Which format and frame rate should I use?

So I have worked here and there with final cut to make videos for live projections at music shows, but now I want to take it more seriously. Since I have done it randomly I didn't mind taking the time to render constantly and figure it out as I go. But now I want to work on larger projects, like making music videos, a little more consistently and want things to run a little faster.
Basically I have about 200 gb of random footage. Or about 400 little videos. Very little of it is actually shot with a camera on my own. Most of it is collected video from either other people, or downloaded off the internet. Tons of things that are in the public domain that I want to use. My videos are pretty fast paced, almost seizure inducing sort of effects. I layer videos with each other and throw filters on everything. The problem is, the rendering is taking so much time out of everything. Is there a way for me to get around the rendering? Either by a certain setting within final cut, or just by converting all my video to one format? If I had to I would invest the time to convert every single video I have to some sort of format that would allow me to work faster. If so, which format should I use? Frame rate? etc.
I would just like to get this out of the way so in the future I can convert videos to the right format. Just to allow some sort of flow within my workspace.
I am using FCP 7
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,3
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

You want to be on this forum
Final Cut Studio

Similar Messages

Multiple formats and frame rates in one sequence

i have material shot on many different cameras. it includes PAL and NTSC, HD and SD, 24, 25, 30, and 60 fps, ProRes, DCVProHD, DVCam, etc etc. the final product is going to HD in both NTSC 24fps and Pal 25fps, for NatGeo domestic and international.
the roughs are already done with this hodgepodge. my job is to clean up the audio (done), and send the video out in for color, titles, and graphics. i'm trying to get at least the frame rates to match at 24, much of it is already in 24 dvcprohd or prores, so i have been doing quicktime exports of the non-dvcprohd/prores video to prores, then conforming to 24p in cinema tools, then overlaying the clips in the sequence with a fit to fill edit. sync has not been a problem, miraculously, even though the speeds end up between 100 and 125 percent.
am i doing anything right, and if not, what's a preferable way to handle this mess? i tried media manager initially but nothing would relink, so i gave up and started doing the clips individually as stated above.
all i know for sure is that whatever i end up doing, they're not paying me nearly enough.
-m

Hi Shane - Thanks for getting back to me! I figured I'd have to compress it, but
my question is - how? Initially, I used MPEG Streamclip to import the 23.98 dvd footage in as a DV/DVC Pro QT at 100% Best Quality. I then imported those files into FCP. After getting your e-mail, I went to export the files into Compressor (from FCP), and I'm only given 5 setting choices under "QT." I'm not sure which one to select . . . Uncompressed 10 bit? Any ideas? Again, thanks so much!!!

What frame rate should I use?

I have started a new project. There is no one format that I will be using. The only constant is that I will be outputting to Blu Ray DVD. The content will include a mix of video, stills and motion graphics all about equally. I have traditionally used 29.97 for all my timelines. However, since my distribution will be primarily for Blu Ray players and/or H.264 for computer display, would my video quality benefit if I set up my editing timebase to be 60?
Thanks,
Brian

Blu-ray does not support 1080p60. It supports 1080i60 and 1080p24. If you wanted 60p, then you would use 720p60.
The problem with this issue is that a great deal of the public thinks that 1920x1080 is "1080p" without knowing what that means. So there is some confusion over 1080p60 in particular. Consumer cameras with that resolution and rate just appeared.
Here is my "for the love of all that is holy, get the terms right" post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2435232&tstart=0
Jeremy

What frame rate should you build your Flash file at?

Every second of video has 30 frames. But Flash animations can
be done at any frame rate, which raises a couple of important
questions:what frame rate should you work at, and second, if you
choose to work at a rate other than 30 frames per second (fps), how
do you convert to 30 fps? I deal with the question of frame rate
conversion below.
You can create a Flash movie at 30 fps. But if is going to be
played back on a computer, a 30 fps .swf file will generally
produce unacceptably high data rates, unless the image is very
small and simple, or the computer it is playing on is very fast. It
can also create a lot of extra animation work if you want to draw
in-betweens for all 30 frames. Fortunately, there is no need to
build your Flash movie at 30 fps, even if you are planning to
transfer it to video.
I usually build animation that needs to work on the web or
video at 12 fps. This gives us a good balance of lower data rates
and smoother animation. When creating cartoon style animation, it
also keeps our work consistent with the majority of broadcast
animation. While some high end cel animation is done at 24 frames
per second (the rate that film is projected at), much broadcast
animation is created at 12 fps. This is because it is drawn on
"2's." In other words, each image holds for 2 frames. Do the math
and it becomes clear why--half the amount of frames to draw each
second. While Disney and Dreamworks may have virtually unlimited
budgets to create their epic animations, most broadcast (and even
more so, Internet) productions are on very tight budgets. But even
the big studios do a lot of character animation on 2's. It looks
good that way, so why create twice the work?
If we are using flash to build a cartoon solely aimed at
broadcast or film, however, we build it at 24 fps. That way we can
animate on 2's for most of the character animation, but do animate
on 1's for segments or particular motions that require smoother
animation.
If we are using Flash to build graphics for broadcast use
only, and so won't be hand drawing in betweens, we usually build
the file at 30 fps. This will give us the smoothest motion, and
data rate won't be an issue for you. It is also possible to even
build it at 60 fps, and convert this to a 30 fps video with fields
In the end, you can decide to build it at any rate you want.
The lower the rate, the smaller the file size, data rate and number
of frames to animate, but the less smooth the animation.
Conversely, the higher the frame rate, the higher the file size,
data rate and number of frames to animate, but with smoother
animation.
now I use
FLASH VIDEO MX PRO
to covnert Video in multiple formats to FLV or SWF, I set the frame
size just as above, I always get soomth Flash
at the meantime, I have to set video rate when I use
FLV To Video Convert
Pro to play the video in my iPod, if you set the wrong frame
rate, your iPod and other devices may not support the frame rate

Usually video quality has nothing with frame rate, but when
you convert flash to iPhone or other devices, you should think of
which frame rate video can your device play. when I convert .swf to
iPhone with
SWF to Video
Converter, as you know, iPhone can only support frame rate from
2 to 15 or a little more, I always choose 15. In this scare, frame
rate is higher, the quality is better.

JMF Dimension and frame rate

Why I'm not getting success when I try to determinate the Dimension and frame rate of the VideoFormat passing the parameters to the constructor ?
processor.setContentDescriptor(new FileTypeDescriptor(FileTypeDescriptor.MSVIDEO));
TrackControl tracks[] = processor.getTrackControls();
float rate = Math.abs(Float.parseFloat(jcbQuadrosSegundo.getSelectedItem().toString()));
VideoFormat vf = new VideoFormat(VideoFormat.H263, getTamanho(), Format.NOT_SPECIFIED, Format.byteArray, rate);
FormatControl fc = (FormatControl) tracks[0];
Format f = fc.setFormat(vf);
tracks[0].setEnabled(false);
processor.realize();
...getTamanho() return an Dimension that indicates de width and height.
jcbQuadrosSegundo is an JComboBox.
Thanks !!

Skype is generally on autopilot. I believe 1920x1080 (1080p) would be the max resolution as far as I can recall. If the Internet connection isn't good enough at both ends, it will drop down to the resolution the call can handle. The max resolution of the mobile device would be dependent on the hardware and the Skype client. The webcam resolution compatibility is sometimes dependent on the version Skype. Some people achieve better compatibility with the desktop version 6.1 vs the current 6.3. If you want to monitor the resolution you can view the call technical info. It will display the current resolution of both feeds and other call stats.
This external site has some good info on it, though a bit dated, it should provide some insight. I'm not sure if any of the mobile resolutions have been updated greater than 320x240.
http://voiceontheweb.biz/referenceguide/skype/skype-video-calling/

Which Version of Windows 7 Should I use?

I hve a fairly new Macbook Pro. Mid 2012 Version just before the new display came out. My question is, which version of Windows 7 should I use? I've noticed that I can purchase either the 32Bit or 64Bit version, but I am not sure and don't want to load something that might be bigger than I need. I'll only be using Windows to run The Sims 3. This means over 9 expansion packs+ and their EA store content.
Here is what I am running on my mac:
Model Name:          MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:          MacBookPro9,2
Processor Name:          Intel Core i5
Processor Speed:          2.5 GHz
Number of Processors:          1
Total Number of Cores:          2
L2 Cache (per Core):          256 KB
L3 Cache:          3 MB
Memory:          4 GB
Boot ROM Version:          MBP91.00D3.B08
SMC Version (system):          2.2f38
Serial Number (system):          C1MHN1TNDTY3
Hardware UUID:          8CCE66F6-C4B6-5EDB-9CE7-FFB43E25F89D
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State:          Enabled
As you can tell this isn't a higher end Macbook Pro, as it was a gift, but I am unable to play the game without it crashing since they do not have an updated patch for Mac users - and it is very unlikely that they will even care to update the patch. This seems to be the only guarenteed fix. I appreciate any help I can get, I just need responses soon so I can take advantage of the low prices for Windows 7 before they run out.

Microsoft will be supporting Windows 7 with full updates for another two years, so you won't have to worry about supplies running out any time soon.

Everytime I try to enter something into the search box a further box appears to tell me this is a json file and what program should I use to open it. How can I

I am using Linux mint 12 with firefox.
Everytime I try to type something in the search box a further box appears to tell me this is a JSON file and what program should I use to open it.
This has only happened since reinstalling my system a couple of weeks ago.
I am not really interested in what a json file is I simply want to get rid of this pop up box.

Start Firefox in <u>[[Safe Mode]]</u> to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).
*Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
See also:
*[[/questions/921535]]

Which PO and PR table can be used to get the WBS element field.

Which PO and PR table can be used to get the WBS element field. Thanks.

HI,
In the PO the concerned field for WBS element shall be tracked in the Item details and the account assignment tab in PO.
It shall be checked from EKKO table with PS_POSI feld.
The same shall also be tracked in PR from EBAN table .please refer the account assignment tab in the PR item details.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Prasanna
Award pls if helpful.

HT1338 How can I download windows to my Mountain Lion OSX 10.9 and what browser should I use?

How do I download windows to my OSX Maverick 10.9 and what Browser should I use for this?

http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
what Browser should I use for this?
No browser is required.

Itunes plays purchased HD videos fine, but constantly stalls while trying to play home created videos converted to the same file format and bit rate?

Itunes plays purchased HD videos fine, but constantly stalls while trying to play home created videos converted to the same file format and bit rate.
System specs
Win 7pro x64
ATI 5830
Phenom x6 1055t
8gigs ram
1tb 7200rpm sata hdd
500 gig 5400 rpm sata hdd

Itunes plays purchased HD videos fine, but constantly stalls while trying to play home created videos converted to the same file format and bit rate.
System specs
Win 7pro x64
ATI 5830
Phenom x6 1055t
8gigs ram
1tb 7200rpm sata hdd
500 gig 5400 rpm sata hdd

Slow motion and frame rate and shutter speed

I have two cameras that record 60i and three that use 30p. Neither of the 60i cameras has a 30p option (one has a pf30). If I understand how FCPx handles this, if I drop both frame rates into a project, I get 30p out, correct? In effect de-interlacing the 60i footage to 30p. Is it best to import the 30p footage first to set that frame rate so that the 60i gets rendered to 30p?
We're producing a fishing DVD so good quality motion footage is important. This is an instructional DVD so I will be using some retiming to slow footage down to illustrate key points in the instruction.
I've read a lot of stuff on 1080i 60i vs. pf30 vs.30p vs. 24fps and benefits of using 720p vs. 1080i. Also looked at information on slow vs. fast shutter speeds.
So, the bottom line to get the best motion results for the DVD, I should be shooting at best bit rate possible, use 1080i 60i or 30p depending on the camera and let FCPx set everything to 30p. Correct?

For the 1080/60i media, it is best to have FCPX conform it to 30p (29.97p). [30p is a real timing: 30 exact frames per second, but it is not broadcast compliant. 29.97 is quite often simply referred to as 30, just for simplicity and/or laziness. The final decision for which to use rests with you. Also note, like "30 fps", 60 more often refers to 59.94 fps... for the same reasons.]
As for your target being DVD: DVD is always 480 lines whether it is anamorphic (16:9) or standard 4:3. If you would like to have "enhanced" slow motion, my recommendation would be to shoot in 720/60p (which is genuinely progressive "60" frames per second) and will give a slightly better edge on slow motion effects (retiming). That said, FCPX retiming is usually quite good no matter what the frame rate (frame blending recommended over optical flow [which tends to give a "morphing" effect when pushed too far].) 1280x720 frame size will give you plenty of downsampling resolution for DVD as well. [I *believe* that FCPX will use all of the 60fps available from the original video in retiming, even if the frame rate of the project is slower than the original media; so, 720/60p conformed to a 30p project and retimed to 50% will use every frame of the 60p slowed down by half... (somebody correct me if I'm wrong!)]
Best bitrate is also an important feature, but that is not due to the choice of format as much as that provided by the camera itself. Bitrates out of the camera may be relative to the frame size (they are in my consumer camcorders). A common consumer grade camcorder will top out at a bitrate (for 1080) somewhere between 17.5 and 22.5 Mbps, whereas an HD capable DSLR will usually top out at (easily) *twice* as much (45Mbps average from my Canon T4i) or more. Furthermore, the DVD standard imposes framerate restrictions (max is somewhere between 5 and 8Mbps -- the software that creates your DVDs will usually transcode for best bitrate, so not something you really need to bother with - just set the transcoder to best possible quality and provide it with the best quality video that's reasonable.) Whichever camera provides the highest bitrate should be your "main" camera.
As you may have discovered: another factor for a quality video regardless of camera is shutter speed. If you set the shutter speed too high (faster than twice the frame rate) then you will have "stuttering" issues (there will be "gaps" from still frame to still frame). Keep the shutter speed at the same or no more than twice the frame rate: e.g., for 1080/30p (target) the shutter speed should never be more than 1/60th of a second (I'll use 1/30th, 1/40th, or 1/50th usually). I haven't shot a lot of 720/60p, but I think I would still keep the shutter speed at between 1/60th and 1/120th exclusively [that is -- I wouldn't go as high as 1/120th or greater... but that's me... you should experiment for best results for you. If this creates exposure issues, then consider neutral density filters or circular polarizing filters to help bring scenes into exposure range (via aperture or iso or both.)
HTH
Good luck! Have a good shoot!

FCE4 and frame rate issues

Hi All,
I'm totally new to FCE and video editing in general, and have dived in with two feet. I'm trying to edit some screencasts I have produced. My main aim is to cut out dead sections of the screencast and add a voiceover to them. I tried various screencast-specific bits of software, but they didn't seem to allow much in terms of editing, and one (Camtasia Mac) decided to eat a day's worth of work by corrupting the saved file.
So, I thought I'd grab a copy of FCE and give that a try. I've bought Tom Wolsky's FCE4 Editing Workshop Book (whose name lead me to this forum). I was also quite interested in the voiceover feature that FCE has, as that should come in useful as that is the main reason I'm editing these screencasts in the first place.
The main issue's I've been having is that FCE is intended for DV editing, and I'm trying to edit a screencast, so I'm going slightly against the flow here. e.g. my screencast was captured using QT X at 1024x768. Which FCE can't deal with (I only found out after buying FCE... I head FCP can deal with non-DV standard frame sizes, but it beyond my budget). So I've been using MPEG streamclip pretty successfully to convert the H.264 source into Apple Intermediate scaled down and padded to 1280x720. I can then export from FCE back into Apple Intermediate and into MPEG Streamclip to crop off the pillarboxes and save to the final output format.
I've come to the conclusion that as long as I can get my source material into what FCE expects from a DV cam then it seems to handle it OK.
Some of the test clips I imported into FCE seemed to work fine, but then the longer full length source (about an hour) had trouble. The speed had gone all funny. I looks like the screencast source is at around 4.6fps and FCE decided that it should really be 46fps! One of the test clips appeared to be 5fps, and FCE seemed to be OK with that and kept it at 5fps.
I'm currently re-converting the source with MPEG Streamclip to 29.97fps and hopefully that will import OK (even though it is taking ages to convert and I'm writing this sitting here patiently!).
So was wondering if anyone know what the deal is with frame rates in FCE. Why does it sometimes seem happy with my low 5fps rate, and sometimes it decides it should be 10x faster. And does anyone else have any further comments or suggestions/tips about using FCE for editing screencasts?
Thanks,
Matt

Tom, thanks for the help. I'm currently running it through Streamclip now as I type. Hopefully that should sort it. I guess screen capture software use a lower frame rate as they don't need to have a high frame rate usually for the stuff they are doing.
-Matt
PS. btw... great book! Certainly helped me get orientation around FCE. Definately needed as I had no experience of video editing and the workflows and terminology is all foreign!

What frame-rate should I choose for iOS devices ?

Hi there,
I have my project set to 60FPS. everything looks smooth and fine when testing on the iphone 4s.
I don't have a 3G to test on yet, should I leave the framerate as 60FPS for 3g or lower it?
I don't really understand how to determine what to set the framerate for best performance or even if it matters.
Just after some clarification about what to set the framerate to.
Thanks

Yes release is same as non-debug
Okay I finally get your question.
The idea is to keep a value for fps that meets your requirement. Using a value higher than this wastes resources. A simple example would be running an application at 60 fps that is an enterprise application which is clearly wasteful. For your scrolling usecase, if your performance requirement is of 40 fps then keep framerate at 40. Now two things can happen either your device will have enough juice to run at 40 fps or it won't have. If it has the juice it will run at 40 fps no issues. But if it does not have enough juice then it won't and cause stutter. In such a case raising the framerate to 60 will serve no purpose, because that relatively slower device could not scroll at 40 fps, no chance of it to scroll at 60 fps. You should not concern yourself to keep different framerates for different devices. Keep the framerate at a value that meets your requirement, if the underlying device can play at that fps it will play, otherwise it will stutter.
To answer your original question, no you will not get smoother scrolling on a lower frame rate.

System heat up and frame rate reduces to 5 fps approx. while playing FIFA 12

The game works very well in first 2 minutes of startup but after that the fan speed increses abnormally and hard disk also heats up. this is followed by reduced frame rate about 5 fps which makes it very difficult to play the game. While this problem is not seen with earlier versions of FIFA 09 and FIFA 10.
I am using HP-Pavilion dv4 1204tu laptop. 3GB ram. Windows Vista SP1 32-bit. and Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelator Series 4.

Interesting, and yet the video card worked beautifully through Mac OS X 10.5.x and 10.6.x until 10.6.5 came along. And the game binary hasn't changed, so the problem must be with the OS.
Further, if I understand the hierarchy of responsibilities in the software correctly, it's not surprising that the game worked with a video card it may not have listed as supported: Apple supplies an OpenGL library, and compatible drivers for the video cards it sells (that would include my video card, of course), and the games use the OpenGL library to do their graphics. So there's an Apple-supplied abstraction layer (or two) between the game and the video card. In principle, the game doesn't need to know what type of video card is present; just which of the many of the OpenGL features the OpenGL library supports, and whatever the OpenGL library allows it to discover about a video cards' functionality. That way, game developers don't have to create separate versions of their games, or huge amounts of their own video card abstraction code, in order to write a game that's compatible with all of the many video cards on the market at any given time, and all of the new video cards that will come along after the game is published. (I believe my ATI Radeon HD 4870 falls into the latter category.)

Working with many different formats/codecs/frame rates within one Sequence.

Good Afternoon,
As an editor for an ad agency I am being tasked with cutting a demo reel together. Nothing too difficult.
The reel is to include video footage of past projects, going back a couple years or so. The footage that I will be given will undoubtably be in a variety of formats, codecs, frame sizes, frame rates, etc (all SD, though). Delivery is SD DVD.
My question is this:
What is the best way to set up my timeline for a barrage of clips with differing specs?
Do I encode all the media assets FIRST to conform to my Sequence Settings? Or do I just deal with the large amounts of timeline rendering as I work with different formats and codecs? Or do I....?
I am running FCP 5.1.4, so I don't have the Open Timeline feature going for me.
I appreciate any advice and tips you can offer!
Thanks!

Your final format is NTSC SD DVD, so you're going to have to go to 720x480 at some point. This is what I would upscale to. Make sure your "client" knows that the 320x240 wmv's may not look to good in the final production.
Personally I use MPEG Streamclip (an excellent FREE application that's part of many a pro's arsenal) for this kind of conversion and/or upscaling. It's not particularly intuitive (especially for upscaling) so read the manual.
You may need to get hold of Flip4Mac or Episode for the wmv conversions.
I would tend to convert to a lossless codec like Apple Uncompressed or Animation. You could try going to NTSC-DV but you're going to lose some quality initially and again when you do the final mpeg2 compression.
Experiment.

Which format and frame rate should I use?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for