Export at wrong resolution?
 

I have an FCP project with DV timelines. I let FCP set up the timeline to match the video. It looks perfectly fine on the canvas, when it's set to 100%. It also looks perfect on the monitor through the Kona 3 card.

When I export video as a self-contained .mov, using current settings, though, the result looks lo-res and pixelated. It almost appears as if it's only exporting one field.

I can export through QT conversion as, say, 640x480 VGA, and it comes out full-rez.

Xdcam ex timelines in the same project export correctly.

This is on a mac pro, FCP 6.0.5, QT and OS are just prior to the latest upgrades.

I suspect I have some simple setting wrong somewhere but I can't figure it out. Thanks in advance ....

Best,
John

Hi John,
I'm not sure what is causing this, but with the exported QT file open in Quicktime Player, choose command-i (or "Show Movie Inspector" under the "Window" menu) and confirm what it states under "Format" and "Normal Size".

Also, go into your Preferences while in Quicktime (select "Preferences" under the "Quicktime Player" menu,) and in the "General" tab, in the "Movies" section, check the "Use high-quality video setting when available" checkbox and see if that helps with improving how your exported file is displayed.

-Jon

This falls into the "tearing my hair out over the wrong problem" category. The export was fine, it was that setting in QT, and thanks very much for the help.

Best,
John

Right on. Glad it helped.

I think that checkbox being unchecked by default is a carry-over from days of weaker graphics resources on older systems, and intended to ensure smoother playback for higher-data rate files if the system would otherwise struggle to keep up - with the expectation being also that the exported file was generally not used as a final presentation format, but rather an intermediary for other purposes, such as a full-quality re-compression source into other formats - which generally looked better than the full-quality version because they were being displayed properly in their presentation-ready format while the source file was not. (end of run-on sentence)

I think newer and more robust machines generally don't have a problem keeping up with high-quality playback anymore, but I think most folks don't know about that little checkbox.

-Jon

I sure didn't know ... thanks again.