection)
NTSC ---> PAL.
• Most often not necessary - Most stand alone PAL-DVD players playback NTSC
(if TV is old in BL/W)
PAL ---> NTSC.
• If played on Mac - not necessary AT ALL
• If on NTSC-DVD-player - CONVERSION IS NEEDED - nearly no Stand alone NTSC-DVD-players
playback PAL at all.
• MPEG Streamclip (free on internet) to convert to NTSC
• Set up an NTSC project (29.97fps or 30) in iDVD and import then burn
I burn to
• Verbatim DVD-R
• Set down burn speed in iDVD to x1 or x4 recommended by many
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on internal boot hard disk before burning (IMPORTANT)
Yours Bengt W

My mac disk is full and i cant transfer files from Mac to USB. saying the format is not good, how can i change the format and what happened to the files i have on USB?

my mac disk is full and i cant transfer files from Mac to USB. saying the format is not good, how can i change the format and what happened to the files i have on USB?

Once something similar happened to me. The external drives I had set up for FCP to use for some reason were not mounted, and FCP put all its render files on the main drive and I couldn't find them anywhere.
Go to applications, and control-click (and hold down) on your FCP icon; you should get a pop up menu that says "show package contents". Select that, select the "contents" folder, then the "mac OS" folder. See if your quicktime file is in there, or if you've got render files in the "render" folder or audio render files in the "audio render" folder that don't belong there.
That's where FCP sticks stuff when your documents FCP project folders are not available or when external drives you've selected aren't available.

FCP keeps freezing when I go back and forth from other applications

OK, so first when I called in to procare they narrowed it down to possibly being a corrupt file because I share this editing station and user desktop with another editor, he doesn't have the same problems, and we reinstalled the Operating system and FCP studio to make sure. My project has alot more scripted photoshop sequences, nested sequences and more Motion projects than his too, so they suggested that I copy and paste all of my sequences and bins from the frozen project into a brand new one, and cut out some of the old unused sequences. So I did and it did help things a little bit but still. even when I just go from safari and back to FCP I still get the spinning ball, and it still takes about a minute or so for the spinning ball to stop if I make changes to just a simple title in Motion that is also up in FCP. I'm afraid if I add any more graphics to this newly copied project it may start freezing like the other one did. Any suggestions on how to speed things up, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks, jen
Power Mac G5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.10) Memory:6.5 GB, CPU Speed:2.5 GHz, FCP 6.0.1

even when I just go from safari and back to FCP I still get the spinning ball<</div>
Old comedians joke: Doc it hurts when I move my arm like this...then don't move your arm like that
Okay now that I have that off my chest, there are a number of things we could all look at to trouble shoot this problem. No doubt others will chime in, but my first thought is to look at how big your photoshop files might be. Check out this link:
http://www.dc.umich.edu/groundworks/Docs/video/importStillsFCPiMovie.pdf
You also noted you have a lot of nested sequences. Maybe you could export those nested sequences as QT movies to free up some memory. Also are all your sequences open at the same time? This eats up memory as well.
Just a couple of areas to get you started.

Full-HD and DV-PAL

Hi,
My video-cam records DV-PAL and DV-PAL is interlaced. When I want to burn a DVD to play it back on Full-HD TV, do I have to de-interlace the video? Because Full-HD is always 1080p and not 1080i. In FCP when I play back the video the picture is very bad (Kammeffekt, I don't know this term in english). This is because the Computer builds up the picture in a progressive manner like a Full-HD TV. So, can a Full-HD TV handle a interlaced video?

Because Full-HD is always 1080p and not 1080i.
That is incorrect. A majority of 1080 HD is interlaced. TV's being marketted are 1080p, but the broadcast signal is 1080i.
Shane

FCP HD STUDIO Malfunctions After HD Crash and New HD Install

OK Pro's! I know that someone out there has had something like this happen. My PM G5's original internal Hard Drive crashed and with the help of the Apple Tech @ repair unit got most of my Programs only recovered. I decided to install new 500 MB HD in unit too. Used Migration assistant to move files. Now Final cut runs like road kill. Often hangs up and frequently have to force quit. Of course I could use iMovie but why when FCP Studio 5 HD is on system and does it all better (used to at least).
Any hints, helps, clues, and knowledgeable guidance is welcomed.
thx.
Jeff
PowerMac G5 w/23" Cinema Display Mac OS X (10.4.4) Two LaCie 500MB FW HD

Yes, that's what I'm recommending for you.
Insert your Tiger install dsioc in the SuperDrive, double-click on the install icon, and when the installer reboots and begins, click through until you reach the Installation Type screen, then click on the Options button. Select Erase & Install and go for it.
Then, after the installer finishes, update to v10.4.6 again, repair permissions in Disk Utility at every step. Then reinstall your apps, update them, and repair permissions at every step.
Should be Good to Go.
At the end of this, you'll have a huge 500GB Scratch Disk that will be very fast and reliable. Use your firewire drives for archiving media & projects.

Recording both PAL and NTSC versions of same project

I am importing a series of movies to iMovie in PAL format. I understand that it automatically sets the format. What steps should I follow to ensure that I can have both versions of the same footage correctly (PAL and NTSC)? On my first attempt to record on iDVD I had not changed the setting to PAL (even though iMovie project is PAL). A warning message showed that there were conflicting formats but I recorded the DVD and now it works on my NTSC TV and DVD. Then I changed the iDVD setting to PAL and made another copy. When I check the DVD's under Window>Movie Info (Quicktime) they seem to be in the correct format. It happened by accident but I understand that you should export your movie from iMovie in the new converted format in order to record a DVD in such format. I accidentally bypassed that step and I wonder if the quality has been lowered. Has anyone experienced this also? Should I do the same to save me an extra step? Thanks for feedback on this.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

The conversion from PAL to NTSC (or NTSC to PAL) is a non-trival task.
In the case of PAL to NTSC, not only must the frame size be changed from 720x576 pixels to 720x480 pixels (fairly easy resizing), but the frame rate must be changed from 25 frames/second to 29.97 frames/sec (this frame rate change is NOT easy). iDVD/QuickTime seem to simply duplicate an occasional frame to go from 25 to 29.97 fps (or delete an occasional frame going from 29.97 to 25 fps) - this technique can cause the converted movie to be rather jerky.
You will probably get a better conversion use JES Deinterlacer at http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html as mentioned by Bengt

FCP to PC, Mac and Television Pal and NTSC

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