Need help with FCP
 

I was wondering if someone could give me a simple workflow for transferring 2hrs of a hockey game I shot to DVD. I shot it in 720/30p HD and it's quite a large file. It is currently captured to FCP and sits in my timeline with nowhere to go. Will it even fit onto a DVD? Anyway any help out there would be appreciated.

For sure it will fit on a DVD. Do you have any blank DVD-R's?

Well, I'll try to give you a crash course between three studio applications (FCP, Compressor and DSP) you'll need to do this...

First you want to hit the "M" key twice on your timeline.

This will open a the marker dialog box, then click on chapter marker. Repeat for your entire hockey game, everytime you want a chapter point.

Once finished, control click on your sequence and click, export using compressor.

Once compressor launches, click on 90 min DVD. This will make two files - a M2V file and an AC3 file. Keep track of these because you'll need them for DVD studio pro.

Once compressor gets done, launch DVD studio pro and import the files.

If you don't want a menu, just the game to start you must first make a new track. Click new track, and drop your imported media onto the track.

Make sure you track is selected as "first play" as opposed to your menu.

Click build and burn at the top. If there are no errors it will ask for a blank disc. Insert and hope things are right.

There are some other steps I've skipped but give it a shot and see if it burns.

As people will say, there are no real short cuts for learning this stuff, you just have to read the manuals and mess with it.

If you get stuck on a step, PM me and I'll try to help.

-C

What does "control click" mean?

Christopher, forget about the last stupid question. The problem is every time I try to pick "90 minute version" (or any for that matter)in Compressor- it crashes with an "unexpected error" message. Something is wrong with the program.

OK Scott - so the work around (without using compressor) is to make a giant quicktime of your Game and save it to the Desktop or on a external harddrive.

Then import the huge quicktime in DVD Studio Pro. DSP will encode it for DVD but it will take a long time and could have problems (sometimes I get a bitrate error when I do this). Also, you have to resync your chapter markers in DSP because I don't think they translate when you export a quicktime.

It soulds like Compressor isn't talking to your background process (ie not talking to Final Cut).

Hope this helps,

-C

I have already made a quicktime copy to my desktop but when I burn it to Studio Pro it comes out blank with a gray background. It says it has formatted properly but there's nothing there to watch.

How do I make Compressor start talking?

It sounds like you didn't preview your DVD before you burned it. Hit the preview button at the top to see if it works. If you don't see anything in preview mode, you wont see anything on the burned DVD.

About comrpessor. If it's not connecting the background process then it could be an update issue. Make sure you download the latest updates from the pro applications from Apple. This will ensure it isn't a bug.

-C

Thanks Christopher, I'll check all that.