There are some really good preference file managers for Final Cut Pro. But, sometimes, you need to create something customized for yourself. In this case, Automator can give you a hand. Don Smith sent in this technique of using Automator to simplify the process of creating FCP preference backups.
Apple now supports creating Blu-ray Discs in Final Cut Studio 3. This support involves using templates to create your discs. However, making changes to these templates is easy to do, but hard to find. This article explains what you need to do to create your own customized Blu-ray Disc templates.
You may have heard that Final Cut sequences can be customized. But what you may not know is how significantly you can make changes — as long as you don’t want to play the results on a DVD or record them to video tape. In this article, I’ll show you how to change the size of your sequence to any size you want.
Here’s a short, interesting discussion of key things to keep in mind as you pursue free-lance work from corporate clients. This includes a list of questions to ask before starting any project.
Freeze frames, also called “still frames,” are fun to work with and easy to create. However, in Final Cut 6.0.2, Apple changed how it exports freeze frames. Reading this article is critical to preventing problems with image scaling. This was fixed in version 6.0.3.
Sometimes you need more than QuickTime to meet the needs of a client. In this brief article, we present a variety of solutions you can use to create WMV files of your Final Cut Pro projects on a Mac.
Martin Baker of Digital Heaven has the answer to a question regarding the creation of a 14:9 Title Safe in a 16:9 image.
It’s such a simple thing, but very hard to find. Here’s a table that allows you to convert the word count of a document into how many seconds it would take to read. Very useful.
This technique grew out of a classroom discussion looking at all the different ways to copy and paste filters. There’s more than one way — in fact, there are at least five. Here they are.
Larry draws attention to a group that specializes in digitalization of analog media services, converting 8mm, Super 8, and more.
The native format of HDV isn’t QuickTime, it’s .M2T. However, FCP can’t play M2T files – it needs to convert them. There are two ways you can do this — using Compressor or using MPEG StreamClip. This article shows you how.
Working with video clips in different aspect ratios (i.e. 4:3 and 16:9) can cause headaches for anyone. In this article, Daniel Rain describes his system of working with a variety of different files in PAL.
Taking a portion of a 16:9 image and expanding it so it fills a 4:3 screen is called a “center cut.” While taking a center cut of an HD image to fill a 4:3 SD frame is easy, this article describes how, and whether, to expand a 16:9 SD image to fill a 4:3 frame.
UK-based editor, Ben King, contributed a series of thoughts on the best options to consider when you need to convert NTSC video to PAL, or PAL to NTSC. This short article is a quick discussion of your options, along with suggestions on where to go for more information.
Final Cut does not like, in fact, it HATES, putting compressed audio files (MP3, AC3, AAC) in the Timeline. They sound awful. Instead, you need to convert your compressed audio to AIF before importing them into Final Cut Pro. This technique describes how.
Subclips allow you to break up a longer media file into much more manageable chunks, without needing to recapture. However, creating subclips can be tedious — unless you know this secret technique.
Why doesn’t MP3 audio play nicely with Final Cut Pro? The answer is because Final Cut Pro was invented to support only uncompressed audio files. There are only three audio formats that Final Cut supports: AIF (and AIFF), WAV (and Broadcast WAV), and SDII. All compressed formats (like MP3 and AAC) need to be converted into an uncompressed format before you can edit them.
If you’ve ever had to convert a 16:9 sequence into a 4:3 letterbox video, this explains how to do it.
One of the new features in Compressor 3 is its ability to harness all the processors in your computer to speed video compression. But, you have to turn this feature on before you can use it. Here’s how.
When using Compressor on Final Cut Pro 7 and multiple users are using the same computer using different log-ins, if editor one submits a batch through Compressor, waits for the job to finish, then logs out, when the second editor logs in and submits a job to Compressor, they will get a “Share Failure” error.
