Switching to FCE

I use iMovie HD for my lecture/sermon videos. Each video is approximately 1.5 hours in length, 22 total tapes. When I get home, I load into computer. Total of 33 hours to load, let alone the editing etc.
For this reason I'm looking into a hard drive camcorder, 120 GB or so, that will be compatible with FCE. The camcorder MUST have a remote microphone input, earphone output and be able to use a remote tripod. I sometimes have to follow a lot of movement back and forth between the lectern, white board and back again. lots of zooming and panning.
The majority of my videos will be in standard mode, burned to DVD's and mailed out to persons to play on DVD players.
David

Alchroma,
Thanks for your response to my post. I use the Sony DCR-TRV120 8MM camcorder with Sony's remote tripod for my presentations. The DCR-TRV120 has all the features needed except it records to tape.
Sony has "dumbed down" their newest camcorders. Have to get the most expensive ones to be able to use a remote (wireless) microphone and the and an earphone jack to monitor the sound.
The Sony 120GB HDR-XR500V has the features I need, but I would have to get the newest tripod or use an adapter to convert to LANC so I could use my older tripod.
The only other option is the 240GB HDR-XR550V. I would purchase this one if money was no option.
David

Similar Messages

Where Can I Compare iMovie, FCE, FCP?

Can anyone refer me to a resource where I can compare the attributes of iMovie, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro?
I made movie a while ago with iMovie HD mixing slides and video clips. I was very pleased with it, although it felt a bit limiting. I'm about to start a similar project, and I'm trying to decide what to do it with.
I've tried the later versions of iMovie, and quickly got rid of them, going back to HD.
I think I'd like to move up, and FCE looks right. FCP looks too expensive and way more than I need.
I searched a little here and on this forum but didn't see any side-by-sides. Any help out there?
Rich

being the iMovie-guy here at the boards (have a look there...), I'm switching to FCE for quite a while, because it IS the next step in movie making.
the learning curve IS steem, totally diff. concept, in user interface, in handling, in workflows. no '1-click-done'-app, you have to understand a few rules & concepts of movie-making and -techniqué.
I'm very much recommending any book from FC-mastermind *Tom Wolsky*, who's participating here. as a non-english-speaker, I really like his laidback tone, easy to understand, allways hands-on, no tech-blabla, ... a teacher, in best means.
I'm used to use Soundtrack.. for sure, you can accomplish similar tasks in Garageband, which is basicly the same.
LiveType offers some marvelous effects, I can use in my son's action-movies.. like this (the explosion is a LT effect!)
for easy integration into iLife/mobileme, simply use the new features of QT_X player.. in FCE, Export Movie (which is a small/fast reference.mov), open that with QTX, upload to your mm-gallery or YT or.. no stress with settings and codecs and.. simple&convenient.
FCE4 offers - aside support for modern camcorders - integration of plug-ins.. so, if you don't want to build your own effects, or got used to iMovies instant-themes.. there's a wide range of (many free!) plugins, which teach FCE new wonders..
FCE - my best investement into software ever..

Is FCE too much for me?

Hi,
I am a newbie when it comes to video editing. That said, I am very interested in learning as much about the editing process as I can.
I have used iMovie for a while and I feel constrained - I feel like it is oversimplifying things to the point where I can't do what I want.
How bad off would I be if I went out and purchased a copy of FCE? I'm a software engineer so I am not afraid of complexity; that said, I don't want to get in so far over my head that I spend all of my time lost/frustrated.
This seems like a very active/supportive discussion list, so I would greatly appreciate any suggestions/advice you might offer.
Thanks!
BT

"I have used iMovie for a while and I feel constrained - I feel like it is oversimplifying things to the point where I can't do what I want."
I switched to FCE from iMovie six months ago, for your same reasons; plus I didn't like the resulting quality of some basic (for me) operations like speed changes, reverse, stills, etc..
I played with FCE for a month or so without trying to do anything productive, just getting used to the new approach, that is much more powerful than iMovie, but is sometimes quite different. Now I'm very, very satisfied and I don't mind using FCE also for very simple edits (I know some posters here prefer to use iMovie for simple tasks). When you know your way you get much more in much less time. Just, don't think to learn everything in one months.
After six months I'm probably mastering 30-40% of the FCE capabilities, and I'm learning more and more mainly thanks to the wonderful help from this forum.
Just a caveat: as Ian says there is still no official version of FCE for Core Duo...
Piero

Clicks and Popps in FCE

Hello,
I just started with FCE 3.5. My first project is a iMovie project I started in iMovie and now imported into FCE.
Here is my problem. After adding clips from the browser to the timeline and rendering it the audio makes clicks and pops (I don't now how to explain it best). I don't have the problem with the same clips in iMovie.
Any advice?
Thanks and regards
Andy
iMac G5 20" iSight 2.1GHz 1.5 gig RAM Mac OS X (10.4.5)
iMac G5 20" iSight 2.1GHz 1.5 gig RAM Mac OS X (10.4.5)
iMac G5 20" iSight 2.1GHz 1.5 gig RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi,
I have no mp3 in the project. The files with the problems are the movie clips. And you are right. iMovie is just great. I get the feeling much better then FCE. Its much more difficult to only achieve the same results then in iMovie. If I just look at the great themes I have in iMovie. I have only switched to FCE because my project last around 90 minutes and iMovie wasn't able to handle it (not this project - the one before) FCE very poorly imports iMovie projects. It doesn't import any transitions and "forgets" half of the timeline.
Thanks for your feedback
Andy

Help! New to FCE - captured audio out of sync

I just switched from a PC to a Macbook Pro. I had been using Sony Vegas on the PC and have switched to FCE since Vegas isn't available on Mac. I tried capturing my first footage last night into FCE. The audio on the tape was 32kHz, so I went to EasySetup and selected the DV-NTSC 32kHz setting. After capturing about an hour, it gave me a message saying analyzing or rendering audio for about 5-10 minutes. When that was done, I tried to play the clip, bit the video and audio were about 1 sec out of sync (video was ahead by 28 frames). In this case, I was able to unlink the audio/video and manually re-sync them, but can anyone tell me what might have caused them to be captured out of sync, and what to do to ensure that it won't happen again?
Thanks!
Erich

Thanks, I'll give that a try later today and see if that solves the problem.
One other question, does video imported through iMovie need to be rendered in FCE? I tried capturing some footage in iMovie (with the same setup) and it played fine in iMovie (no sync problems) and when I imported it into FCE, it played fine in the viewer, but when I dropped it into the sequence timeline and tried to play it there, I couldn't hear the audio, just a beeping sound, and there was a red bar over the sequence to indicate that it needed rendering.

What Can FCE HD 3.5 Do That Premiere or Vegas Can't?

Hello,
With iMovie '08 not offering you much control (no timeline), the next piece of software up the Apple ladder appears to be Final Cut Express HD 3.5. But at £199 I'd be interested to know, what can it do that PC alternatives such as Adobe Premiere Elements and Sony Vegas Movie Studio can't? Both of these applications are £60, making Final Cut Express more than 3 times as expensive!!! Can it really offer you more than 3 times the amount of control? What's so good about it?
I'd be interested to hear from experienced people

Reuben,
I just recently switched to FCE after using Sony Vegas Movie Studio for a few years. I do my video editing on the family computer which we replaced with a Mac and I needed new video software.
Movie Studio (at least the version I was using, v4 ?) limited me to 3 video tracks and 3 audio tracks. FCE allows up to 99 video and audio tracks. I've never used anywhere near that many, but my most recent project used 4 video tracks, it would have been more difficult to do it in Movie Studio. There's 12 compositing modes for blending the video layers, in MS I don't remember being able to select the mode, it was just a straight blend (depending on opacity).
I find the control of motion events (pan, zoom, etc.) to be much finer in FCE than MS. I can drag objects by the mouse, or type in the exact numbers. These motion events can have many control points or keyframes along a path, and unlike MS, the path can be curved.
Although I haven't used it yet, I understand the color correction tools are much better than in MS or any comparable software.
FCE includes Soundtrack for doing Foley effects, background sounds, and music, as well as LiveType which includes some pretty cool text effects and titles.
As far as being 3 times the amount of control, you would probably be the only judge of that for your circumstances. I do mostly home videos and the like, but a lot of higher end production and broadcast stuff is done on Final Cut Pro and I like being comfortable with the interface if I ever need to go that way.

FCE HD(Preferably 3.5), how do you like, and is it worth buying?

Hi Everyone. I am seriously thinking about buying a Macbook and Final Cut Express 3.5, but I need some insider's opinions before I seal the deal. How do you like FCE? Do you feel like your getting as much Bang for your Buck as possible? Or is it simply just a reasonably priced software package? How do you like the selection of transitions, filters, and LiveType Options? Do you feel that there are enough choices of transitions, filters, LT Options? Are there enough custimizable options to give your project a personal touch? Overall, how do you like FCE as a whole? Also, please feel free to elaborate or further explain yourself in any way, shape, or form. I would especially appreciate it if someone would give there personal opinion of the selection of Transitions, Filters, and LiveType options(as you can see the amount of transitions, filters, etc. are a major concern to me, as I feel that I can edit alot better with a large range of choices).
Please Reply, and every word you type will be carefully read over and consider by me. Once again, your Support is **GREATLY** Appreciated. Thank you so much!
-B
Final Cut Express HD 3.5(Universal) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I've used the gamut - iMovie HD, FCE 3.5, and now FCP 5.2.
I originally just used iMovie HD. Say what you want about it, for quick edits and even professional looking basic videos (even in HD), it does a pretty good job. It's an amazingly powerful little editor for the price.
But there isn't too much tweaking you can do to the built in effects, and there's nothing like LiveType with it... so I then moved to FCE 3.5.
FCE 3.5 is almost identical to FCP 5 - the difference are small but to some, substantial. Paraphrased from GeniusDV.com: "FCE only supports the HDV format. HDV is a compressed format which uses mpg2 for its video compression scheme. HDV is starting with a 25Mbit signal with 4:2:0 color space. Final Cut Pro on the other hand can be configured to support ALL major formats of HD, including DVCPro HD. DVCPro HD is 100Mbit at 4:2:2. Unless you are a broadcast technician, don't let the numbers scare you. HDV still looks VERY good."
They're right about HDV, and I shoot in it exclusively. A critical feature to add is that FCE does not do "native HDV"; all the HDV footage must be recompressed into the Apple Intermediate Codec for editing. (iMovie HD does this too). This results in one more compress-recompress cycle and also causes footage to take up at least 3X the storage on your hard drive. It works though. Native HDV support in FCP was one of the main reasons I switched.
"FCE has many of the standard effects found in Final Cut Pro, with the following exceptions. There is no three-way color corrector, which means the ability to control the blacks, whites and greys of an image independently.... FCE does not support time-remapping. You may also have heard the term time-warp. This basically refers to the ability to speed up and slow down video over a fixed amount of time. And finally, no After Effects plug-in architecture is supported for FCE."
"Other feature differences
No customizable mapping of the keyboard, No support for third party capture cards. No ability to batch record No 24P support."
FCE does come with Soundtrack (a less-featured version of Soundtrack Pro), 4GB of nice Apple Loops, 4GB of LiveType fonts and effects, and a training DVD. LiveType is, to me, like "Motion Lite" and some cool title work can be done with it.
The addition of Soundtrack Pro isn't that significant over Garageband's integration with iMovie HD, but the addition of the loops and LiveType is. You can create significantly nicer titles in LiveType that go beyond Apple's iMovie templates. If you want to stick with the templates though (which afford a small amount of customization options), iMovie still works ok for basic edits.
Final Cut Studio also offers very good integration with Motion, Shake, DVD Studio Pro, and Soundtrack Pro that are not present at all/difficult to integrate in FCE. And of course, you get all those programs as well (except shake) with tens of GB of effects and templates, as well as pounds of books and training materials.
That's what prompted me to upgrade to FCS, once it went Universal so I can use it fast on my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro.
Bottom line - if it wasn't for my need of native HDV and the want to play with Motion, I would have stayed with FCE. It's a very, very full-featured editor for the price.
And iMovie HD? I still use it today to produce quick edits when I have very limited time or need to tweak.
It's all about what you need to do.

FCE Vs iMovie. Quality Difference?

hello there.
i'm just wondering whether such emphasised phrases as "high quality effects/transitions/rendering/etc" in the FCE manual or general description mean that, for instance, iMovie's quality, as far as rendering, effects and transitions are concerned, is worse. am i correct in understanding so?..
the problem i am facing is that, although i'm in the middle of switching to FCE from iMovie for doing all/most of my video work, i still find that i've got much-much more effects and transitions in iMovie than in FCE, due to having 7 of the 10 Slick-GeeThree packages. so what i'm thinking is that i could share the work between the two applications, using the best features of each to the benefit of my projects.
however... the thought that suddenly occurred to me was - would the quality of my video footage suffer in iMovie? or has iMovie got the same quality parameters as FCE?

thanks for your replies.
i don't think i'll be having any problems with audio, as most of my projects are music videos, which means i won't be using the sound of the original footage: the soundtrack is added separately.
as for the quality of some effects. yes, that's exactly what i meant. the captured video looks great in iMovie. but as soon as i add such effects as colour correction, for instance, or saturation, the sharpness of the picture disappears and it starts to look edgy. for example, if it's a human face, the original oval curve of a cheek or a chin will look slightly saw-edged, i.e. i can spot square pixels...
which is why i thought that perhaps the "high quality" bit in the FCE official description meant that i won't be encountering similar problems in FInal Cut?

Updating Final Cut Studio 2.01 and workflow between FCP and AE

Hi. I am currently working in FCE 3.5 and am considering purchasing Final Cut Studio 2.01 (new and sealed) as opposed to the latest version since I am running a PowerPC G5. Am I assured of being able to download all the updates for Final Cut Pro 6 and exactly which version would be the latest and final one? Was there ever an FCP v6.5? I do mainly animation/motion graphics and work in After Effects (along w/ Flash, Carrara, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). I understand that the workflow between FCP (as opposed to FCE) and AE is greatly enhanced. Can someone give me an idea of what advantages this new workflow will offer in terms of what I'll be able to accomplish that I can't do now w/ FCE? Also, any other comments on how FCP (as compared to FCE) will benefit me as an animator will be greatly appreciated. Lastly, am I correct in assuming that I will be able to open my FCE 3.5 project files in FCP 6 but not visa versa? Thanks. Jack.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I see that I will need some 3rd-party support in order to realize the benefit of a Final Cut Pro/After Effects workflow. Have another question. What are the kinds of filters that you can keyframe in FCP but not in FCE? And are there many filters in FCP that are not included w/ FCE? As I deal mainly w/ animation as opposed to footage of live video I am trying to justify the investment in Final Cut Studio 2 in terms of it being a benefit to me as an animator. I currently use FCE 3.5 (which includes versions of SoundTrack and LiveType) and After Effects CS3 plus other graphics programs. I would love to be able to work within DVD Studio Pro as iDVD is so limiting as an authoring program but am not sure how much I will benefit from switching from FCE to FCP. This is what I am trying to nail down.

Capturing HD into Final Cut Express HD

I think i posted a topic about this some time back, but i thought i would again. i have this JVC HD camera, and i would like to import the video into FCEHD. but i was having a lot of trouble with it. i spoke to a JVC sales rep awhile back, and he said there was something i needed to download in order to do it. i called him yesterday, and he hasn't returned my phone call yet. i just thought i'd post a topic on here to see if anybody knew what he was talking about. if anyone could let me know what exactly i need to do in order to import this video, i'd really appreciate it.
hey, thanks.

After my previous post to your thread, my computer quit working properly and I deleted and reinstalled both QT 7.0.3 and FCE-HD. I now am able to capture HD footage with the camera set to HD (on lens barrell) and mpeg2 set on the firewire output switch. FCE easy setup is apple intermediate 1080i/60. I have to unplug then replug the firewire cable on the camera and rolling tape before going to capture. I can also capture SD video with all the exact same settings, but am not sure exactly what form it's going onto the computer in! DV video is via ntsc-dv codec and camera set to dv/dv.
Best regards, Manson

Import and export help

Ok here's the problem I have been using imovie 08 to import from a jvc gz155g hdd camcorder then exporting the finished product as a small movie with quicktime setting it to steaming-medium and the end result was fine but now I have switched to FCE and find that using the same way causes the quicktime movie to look squashed using the same settings as i did in imovie to export.
Is there any way I can export and get rid of this squashed look.
I have an intel mac, quicktime pro and the mpeg2 pluggin.
The camcorder records as SD and 720x576px.
it all works fine with imovie 08 but not FCE arggh

I suspect you are shooting 16:9 but haven't told us.
To stretch it out use QT Pro as detailed at the bottom of this article:-
http://www.fcpbook.com/Video9.html
OR follow these instructions:-
In FCE select File>Export>QT Movie. (Self-contained or not is your choice but it will have no effect on the quality).
Open this file in QT Player and select Window>Show Movie Properties.
Select Video Track>Visual Settings.
Deselect "Preserve Aspect Ratio" and change "Scaled Size" to 1024.
Click "Sound Track" or the Backspace key and the image will jump to 16:9.
Close the Properties window with the red button.
Do the same with the QT Player's video window and it will ask you if you want to save it. Click "Save".
Then put the file in iDVD etc.

Where can I find iMovie 4 keyboard shortcuts?

Just got done with an iMovie project that required turning the Ken Burns effect off for about 20 pictures. Is there a keyboard short cut that can uncheck that effect? Or is there a way to import the photos without having the KB effect on to start?
Any other help on keyboard shortcuts would be appreciated. I am getting tennis elbow.

Thank you. I am slowly making the switch to FCE 2. I have Wolsky's book and it is starting to make sense. I hope that I can get quick with it so that family and friends can enjoy the end product. Thanks again, Rumbob

Amateur question reagarding quality of video formats

Since iMovie '08 came out, I switched to FCE, to get into the program, before support for iMovie 06 HD disappears completely,
Now with the discussion of the future of FW on Apple's non pro machine, I do have the following question, which is not immenent to me right now, but would regard possible future investment in a new Videocamera and / or computer:
Presently I am using a DV based camera, occastionally having used HDV. Should Apple pursue the path of dropping firewire on some of their machines, I may have to consider getting a USB based camera for replacement (my current camera is close to four years old, so that perspective isn't too far).
Now, from what I learned, DV and HDV are not availalbe for USB, so in how do the codecs used with USB cameras compare to the DV and HDV formats. By this, I mean a comparison on the basis of picture and sound quality, only. And please, I do not intend this question for a discussion of pro/con firewire /usb or pro/con harddrive vs. tape. Just plainly a question and some advice of the quality of the footage I get on my computer.
Thx for any advice!
Dirk

DV and HDV use the MPEG2 compression standard to store video.
USB cameras use the newer AVCHD model which uses MPEG-4 Part 10 (also known as AVC also known as h.264)
h.264 was intended to get more data packed into the same bitrate thus giving higher quality. The idea being the 24 Mbps h.264 would be superior to 24 Mbps MPEG2. While in general this is held to be true, how much better is greatly debated.
My limited experience says that image quality depends far more on the equipment itself rather than the codec. If your camera has good optics and focuses well, your image quality will be better, regardless of which codec you use. I opted for an AVCHD camera when I purchased mine more because of size (it stores to flash cards) more than anything else.

HOW DO I CHANGE FRAME RATE IN iMOVIE 10.0.5?

WHERE IS THE OPTION TO CHANGE THE FRAME RATE OF A VIDEO IN iMOVIE 10.0.5? I JUST CAN NOT FIND IT, IT USED TO BE ON THE BAR IN THE OPTION OF PROJECT PROPERTIES BUT IT IS NOT THERE ANYMORE, PLEASE HELP.

The DV specification is to use drop frame TC. Unless you have a camera that's switchable all DV NTSC will be drop frame, which is why FCE works in drop frame. This is not a function you can switch in FCE. You would need to work with Final Cut Pro to get this functionality.

Need input on testing exports

Having recently switched to FCE I am looking to fine tune my outputs. Most of my video comes from a AVCHD camera(1920 x1080 60i ). My final product is both DVD ( SD & AVCHD on a SDVD for a Blue Ray Player) and uploads to Exposure Room. I am pretty comfortable with the workflow for the DVD. I just make a Quicktime Movie and then drop that into Toast. It's the uploads to the web that I struggle with. My internet is a satellite dish and the uploads are pretty slow. So file size is important.
I have tried various settings for my Quicktime Conversions with a recent short video. The final results were comparable when viewing with QT even though the file size ranged from 603.5MB to 24.6MB. All of the movies were 1280 x 720 h.264, the primary difference was the data rate.
Finally to the point of my post. I feel that even though this movie has titles, cuts, scaling and slow motion, it may not contain editing or footage that might make a difference in the export settings.
If I were to design a test to find the right export settings what would need to be in the movie to see any difference in the QT conversions?
Thanks you for your patience with this long post and thank you in advance for your input.
Message was edited by: Michigan One Fly

Michigan One Fly wrote:
.. Was your footage interlaced or progressive? ..
both.
as I said, a while ago.. using my miniDV = interlaced.. the 'chart' was a simple Pixelmator.tiff, 'converted' into a video.mov with QTpro.. so, 'by nature' progressive..
for internet use, interlace is of no use.. (interlaced is nowadays for nothing of any use.. but that is a diff. story.. )
sidenote: fastest and convenient upload to mobile.me or YT is usage of QT_X .. !
its 'automatic' conversion (=no manual settings at all) results - imho! - in superb results..
once made a iM-Project with some random pics of my Lib, opened that with QT_X, upload to YT => looks ok for me!
same with FCE: Export with QT, opening the file with QT_X, upload crisp too ..

Switching to FCE

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for