Blurry Stills
 

I'm editing a film in FCP3. It consists of mainly pics I took with a 5.0mp digital camera. When I imported them into FCP and put the stills into the timeline, they become so blurry. Can anyone recommend the perfect pixel size and combination of filters to make the images crystal-clear? Thanks.

Hi Michelle and welcome to DVinfo! I moved your post to our regular FCP forum since you had put it in the high definition FCP 5 forum.

Have you viewed your stills on a TV monitor (like through your camera via firewire) instead of on your computer screen? If not then try it; they may be fine actually.

Otherwise, what are the proportions of the stills and are you editing a 4:3 or a 16:9 sequence? Assuming that you're working in 4:3, using Photoshop resize the still image to 720 pixels wide while constraining proportions. If your still is also in the 4:3 proportion you should now have a 720x540 image. If not then you may need to crop to that size. Now resize again WITHOUT constraining proportions to 720x480. This will put the image in the proper size and proportions for FCP. One problem (especially with FCP 3) is that the program does a rather poor job or rescaling images, so it's best to prepare them as 720x480. However you need to remember that video pixels are not square which is why we need to squash a 720x540 image to 720x480.

Your stills are probably fine as is and do not need a trip through Photoshop, though Bord's advice is absolutely correct. FCP will scale (and not distort) your stills to fit within the video frame automatically, which usually means they will fit properly side to side and have some black bars top and bottom (in a 4:3 timeline). You can easily scale them in the motion tab or by dragging the wireframe to the size you want. The wireframe view also allows drag placement of the image within the frame so you get just that part of the still you want. You can do this in PS as Boyd describes, but then you are locked with the scaling and framing that you did there. If you import the still directly into FCP, then you retain the ability to frame and scale with FCP tools.

Now, about your blurry look. This is an issue that FCP has (had) when working in the timeline or in the Viewer where stills are involved. The scaling code does a terrible job when the still is anything but the scale that FCP decided to set as the default when the still was imported (and sometimes not even then). But fear not, because when fully rendered out to tape or as a QT movie (and this is not the same as forcing a render in the timeline with option-R) it will be beautiful, as you expect.

To test this assertion, export your timeline of stills as a QT movie and then import that back into FCP and see for yourself. They should be crystal clear.

I have found that FCP5 is much improved in this area as I can achieve a WYSIWYG view of scaled stills in the timeline by rendering (option-R).

That would be "Boyd's advice" not "Bord's". Sorry.

Import Quick Time Movie?
 

I am working in FCP3. I exported a project to a QT Move to burn to DVD. The project has been removed from FCP but the QT Movie is still on the Hard Drive. Can I import the QT Movie back into FCP?

Thank you.

Gary

Yep no problem it will just be one big clip though so it will be hard to edit ;-)

Just start a new project hit Apple I and choose the file.

Import QT mov.
 

Sorry it's been a long time to reply, i've been on the road. The problem I run into is a message- File Error: Unknown file. during Import. Any suggestions?

Thank you

Gary

Can you open the file in Quicktime itself? - just by double clicking on it?

Yes. Double clicking brings up thr movie in QT Player and I am able to watch it there. I just need to import back to FCP3 to edit a few things.

Strange. Try "Saving as..." (selecting "Self-contained Movie" and giving it a new filename) from Quicktime, and see if that file can be imported by FCP?

Problem uploading to the web
 

Hi
My problem is this;
The movie is being exported from FCP3 as a QTime file and then tranferred to a CD using Roxio Toast.
The movie plays fine from a PC which is where I'm trying to upload from directly from the CD. I cant work out any way of saving the movie from the CD to the PC. It plays fine from the web as long as the CD is still in the PC, as soon as it is ejected, the web movie will no longer play, all you see is a blank screen. I can see by looking at the CD that there are 2 other files associated with the QT movie, but these don't seem to upload.
Any idea's?
Regards, Dave

Sounds like you've uploaded a reference movie and not a self contained film. Check the file sizes match.

Hi Liam, you're right. There are 3 files shown on the disc although I save it as a self-contained movie. I must be missing a setting tab somewhere, but where?.
Dave

All sounds a bit odd. Can't you copy the QT movies from the CD on to your hard drive?