Image quality using iMovie 08 vs Final Cut Pro

I read in November's Macworld that if I use a tapeless camcorder, "you won't get the best image quality if you use iMovie '08 because the software converts each movie clip to smaller, more manageable size. To get the highest quality you'll need to be running Final Cut Pro on a Mac Pro with at least 2GB of RAM." Do you all agree with this?
It depends on the format. In general, the consumer tapeless cameras shoot some highly compressed variant of the mpeg2 or mpeg4 format (delivery formats). These formats are not designed to be edited but rather to be displayed directly from the camera to the TV. In order to edit the material, you must first convert the files from their delivery format to something editiable. This conversion usually results in LARGER not smaller files. There is the potential for some minimal alteration of the image in the transcoding process. This is the trade-off for shooting with such a compressed format.
And if so, please consider the following. I used a mini DV camcorder to transfer all my tapes to my computer and to an external hard drive. Have I already lost that image quality in doing so using iMovie?
No, capturing DV material from tapes using iMovie is a direct digital transfer. DV/NTSC or DV/PAL video as captured from tape is the muxed (mixed audio and video) DV stream. It is an exact replica of what is on the tape.
If so, can Final Cut Pro import from iMovie and improve that quality by decompressing or will I need to retransfer the tapes using Final Cut Pro or will the difference be too negligible to be noticed and not to bother.
FCE and FCP capture material from tapes slightly differently than iMovie. While iMovie brings the material from the tape unaltered, FCE/FCP uses Quicktime during capture to pull the audio and video into separate streams with in the resulting file. By having the audio demuxed, the programs are able to edit multiple video streams simultaneously while iMovie is limited on one at a time. The video quality is not altered in this demuxing process.
If you choose to shoot with a tapeless camera and edit the material in FCE or FCP, FCP has a wider range of formats that can be handled by the program, but in no way will it deal with them all. Many still need to be converted into an edit friendly format before you bring them into the program.
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A Case Study Question in the Use of Stills with Final Cut Pro

Believe it or not, for the last week I have been reading endlessly about pixels, resolution, aspect ratio, Photoshop resizing, the bloody battle over the usefulness of the term "dpi" in video discussions, and generally about what one should do in order to use still images in a film edited in Final Cut Pro. And yet, though I have a PhD from an Ivy League university, and can understand a lot of things, I am sorry to say I am still at a loss.
Much of the discussions of photos on forums like this one are either quite technical or broadly philosophical. But my questions are completely practical and specific. I am not a photographer or a printer, nor am I an experienced editor. I am just a fairly smart person trying to use photos in his film. So I am going to ask some specific questions and hope for specific answers, without any philosophical waffling or technical mumbo jumbo.
I have one of those HP all in one printer/fax/scanner machines. I am told this device, while not fancy, is perfectly adequate to the task. Some of my photos I scan with this device from prints. Some of them I get from other people. (I have stopped downloading photos from the web, as the quality is nearly always poor.) I have Photoshop Essentials (not Photoshop). I am making a 90-minute HDV documentary, 16x9. The doc is mostly HDV footage with a still here and there. I want to be able to move on the photos (zoom, pan, etc.). I want, obviously, for them to look good. My sense is that the work flow is: (a) scan the photo (or obtain from some source as a digital file); alter the photo in some way in Photoshop; and (b) import the photo into your FCP project.
Question #1: If I have a 6x8 print, what settings should I scan it in with -- is it possible there really is no difference between scanning in it at 72dpi and 300dpi? Is it really all about the dimensions of the image? Isn't a photo whose dimensions are enlarged in Photoshop to make it available for panning and zooming in my sequence going to look fuzzier and more pixelated if it was originally scanned at 72dpi than at 300dpi? Also: Does it matter if I save it as a jpeg or tiff? Bottom line: What settings do I use in my scanning software when I scan a photo for this purpose?
Question #2: Once I have the image file on my hard drive, I suppose I now have to load it into Photoshop Elements and do something to it. What is it exactly I am using this program for? I'm going to take a wild guess. I use PS Elements to (1) crop the photo so that it has a 16x9 aspect ratio, and (2) resize it so that I can do pans and other Ken Burnsy moves on it in FCP. Bottom line: What exactly do I do in PSE to the photo and what settings do I use to both (a) make it available for moves and (b) not injure the quality of the photo by increasing its dimensions?
(In passing, I will say that I have done experiments that show that if I increase a photo's dimensions to, say, 4000 pixels by 2000 pixels, the photo's quality definitely and obviously suffers. I don't understand how a picture can be increased in size without losing sharpness. So, what am I doing wrong? Is this a function of it having been scanned in improperly to begin with?)
Question #3: If I am obtaining a photo from an outside source -- say, a professional photographer -- what are the specifications I ask for in both a hard print and a photo file? If the former, what dimensions do I ask for? If the latter, do I specify resolution and dimensions and file type?
These are my questions. At this point, I really don't want to know WHY any of this is the way it is. I just want someone to say: "Do this; do this; and then do this."
Thank you very much.

Studio X is absolutely correct; while DPI has no meaning in the video world, it often has significant meaning in scanning (and, of course, printing). If your scanning program only allows image size adjustments in DPI, then you'll have to adapt to that ... keeping in mind that the scanner's DPI setting directly relates to pixel resolution. And it is pixel resolution (not DPI) that will make all the difference in the world for images used in video. You can test this yourself by scanning an image at 1000 x 1200 @ 72 DPI and again at 1000 x 1200 at 300 DPI. They will look identical on TV or projection as long as the pixel resolution remains the same.
As an example, my Epson scanning software allows me to adjust image size by DPI or pixel resolution. Wanting to maintain the correct aspect ratio for the image area that I'm scanning, I adjust the DPI setting which in turn adjusts the pixel resolution automatically. But it doesn't work the other way around; if I adjust the pixel resolution settings manually, the DPI setting does not change. Your software may vary.
As Jim Cookman suggested, a scan setting of 300 DPI works well for most images ranging from 3 x 5 to 4 x 6 (typical snapshot size) in a DV Sequence. I may scan smaller images at 400 or 600 DPI and larger images (8 x 10 and up) at 150 DPI. Other size images fall in between those numbers. But I'm constantly watching the pixel resolution numbers to make sure I'm getting what I'll need to support the animation I intend to apply to the images once in FCP. Also bear in mind that I don't always scan the entire image. I only scan the area of an image that I intend to use in my program.
So the answer is that it all depends on your scanner's software and how far you plan to push into an image once in FCP. Do a few experiments ... you're a bright fellow so it shouldn't take long for you to find the formula that suits your purposes.
I haven't edited an HD Sequence using images yet, so I cannot offer definitive pixel resolutions for you there.
On to your specific questions:
1. See above. There is no one correct answer It all depends on what you intend to do with the image once it's in FCP. If you only plan to push in about 10%, you won't need much higher resolution than the equivalent of your FCP Sequence resolution. If you plan to push in further, you'll need a higher resolution to support that move.
2. I've been doing these for many years (SD Sequences only) and I've never loaded them into Photoshop first. I import the entire folder into FCP and drop it on the Timeline so I can see what the images look like on TV; unless your program is for CD-ROM or web delivery, that's where it counts. When you place them on the Timeline, FCP will automatically scale to your Sequence settings and pixel aspect ratio. If I see that some of them need adjustment using an external editor such as Photoshop, then and only then do I use that program. And by the way, if you have a vertical image and a 16 x 9 aspect ratio in FCP, how do you propose to crop it to fit? Perhaps you meant another term instead of "crop."
3. If it's a print, it won't matter what size they supply because you'll control the image size when scanning. If it's a file ... once again, the size (pixel resolution) depends on what you intend to do with the image once in FCP.
I really don't want to know WHY any of this is the way it is. I just want someone to say: "Do this; do this; and then do this."<<</div>
With that attitude, how did you ever earn a PhD from an Ivy League university? But if that is truly all you want, you might consider hiring an experienced editor to do it for you.
-DH

Importing imovie project into Final Cut Pro

Hello I need help getting my HD imovie project into final cut pro. I recored the project in 24p and it's already imported into imovie. What is the best way to get it into Final Cut Pro so that I can edit it further without sacrificing the quality.
Another problem is that I have heard that imovie compresses the video and totally ruins the quality. Is this true? And is this reversible in any way? I have already recorded over all the clips for this project on my camcorder. How screwed am I?
-Michael

First thing to do is find your original clips that you captured in IMovie. I don't have much experience in IMovie, but see if you can select a clip and control click and choose reveal in finder. If that works, open one of these clips in quicktime player and hit command-i and let us know the format of the clip.
Kind of doubt you'll be able to actually import your project into fcp, but you should be able to recreate it in fcp without too much difficulty.
Let us know what camera you shot and captured from. That may be of some help.
Hopefully someone with more experience in IMovie will speak up, but hopefully this will get us started.
Message was edited by: Michael Grenadier

Can I migrate an iMovie project to final cut pro and keep the edits intact?

can I migrate an iMovie project to final cut pro and keep the edits intact? It may be a solution to my apparently corrupted iMovie

The manual tells ..
http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.1/?lang=en#ver41812c7c
keep in mind: just the 'plain cuts', not the eye-candy iMovie offers, wil be transfered.
unfortunately it says ...:
You initiate the process from within iMovie. The project file and the media used in the project are copied to your Final Cut Pro library.
For more information, see iMovie Help.
so, if your iM doesn't work anymore, you can not transfer.
plus, my personal opinion!, I would start from scratch in FCPx...
What issues in iM do you expect FCPX to solve,...?

How using mp4 files on final cut pro x

a can't impot any mp4 (I don't want converter to mov) file in to fcp x.
how using mp4 files on final cut pro x?

MPEG-4 is delivery framework and should never be used in production. At the very leasgt you should optimize the media when you import it.

What do you use to speed up final cut pro x on my macbook pro early 2011?

what do you use to speed up final cut pro x on my macbook pro early 2011?

I don't use anything to speed up FCP X on your MBP.
Seriously we need statistical info on why you think it needs speeding up.
Poor performance is often associated with incorrect usage, lots of other apps open or a hard drive that is more than 75% full or fragmented.
Ideally all the media should be stored on an external hard drive and not the MBP's.

Can I use Motion 5 without Final Cut Pro but maybe for iMovie?

Hi guys, if I buy Motion 5 can I use it to create a project without Final Cut Pro or X or what ever?! And can I create transitions for iMovie?
Thanks

Stelo08, yes, Motion will export in a handful of formats.
h264 is the most popular, but did not support transparency, which you would likely want if you wanted to do lower thirds (titles).
Motion will export in prores 444 which which supports transparency, but I do not know if it works in imovie.
(I tried it in Camtasia 2.3 and it did not there, but it seemed to work in ScreenFlow 4.03)
Additionally, you can import video footage into Motion, so worst case scenario, you could pull a shorter scene into motion, do your overlays, export that scene and then add it back into imovie.

How to Use iMovie Projects in Final Cut Express

I just upgraded to Final Cut Express because of the feature of being able to start a project in iMovie and then finish it in FCE. The steps look simple in the manual File / Open / etc. But when I do it, it tells me File Error: Wrong Type. Is there something I am doing wrong or some other format for the iMovie projects to make them work?

FCE 4.0.1 is the current version of FCE. There is nothing newer.
A new version of Final Cut Studio was released last year; perhaps it can import iMovie11 projects. You would have to try it to find out. If there is an Apple store nearby, copy your Movies folder to a portable hard drive, take it with you, and ask to try it out with Final Cut Pro on one of the Macs in the store. Most stores will let you do this.
Be aware, however, that even if the import works, there are many limitations: Transitions become cross-dissolves. Cropping, Ken Burns effects, color adjustments, titles, green screen clips, PiP clips, voiceovers, sound effects & music tracks are not exported in the XML file.

Video quality changes when imported into Final Cut Pro

I have video files that I have imported from an external hard drive that were transferred from an HD camera. When viewing the footage directly from the hard drive, the quality is great. Once imported into Final Cut Pro, however, there are small "flares" (don't know how else to describe them) that appear for split seconds across the screen. The best way to describe it is if you are watching a television that has an antenna, there will be static or interferance on the image. This is barely noticable but I can't determine what would cause the decline in quality. My video settings are set to DV NTSC 48 kHz and wonder if this is the problem or if anyone knows of something else that I should change prior to importing.

Thank you so much for your help! I am technically challenged and STRUGGLING to say the least.
Some files are definitely H.264 and I can convert them to ProRes. I also have clips that are
DVCPRO HD 1080p25, 1,440 x 1,080 (1,888 x 1,062)
Linear PCM, 16 bit big-endian signed integer, 2 channels, 48000 Hz
Current Size: 1,440 × 810 pixels
Will I need to do anything to those as well?
Here is the question I'm afraid to ask because I think I know the answer already. Can I simply replace the clips in my sequence with the newly compressed ProRes files or do I have to change all of the video and sequence settings and then start all over?

PLZ HOW I CAN T USE THE COMPRESSOR AFTER FINAL CUT PRO X WHY???????

HOW I CAN EXPORT MY VIDEO FROM FINAL CUT PRO X TO COMPRESSOR TO YOUTUBE???

You don't need to use Compressor. In FCP, Share>You Tube and then choose the quality setting you want.
Alternatively you can use Compressor to give you more control over your settings. If so, choose Share and either export a master file and bring that into Compressor…or SHare>Add Destination>Compressor settings.
Good luck.
Russ

How do I achieve a high quality PAL SD DVD from Final Cut Pro?

From a PMW-EX1 camera file edited in Final Cut Pro I am unable to produce a high quality PAL SD DVD using compressor and DVD Studio Pro (tried multiple combinations).
Using Final cut pro and Magic iDVD I can achieve a high quality SD DVD with no changes in export.But am limited to the iDVD restrictions.
From discussions it appears using compressor and DVD Studio pro it is not achievable, it is very frustrating that the Apple product you have to buy is not as efficient as the free one?
If not possible then how do I access the encoded file from IDVD?
My Final cut pro sequence settings:
General - Aspect ratio: HDTV 1080i (16:9) 1920x1080, square and upper(Odd)
Quicktime video settings compressor: xdcam ex 1080i50 (35 mb/s vbr)
I

iDVD does everything automatically for you. With DVDSP and Compressor, all steps must be done correctly. The trade off is that you achieve better quality using Compressor over iDVD.
1. First thing to do is export your sequence as an uncompressed interlaced 25i 720 x 576 16x9 Anamorphic QT.
2. Determine your optimal bitrate by using a bitrate calculator. Here's a good one. Remember you need to account for all video on the disc, including motion menus.
http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm
3. Bring your down converted QT into Compressor and use the manual settings set your bitrate. Also encode out a Dolby digital AC3 file. These files take up less bandwidth than uncompressed audio. Also remember to match your upper fiiled dominate filed order as well in Compressor. This must be consistent throughout the export and encoding stages.
4. bring your encoded video and audio files into DVDSP and author

I have a fairly new iMac wI now have iMovie events and Final Cut pro events that are duplicates. Does that mean that all my video is copied onto my hard dive twice?

If I have video in imovie and final cut pro X, does that mean there are two copies of the video, one for each piece of SW? If so, how do I get rid of the imovie events and keep only the Final Cut Pro X events (video)? I don't want multiple copies of the same video stored on the hard drive.

If you import to FCP directly from the Camera or from a camera archive, you would likely import choosing Optimized Files which would go to a FCP event that is in ProRes 422 codec. This would be in addition to your iMovie Event which would import using the Apple Intermediate Codec. So you would have two copies of the same information. An AIC copy and a larger ProRes copy.
However, if you use FILE/IMPORT/iMOVIE EVENT LIBRARY, FCP will not duplicate the event files from iMovie. It will treat them as referenced files, and will point to the iMovie Event files in the reference. So there is no duplication. You will be editing Apple Intermediate Codec files in FCP.
However, FCP will create Event folders. In addition to the reference information, these will contain thumbnail files that are compatible with FCP, stabilization and analysis files that are compatible with FCP, as well as any intermediate render files that are associated with the Event.
So in this case, there is no duplication of the large event files, but there is some duplication of the small thumbnail files.
I have several terabytes of iMovie Events, which are now all available in FCP. Believe me, I would know if they were duplicated because all my disks would be full.

Problems Opening iMovie Project in Final Cut Pro

We created a 12 minute Video in iMovie for a client last year (basically starting Video editing as an experiment). However because they now want a multilingual DVD version we've decided to take the plunge and invest in FC Studio, thinking it will be able to open the project and allow us to add the additional audio tracks.
However, on opening the iMovie project in FCP, a lot of the clips along the timeline are missing, and the few clips that have transferred successfully seem to have spread themselves over 5 or 6 hours with huge gaps between them.
Are we doing something wrong? Final Cut Express seems to have a seamless upgrade path, does Final Cut Pro not have this ?
We don't really want to remake the whole video in FCP if there is a way of just importing the iMovie project.
iMac 20" G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Using latest FCP and iMovie

Thanks everyone for your help.
I've just finished the project. As Steve mentioned I didn't actually need to add the audio tracks in FCP, in fact after adding them to Sound Track Pro and adjusting the volume I then realised they needed to be exported from there and added as separate tracks to DVD Pro. (everything has a timeline)
I used FCP to superimpose a new sequence and a logo to the top corner, I'm getting more comfortable with the programs now.
I think I've got my head around what application does what now, and have established a better work flow.
Once again thanks for your help.
PS. I get the feeling FCP is a slightly older program than iMovie or any of the other applications. The lack of live scrolling and audio wave forms (in the timeline) gives me that impression. But the whole FC studio an amazing piece of software, don't think I'll ever look back.

IMovie transfer to Final Cut Pro?

I'm using iMovie....can I transfer what I have created to Final Cut Pro?

There is no size limitation. When you import an iMovie project titles, transitions, effects and other elements do not transfer. If you export a master file from iMovie you can most likely bring it over without problem.

Problem exporting video using compressor for a final cut pro vid

I've created a video in Final Cut Pro and trying to export using compressor to apple tv. Each time about half way through it crashes final cut and gives me the 'final cut pro had to quit unexpectedly'.
Haven't a clue what is going on, it happened sometimes when i was trying to conform to HD but when i did it bit by bit it was ok.
All the media is online so really haven't a clue. I've tried using quicktime conversion in pro-res then bashing into compressor and it works but interlacing is all over the shop, even with de-interlace filter.
ANy answers with regards to why its crashing greaty appreciated!
P.S when it crashes says something about a pro-core plugin
Message was edited by: jim__bob

Hi Jim,
Can you update your profile, we don't know what your hardware set up is or your OS, or version of FCS. It could give you answers a lot faster if we know your details from the off.
Ok, what format is your original media, what are your sequence settings please.
DM

Image quality using iMovie 08 vs Final Cut Pro

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