Motion projects look like VHS junk in a FCP timeline

Pro Res 422 sd FCP sequence, field dominance none. This is viewed through a Kona LHe on a Sony PVM-14M4U.
I have a bunch of Motion animations with particles and text. Video processing is set to 16-bit float to avoid banding on a bunch of gradients. When I edit the project into an FCP timeline, the result is a stair-stepping mess on every element much like VHS. If I export a self-contained movie from Motion, it looks like it should in the FCP timeline.
So the obvious answer is to export a movie for each animation from Motion and while I'm not adverse to that as an answer, I'd really like to know why a Motion project is looking so awful in FCP considering the project interchange capabilities that are supposed to be within FC Studio 2.
I am most likely missing something very simple as I am the King of User Error.
z.

Peter Wiggins wrote:
There are quite a few things that don't happen when rendering a Motion project within FCP.
Such as? Gotta link to anything as I'd really like to know. Perhaps my impression of sticking a Motion project into FCP is just faulty?

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Why does my project look like this?

Hello to all. I am in the process of setting right my media...reorganizing my projects and events, deleting duplicates, deleting render files etc. I was puzzled to come across this appearance of one of the projects. FYI, I am using event manager to ensure that not more than one or two events/projects are presented to FCPX at any point of time. Here is this screenshot:
Usually if there is some problem with events not being available [the project looks red in color and some warning is given] I am accustomed to the warning icon at the starting place of the project. Clicking upon that icon brings up the inspector window and clicking the modify event references button at the bottom usually settles the issue.
When I ran the skimmer over the project, I was able to view the video and even hear the audio of this 'closed looking' project.
Right now I have done this: click upon relink project files. I was able to locate all the files and have pressed the relink button and the process of relinking is going ahead.
I dont know or understand what I am doing, but would like to know how this project has donned such an appearance as this one? Knowing this will help me to be more careful in future. Had I failed to locate the files, it could be that I would have lost the project.

Upon rebooting and opening the application, I got this:
The closed and blue colored appearance of the clipsremained unchanged. Placing the cursor upon the clip opens up that segment and the corresponding part of the project turns up in the viewer. Sound is also audible while skimming over the project.
The project plays in the project library:
While so playing, both audio is heard and the video is seen in the viewer, in a normal fashion. While the video is playing, that 'clip' is open in the project as seen at the cursor location in the shot above. But, when the video is stopped, the 'clip' in the project closes down and only the red skimmer is visible:
The project opens in the timeline and also plays normally as well:
Tom, I do not understand what all these 'abnormal' things mean. May I ask this : what is meant by consolidation of project media and can I click upon this option?

Even My SD project looks like crud! Jittery, Echoy, Pixelated etc.

Sorry for my spelling.
Please help guys! I have figured out my HD to SD issues, so I thought it would be a breeze going just SD all the way. Now to help you understand, I originally edited these files in Premier pro, and then sent them over to FCP and made them into files that DVDSP could read. I burned them to DVD and they looks as though I tried to make them from SD to HD files which looks like crap of course.
Now I've done this a few times before and (going from Premier to FCP and such) and they looked just fine. I can't figure out what is the problem.
Here is an example of the file format:
vid Rate 29.97 fps
frame size 720 x 480
compressor dv/dvcpro - ntsc
pixel aspect ntsc - ccr 601
I will give more info if needed but I'm not sure what the heck to give since I am clueless to begin with
any help would be great and as usual, thank you for your time and patience with me.
Crayton

Hi
Just as a test.
If Your movie is OK in FinalCut Pro.
• Export out as QuickTime .mov
• Not selfcontained (not important but saves time and space)
• NO QUICKTIME Conversion (Important)
Close FCP
Open iDVD
Import Your QT.mov here and select Pro Quality
Make a DiskImage (File menu and down)
Play this with Apple DVD-player tool. OK ?
• Use Verbatim DVD-R SL disks
• Set burn speed to x4 in iDVD pref
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on internal boot hard disk
Now - How does this play - Quality OK ?
Yours curious Bengt W

My 16:9 project looks like 4:3 in the iDVD preview

Aspect Ratio is definitely set to widescreen 16:9 in Project Info, but it doesnt seem to affect the dimensions of the actual film when i double click to preview it. What it seems to change when i toggle back and forth between 4:3 and 16:9 is how the the theme graphics for the menu fit into the preview box. The thumbnail of the film looks letter box, but as soon as I double click to play it, it goes to 4:3. Can I expect it to burn to disc looking 4:3 if that is the way it looks in the preview, or is that just a quirk of iDVD preview?
Also: I've been having terrible problems tonight with the preview film flickering bright orange. Even though i know nothing at all is wrong with the .mov file that I imported. I thought I resolved it by switching themes, but now it's coming back. I've also noticed the orange flickering coming up when i have alot of things open and have been running the computer for a while, it will happen when i try to do some other task on the computer while i am previewing. Anyone else have such problems with iDVD?
Thank you to anyone who can help.
Paul

I think the fundamental problem is that unfortunately, I did all of the work to put my film together on a sequence that had the wrong settings-- SD settings (Frame size 720x480), when in fact I needed to use HD settings to match what I actually shot in (1440x1080). I finally have overcome the problem by exporting the sequence using Quicktime conversion and customizing the settings for my HD clip properties. This is giving me a 16:9 in iDVD preview.
My concern is that my project now is based on a timeline that was created in a sequence with SD settings and that maybe I have lost some resolution quality. I am sitting here looking at the iDVD preview and I am not always sure it looks as sharp as the same clip viewed in FCE dropped in a sequence with the right settings. But maybe iDVD preview isn't as sharp, or maybe it's just my imagination. Any thoughts?
Ideally, what I would like to do is to copy my timeline out of the first sequence with the wrong settings, and to copy it into a new sequence with the proper settings. But I am wondering if that timeline is now "infected" with the wrong settings, and brings these over to the new sequence. The guy on the Apple help line told me this was unfortunately the case. Am I really going to have to completely do this work over again to get a completely correct workflow?
Any way around this?

Rendering problems with a motion project

Hi there,
can anyone help?
I have a fairly simple motion graphic which i am trying to use in an FCP edit. The Motion project is some moving text with a simple background. The project renders fine in RAM in Motion.
The problem is that when I try and render this in FCP, the background becomes very distorted-the graphics are fine but the background isn't.
Is there anything I can do to rectify this? Any settings etc?
Any help would be very gratefully received!
thanks

You need to give the exact specifications of your Motion project and of the media in your FCP sequence and of the sequence in which the clips and the Motion project are being assembled.

A series of video files (0001.MTS to 0005.MTS) were imported into premiere, when moved to timeline premiere combined them and made them look like one long clip nmed 0001.MTS. Multiple motion edits and opacity edits were made. When project manager moved th

A series of video files (0001.MTS to 0005.MTS) were imported into premiere, when moved to timeline premiere combined them and made them look like one long clip named 0001.MTS. Multiple motion edits and opacity edits were made. When project manager moved the project, the actual video content of 0002.MTS to 0005.MTS was missing(source clips are still there but they were playing and working as part of that 0001.MTS timeline clip before). Those parts of the 0001.MTS clip in the timeline were Danger Striped and can be relinked but now have no edits anymore. The edits are apparently only linked with the original 0001.MTS source clip but extend beyond the actual range of the actual source clip. At the time I thought it was weird that premiere displayed the whole string of clips as one (with one name and no breaks) but it all works in the original project file but cannot be transferred to another location without multiple clips showing Danger Stripes.I need to move it and preserve the dozens of motion and opacity edits linked to the apparently oversized timeline clip. HELP!! any ideas?
I did not nest any clips or sequences, premiere just seemed to combine the clips under one name when I moved them to timeline.
I am using CS5.

A series of video files (0001.MTS to 0005.MTS) were imported into premiere, when moved to timeline premiere combined them and made them look like one long clip named 0001.MTS. Multiple motion edits and opacity edits were made. When project manager moved the project, the actual video content of 0002.MTS to 0005.MTS was missing(source clips are still there but they were playing and working as part of that 0001.MTS timeline clip before). Those parts of the 0001.MTS clip in the timeline were Danger Striped and can be relinked but now have no edits anymore. The edits are apparently only linked with the original 0001.MTS source clip but extend beyond the actual range of the actual source clip. At the time I thought it was weird that premiere displayed the whole string of clips as one (with one name and no breaks) but it all works in the original project file but cannot be transferred to another location without multiple clips showing Danger Stripes.I need to move it and preserve the dozens of motion and opacity edits linked to the apparently oversized timeline clip. HELP!! any ideas?
I did not nest any clips or sequences, premiere just seemed to combine the clips under one name when I moved them to timeline.
I am using CS5.

My motion menu's look like trash! Help!

I made some motion menus (in Motion) and am using them in a DVDSP project.
Anywho, the DVD motion menu images look pretty pixilated, and some of main intro motion flickers a bit when it's moving. Got any ideas why this is happening?
Also, if it's helpful, I created them in 720p, but creating a SD DVD. (I also created my video track assets in 720, however, like I had hoped, DVDSP did encode these for standard.)
Thanks!

applevideodude wrote:
But is there any way to "compress" the motion file down to 16:9 NTSC, and have it still be a motion file?
When you first start a project, you can chose the size of your file (NTSC, 720p, 1080i, etc.) Is there any way to change this after the fact?
Your best bet is just to use Compressor to do conversions though you can change project settings but they will not carry through. You can see what happens if you take an HD preset(or SD preset) then Project Properties(+J) and how things get changed in positions. You are usually best off deciding ahead of time what to set things up as. Usually a HD setting will work fine to go to 16:9 SD via Compressor.
When you compress your Motion project, at least with the general concept of compression for use with DVD SP SD, you will be changing it to an SD m2v. It is always best to do conversions outside of DVD SP for the most control and usually the best results.
If it was a 720P project you can send the Motion prohject out to a 16:9 Compressor SD preset and it will make a 16:9 SD video (m2v) for use in DVD SP.

Poor quality motion tween with png image, tried "Trace Bitmap", but then it looks like a newspaper

Greetings all,
I've been a software developer for many years, but am not very savy in the design elements. So, much of what I'm going to say will probably sound "newbie", so please forgive me in advance.
So, I'm trying to get a transparent image to fly in from the side. So, I *thought* I was doing the correct thing by moving the "symbol" off of the visible portion of the stage, and creating a motion tween to move it onto the stage. The motion works, but the quality of the image in general (and the text in specific) looks pixelated.
Thus, I did a little bit of snooping, and everyone said that you should start with a bitmap. So I saved the image from Photoshop into .bmp format, and was able to set the properties to "allow smoothing" and with lossless compression. So far, so good. Now, as I expected, the transparency is no longer there...
So here's the question: how can I make this image retain its quality, still have transparency, and a motion tween?
It seems like this is some set of characteristics that don't play well together, even though I see this type of thing online ALL the time.
I tried "Trace Bitmap" to convert to a raster image, and tried to follow some suggestions online, but when I do "Trace Bitmap", it ends up looking like it has a bunch of grayish dots on the image... definitely NOT what I was expecting.
Thanks for your help!
JPB

Go back to using the png, and set the smoothing allowance. That should take care of the quality. In Flash, a "bitmap" will often refer to any type of image element... .bmp's are probably dinosaurs (as in extinct) where Flash usage is concerned.

Motion Project does not look good in FCP

I am using FCP 5.0 and Motion2. I made a lower third title graphic in Motion. When I embed the clips back into FCP they look pixalated. They do not look as good as they did originally. Does anyone have a solution?

Hey,
Here's the result from last night. The quicktime file is good. It seems that Motion projects in FCP, even from rendered QT files, don't display their true image.
My output this morning for my project is flawless. Even though the timeline looks horrible.
The reason this seems to come up in this forum again and again, is probably that Boris 3D, FCP's titles, even LiveType, all display their true clean rendered image in FCP. Motion, however, doesn't seem to do that.
My guess is that it hangs on to a thumbnail representation for FCP of the rough draught render that motion must create so you can place your motion project in your FCP timeline live. (you know, you can switch back and forth and update a motion project and it updates it in FCP. )
It just doesn't say that anywhere that I was looking.
So, if anyone else is creating Motion projects and importing them into Final Cut, be aware that what you see in Final Cut is not what is going to render in your output. It will be full resolution and without the alising that appears in FCP's timeline.
Whew!
Gord
G5 Dual 2.3Ghz Power PC 3GB RAM, 2x120HDD, & 15" Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Motion project imported into FCP looks different...

I have a Motion project that moves 17 magazine covers across a background. When I preview it in Motion it looks great, but when I import it into FCP the mags overlap and run into each other. What could be happening during import and is there a fix??

I'm posting in response to my own question because this may actually be a bug. When I import the Motion project into FCP with the Motion layers locked, the animation is altered. When I go back into Motion and unlock all the layers and import into FCP, the animation is perfect. No kidding, locked tracks and the animation is funky, unlocked and it's fine. Anyone ever stumble on this??

How does a .ALI file have to look like in a merged project (RH9)

In RH5 (X5) the central .ali file of a merged project contained the enumeration of the #included .ali files of the sub-projects.
Now how does this file have to look like in a merged RH9 project? Given that all files (or most) are XML-files now it seems that the simple enumeration by #include doesn't work any longer.
Christoph

The PDF file itself.
For example, we sell eDocuments in PDF format, we have Acrobat Pro, I make a revision and that revision on my server can push a notification next time they open the eDocument that there's a update available. Much like many software programs can do, except this is a distributed PDF document that can look for updates inside Acrobat Reader for the end user.
Essentially we're trying to find a better way for people to get revisions of purchased PDF files as they become available.
Thanks for your time.

Saved Flash Project, Now It Looks Like ****. Do I Have to Redo Everything?

I saved a project in Flash Pro and came back to it again. Now It Looks Like This:
What Do I Do To Get My Old Version Back? Please Help!

click the rectangle that's shown circled in the image below. that's the 'outline' toggle. clicking it toggles outlines. you can toggle outlines for each layer (by click the solid rectangle in each layer) and all layers with one click by clicking the circled rectangle.

Why does text come out looking like junk?

I have a scanned copy of my college diploma and an award from Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. All the text on these documents come out looking like symbols and individual letters?

Good day,
Could you share your file with us via the File Conversion Issue form?
Please be sure to reference this thread in your description of the issue.
Kind regards,
David
Adobe Systems

When I Press "IMPORT", The Footage Suddenly Looks Like Slow Motion !

... But it imports OK, when you watch the clip after import it is normal.
This just started today.
I use a AGDVX100B
What could this be ?
It looks like its skipping frames.

This happens to us all. There's nothing wrong with the source or the software- as you say, it's fine once imported.
I wouldn't worry about it
PJ
(P.s. It's definately not skipping frames as the exact same thing happens with FCE, and you'd definately know about it if frames were lost when using that program!)

Snow Blizzard looks like "Eyes" on monitor.

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help. I'm new to Motion and am working on a project with the Snow Blizzard, Particle Emitter. On the computer monitor the effect works fine and appears as I have hoped. However, when I export the clip to a quicktime movie and bring it into Final Cut it looks like 2 eyes traversing the screen (kind of like the funny ones you've seen in cartoons in no light scenes).
The scene I'm creating is white text on a black background with the snow falling around. The monitor is NTSC, I am using a G5 dual with an Aja IO connection. I'm hoping to have this look like snow when I make this as a DVD and not eyes, is there someone who has experienced this and can help? Thanks!
Peter

Ok, I was able to answer this one myself. When I was creating the snow, the snow flakes were falling faster than they could draw on on a monitor. It worked on the computer because it was HD but on progressive scan monitors it can't draw quickly enough. So I slowed down the snowflakes as they fell. When I did this I needed to increase the life of the flakes as well, since they fell slower they died faster. This solved my problem.

Motion projects look like VHS junk in a FCP timeline

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