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Redux: Interlacing and Deinterlacing

Interlacing, deinterlacing, progressive — three very confusing terms to many people. This article explains what they are, when you use them, what to do when you see them, and why you should care — not, in many case, not care at all.

Three Interesting Things About Soundtrack Pro 2

The more I work with Soundtrack Pro 2, the more I like it. Recently, I spoke with Apple about STP and learn some quick facts I wanted to share with you here, including what gear you need to hear surround sound.

Intercutting SD and HD Footage

Money was tight, so “they” decided to shoot the project using both SD and HD cameras. Now, your stuck editing them. HOW??? In this article, we explains a variety of ways you can intercut between SD and HD material, and how to avoid problems with poorly converted video.

Editing HD in an SD Timeline

Not everyone needs HD. However, HD can make reframing a lot easier — especially when it is integrated into an SD timeline. This article provides an example of how this is done.

Improving Video Export Quality

What’s the best way to get the highest quality video images during export? DV, especially, looks particularly poor when you view it in QuickTime. This article explains what’s going on and what you need to know to make your exported video look as good as it possibly can.

Problems Importing Text into Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro allows you to import text into a text clip, which allows you to write your text in one place, then display it in Final Cut. The problem is, that importing doesn’t always work properly. This article describes the problem and provides a solution.

Importing Subtitles to DVD SP

Adding subtitles is something DVD Studio Pro is very good at. But sometimes, importing a subtitle file doesn’t work. This explains why and how to fix it.

Prepping Still Images for Video

One of the most complex steps in video editing is getting your computer-based images to look good in video. This article explains how video images are different from computer images and what you need to do to make them look great.

More Image Advice

Here are some design tips to help your text and images look good in video.

Apple Announces A New Video Format — iFrame

Recently, Apple announced a new video format – iFrame – and Sanyo announced new cameras that support that format. This article looks at this announcement and speculates on what this means for the video professional. (Note: Currently, Final Cut Pro does not support iFrame files.)

Locating Sequence Audio Levels that are Too Loud

Here is a very slick technique to find audio in your sequence that’s distorting. It won’t fix it — but it will find it; and much, much faster than real-time.

Creating High-Quality Stills For HD And SD

Probably no subject generates more email than questions about the best way to prepare still for both HD and SD. In this article, David Scott provides this step-by-step approach to making your stills look great. (Note: For a video tutorial on this subject, CLICK HERE)

Opening Final Cut Pro's Help Files Using Preview

If you’d rather use Preview as your default Final Cut Help Viewer, this article tells you where to find your help files and how to change them.

Converting HDV to SD for DVD

Larry fields a question related to transferring HDV footage and traces the problem back to the process of compressing the video. A walk-through of changing the output settings in the Geometry tab provides a detailed guide to preventing this problem from reoccurring.

Converting HDV Video for a Letter-boxed DVD

By definition, all DVDs are only standard-def (SD). If you need high-def, you need to create Blu-ray Discs, which are not the same thing. But what if you want to take HD material and put it on a DVD? You need to convert it. And this article, describes how.

HDV's Rectangular Pixels

HDV uses rectangular pixels to represent its image. Each pixel is short and fat, which means it only needs 1440 pixels to represent an entire line of HD video. However, the computer (and some other video formats) use square pixels to represent the image. So, when you export from HDV to a QuickTime movie, Final Cut converts the pixels from rectangles to squares.

What I've Learned about HDV

Trying to get up to speed on HDV quickly. This article gives you a primer on the current status of HDV – what’s good, what’s bad, and what you need to know.

Converting HDV to DVD

DVDs are always standard definition video. Which means that if you shot your project in HD, you need to down-convert it to SD before you can put it onto a DVD. This short article describes what you need to know.

Tips on Working with HDV

HDV is the latest video format craze, but it isn’t like DV; or any other video format we are used to working with. This article explains how HDV is different and what you need to know to use it successfully.

HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Just Got More Confusing

We can shoot HD, we can edit HD, but we still can’t effectively distribute HD due to the market standoff surrounding HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Recently, things just got worse, as this article explains.