Laurence, all of the things you mentioned (old tape, heads out of align, etc.) could be the potential causes of your problems. Check you FCP preferences to make sure FCP is ignoring TC breaks

Color Bars, tone, and final cut express
 

I'm about to shoot my first dv short and edit it with final cut express on my emac. I'm shooting my short with my GL2.
I have made some minor adjustments with the color presets. I have a small color tv that I plan to use on set to monitor the video as I shoot it.

How do I use the color bars and tone in FCE so that my final product on dvd looks & sounds like I intended it to?

Are color bars and tone even necesssary?

Any takes/opinions appreciated!

Thanks

The main use for the color bars would be calibrating your monitor. Do a search, this topic comes up a lot.

The tone provides a reference for your decisions in presenting the audio. The Final Cut Pro manual actually has a pretty good section on this and I'm guessing that FCE also covers it in the manual, have a look in the index. But basically, depending on the nature of your sound (dialog, music, etc) you need to choose a reference level and adjust the tone to match that. It can then be used for equipment calibration when someone else uses the tape.

FCX and DVX100A matte problems
 

Hey there,

I'm pretty new to the board and modern day video editing. New to FCX and my camera. Whew!

Anyway, I've just bought the DVX100A, shot some footage in 24p mode and captured clips to final cut express on my G4 Tibook.

When I captured the clips, I noticed that the frame rate was 29.97 instead of 24. I've since learned that FCX doesn't support 24p editing so maybe that is what's causing the following problem problem during editing.

When I capture the clips, they look fine. However, when I'm asked to render the clips, FCX crops the top and bottom.

Is there any way to get around this in FCX? Or is it time to move up to FCP to alleviate the issue?

I realize that this may have been answered in some form already in archives, but I didn't find a result in my searches.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Not quite understanding your problem here.... The correct sequence for editing anamorphic is to make sure each clip is flagged as anamorphic as you capture. You can do this by using a capture preset with the anamorphic property checked. I also use FCP3 - there's a box that says "anamorphic 16:9", be sure to check that. Now if you forgot to do this and captured as 4:3 that's no problem. Open each clip in the viewer and choose Edit > Item Properties. Now check the anamorphic box.

The next thing you need to do is make sure your sequence is also anamorphic. Again, this can be done with the sequence preset or manually. Create a new sequence and notice whether it's in the 16:9 proportion when you open it in the canvas. If not then choose Sequence > Settings and check the anamorphic box. You should see the canvas change proportions from 4:3 to 16:9.

Now your clips and sequence will both be anamorphic and will match. But you need to do this BEFORE you add clips to the sequence. If you change the sequence after editing you'll distort things.

What confuses me is your statement "when I make my clip anamorphic before I lay it down in the timeline, it switches to widescreen." What does that mean? This is what's supposed to happen. You also say "when I play it back on my television everything is stretched out." Does that mean that everything looks too tall and skinny when you play the sequence on a standard 4:3 TV (as opposed to a widescreen TV)? That is also what's supposed to happen. When you edit inside FCP everything will look properly proportioned inside a 16:9 window. But when you view on an external monitor it will look tall and skinny if the monitor is 4:3 but will look correct if the monitor is 16:9. That's just the way anamorphic video works.

Do you want your video to be letterboxed for a 4:3 monitor? If so then create a new 4:3 sequence in FCP (eg: don't check the anamorphic box) and then drop your finished 16:9 sequence into it. That will letterbox it, but of course you will need to render and will need to use separate versions for 4:3 and 16:9 TV's. Another approach would be to leave everything anamorphic and burn the finished video to a DVD. The DVD player will automatically letterbox your widescreen video for 4:3 TV's.

Does any of this help?

Thanks for the advice Boyd. I did search and read alot of different things on the topic. I'll try and find more info on it in the manual.....

I don't shoot 24p so I'll let someone else answer that. When you say the top and bottom is cropped do you mean it's letterboxed inside a 4:3 window? If so then it sounds like you captured the clips as anamorphic 16:9 and then put them into a 4:3 sequence. This will cause FCP (and I assume FCE) to letterbox.

Make sure that the sequence settings match the clip settings before you start. In FCP you would open the sequence and choose Sequence > Settings, then check the anamorphic box. That will change the canvas window to the 16:9 proportion.

Note that when you edit anamorphic 16:9 it will look correctly proportioned on your computer screen inside the program, but if you send output to an external 4:3 monitor it will look squashed (too tall and skinny) but will look correct on a 16:9 monitor. So you need to determine what your final output is for before using anamorphic vs letterboxed. One way to get around this would be burning the finished project to DVD so that the DVD player will automatically letterbox when connected to a 4:3 TV.

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff : I don't shoot 24p so I'll let someone else answer that. When you say the top and bottom is cropped do you mean it's letterboxed inside a 4:3 window? If so then it sounds like you captured the clips as anamorphic 16:9 and then put them into a 4:3 sequence. This will cause FCP (and I assume FCE) to letterbox. -->>>

Aaah. I will definitely try that tonight! Thanks so much.

Aaah. I will definitely try that tonight! Thanks so much. -->>>

Oh, I forgot to answer that the clips were letterboxed. I hope that your suggestions will provide a fix. Since I sequenced a number of these clips and saved the project, I wonder if I'll have to redo that over again or even recapture them again.

Putting bars and tone on your tape is only necessary if you are going to have your show dubbed to another format or broadcast on TV. The color bars and reference tone are for dub facilities and TV stations to calibrate their equipment to the color and audio on your tape.

If you are just going to DVD, ignore these. When was the last time (first time) you saw a DVD with bars and tone. When have you seen ANYTHING with bars and tone? THey are not foryou, but for the technicians.

1) Dub the footage to DVCAM. If you are going to digitize and work with this footage with FCP basic setup (firewire drives, DV footage, etc) this would be the best route to go. Make sure that when you have the footage transferred that the timecode from the beta tapes is transferred too, just in case.

2) This one enters into an area of higher cost. Purchase a capture card such as an AJA I/O or Decklink SP. Both these cards can capture an analog component signal. The only this is that with this you will now need to look at buying a drive array capable of working with uncompressed footage. External SATA RAID arrays are the best route.

3) If you don't care about the TC and will never go back to the original tapes for ANY reason, purchase the Canopus ADVC-100 converter. It will convert a composite or SVHS signal to DV...and it is the most stable of this type of conversion. The only problem is that you'll have to manually press play on the beta deck and "capture now" using the non-controllable device setting...thus you won't capture any time code so the footage cannot be redigitized in sync in the future.

Hey Guy,

I might just go ahead and order that DVD...it looks pretty cool. Thanks!

Murph

I used to think this too, but not anymore. The bars don't seem particularly useful, but the tone is. I want to establish consistent levels when adjusting the volume of my monitor speakers.. So - following the advice in the FCP manual - I decide on a reference level for starters (in the case of opera which has a huge dynamic range I use -20 dB) so I put the tone at -20 db at the head of my master tape. That way if I or someone else wants to come back and use the tape later it will be easy to see what my assumption was.

However when I burn a DVD from this material I do not include the bars and tone, and that's easy enough to do.

Chris, what to you want the final results to be? Anamorphic video that will look right on a widescreen TV but not on a 4:3 TV?

You should not have to recapture regardless. Select the clip in the browser, or opening it in a clip window and choose Edit > Item Properties. You can see if the anamorphic box is checked, but from what you describe it will be. If not then you can check it.

Again, guessing that isn't your problem since a 16:9 clip won't letterbox unless it's dropped into a 4:3 sequence. Open your sequence and check the settings; I'll bet the anamorphic box is NOT checked, so now check it. You'll probably go "yikes!" at this point because it will squash your clips even more, but don't panic. Go to the timeline and individually open each separate clip by double-clicking on it. In the viewer window click on the Motion tab then click the triangle next to the Distort property. Notice what it says in the Aspect Ratio box. It will probably be -33.33. Change that number to 0 and your clip will change to the proper proportions both in the viewer and canvas. You will need to do this will all clips that have been inserted into the previous 4:3 sequence FROM THE TIMELINE. Normal video shouldn't need to be rendered but effects and transitions may have to be.

In the future just be sure that your sequence is set for 16:9 anamorphic before you start dropping anamorphic clips into it and you can avoid the whole mess!

Caveat: this is how I would do it all in FCP, but I suspect FCE will be similar in principle if not identical in the details. Hope this helps.

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff : . Go to the timeline and individually open each separate clip by double-clicking on it. In the viewer window click on the Motion tab then click the triangle next to the Distort property. Notice what it says in the Aspect Ratio box. It will probably be -33.33. Change that number to 0 and your clip will change to the proper proportions both in the viewer and canvas. You will need to do this will all clips that have been inserted into the previous 4:3 sequence FROM THE TIMELINE. Normal video shouldn't need to be rendered but effects and transitions may have to be.
Hope this helps. -->>>

Boyd, I will check it out tonight when I get home from work. I might end up either dumping it back to the camera or connecting my powerbook to my sony VPL-HS10 projector to check out the footage, so 16:9 is the goal.

Thanks for the quick and informative responses.