When you’re finished with your edit, how should you export?

Well, it depends.

METHOD #1. Reference movie

If you want to export a temporary file as quickly as possible, export a reference movie.

File > Export > Quicktime Movie

UNcheck “Make Self-Contained”

Pros:

• If you’ve rendered your sequence, this is the fastest way to export
• The file size is very small – it only contains audio and pointers to the video files, no actual video

Cons:

• The exported file is fragile and not portable. If any of the referenced video files (including render files) are moved, renamed or deleted, or if the ref movie is moved to a different computer, the reference movie will not open. This means you should use the ref movie right away, for example, to import into DV Kitchen to publish on the web. It is definitely useless as an archival movie to save for future use.
• If your sequence is in DV format, the quality of text, graphics and animations will be very poor.
• If your sequence is in HDV format, the quality of text, graphics and animations will not be as good as it could be, especially fast moving or intricate CG.

If you are converned about quality, try a short test export of a section containing titles, graphics or an animation and view it in Quicktime Player.

METHOD #2. Native format movie

If you want to export quickly, but want an exported movie that is permanent and self-contained, export a native format movie.

File > Export > Quicktime Movie

Make sure “Make Self-Contained” is checked

Pros:

• If you’ve rendered your sequence, this is faster than the 3rd option below

Cons:

• If your sequence is in DV format, the quality of text, graphics and animations will be very poor.
• If your sequence is in HDV format, the quality of text, graphics and animations will not be as good as it could be, especially fast moving or intricate CG.

METHOD #3. lossless PNG movie

If you have completed an important project, and want a perfect quality export, and don’t mind if it takes a while, this method quickly, but want an exported movie that is permanent and self-contained, export a PNG codec movie.

This way, now or anytime in the future, you can:

• encode this movie to x264, H264, FLV or WMV (or any other format) with DV Kitchen
• drag it into DVD Studio Pro or iDVD to author an SD DVD
• import it into Encore or Toast to author a Blu-Ray DVD
• take it on a Firewire drive to a dub house to transfer to a broadcast format for cable/satellite, or for a film festival
• or any other conceivable use.

You can copy the exported movie to a cheap terabyte Firewire or even USB drive to archive it and save room on your main drives.

I recommend the PNG codec, because it is lossless, and it is compatible with almost any software that accepts Quicktime files.

If you are concerned with how long it will take, try a test export (with a 5 second sample) and time it, then try one of the methods above and time that. This way, you can easily calculate how long the entire export will take. If the 5 seconds took 10 seconds to export, this is a 2-1 ratio- so a 2 hour timeline will take 4 hours.

Here are the steps:

That’s it!

Now your exported movie is safe and ready to delivery in any format – regardless of what happens to your source footage or files.

For more info, check out:

Final Cut Pro Foundations

Final Cut Express Foundations

Final Cut (and other editing apps) will accept many kinds and formats of audio for import into the Browser or Timeline.

However, just because they will, doesn’t mean you should!

If you import compressed audio, for example, in MP3 or AAC codecs, or audio in a different bit or sample rate than your Timeline (such as 44.1 KHz, 32 KHz or 12-bit), you will often hear clicks, pops, and audio dropouts while editing, which is distracting for your creative process, and in many cases your audio will require rendering before you can even hear it, which sounds like “beep-beep-beep-beep” and wastes a lot of your time.

Our solution is to batch convert all audio to 48KHz, uncompressed, stereo or mono for editing before importing.

We use DV Kitchen for this, it comes with a preset already designed for this.

If your projects are going to be delivered on DVD or broadcast, it’s important to have an accurate studio monitor on your desk so you can see your project as your viewers will see it while you’re editing.

Why?

First, many editing programs show you a low quality “proxy” of your timeline, so you can’t judge color correction, brightness, saturation, contrast, how titles or graphics will look, or any other aspect of the picture accurately.

Can I just enable a second computer monitor to show video and that will work?

With some editing programs, you can enable a second monitor to show a pixel-accurate view of the video, which will give you a lot better picture of what your viewers will see in terms of graphics… but color won’t be as accurate. Computer video is based on RGB, not YUV color space. A computer LCD will display a different gamut of color than an LCD TV. For example, some colors are “impossible” in NTSC or PAL that show just fine on a computer screen.

In the past, for DV monitoring, I’ve always used a Sony PVM 14″ studio monitor, it seems the right size for desktop monitoring, plus it usually has a handle right on top, meaning as you go out the door to a shoot you can grab it and bring it on the set as a reference or “safety” monitor while shooting.

Here is a list of such monitors on eBay.

For DV, if your budget doesn’t cover a studio monitor, or if buying one would force you to sacrifice something more important, you might first check eBay for a used one, or, a television is still much better than nothing! A TV with an S-Video input will give you better results than a simple composite connection.

UPDATE FOR MONITORING 1080i HDV:

Professional HD monitors are still expensive.

So, here’s an idea:

You can buy an LCD TV/computer monitor (the lines are being blurred more every day) that can be used for three different purposes.

Read the whole article here.

Bare Feats is at it again, with speed tests of the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros:

It seems more and more common that editors are being asked to use content from a DVD- perhaps the client has provided you with last years annual report DVD… and wants you to redit it. (Remember, ripping off copyrighted content is a Federal offense with imprisonment and large fines possible!)

You can use MacTheRipper to get the content from a DVD on your hard drive (OS X only)

MPEG Streamclip is an application that converts MPEG files (including transport streams) into muxed, demuxed, QuickTime, AVI and DV files. http://www.squared5.com/

Here is a tutorial on extracting content with MPEG Streamclip:

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2008/11/25/converting-and-editing-dvd-footage-with-mpeg-streamclip/

ffmpeg will convert to DV or many other formats.

HandBrake is cross-platform and will output MP4, H.264, OGM or AVI from DVD content.

MacAC3Dec — Convert the AC3 sound files used on DVDs to AIFF

MacMPEG2Decoder 1.0b7 — Convert MPEG files extracted from DVD into another video format with Quicktime

More info in this article.

http://www.soundsnap.com/

http://www.findsounds.com/types.html

 http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/searchText.php

http://flashkit.com/soundfx

http://www.stonewashed.net/sfx.html

http://www.acoustica.com/

http://www.grsites.com/sounds/

http://www.koumis.com/soundfx.htm

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.shtml

http://www.f7sound.com/snd.htm

http://plugins.bkms.com/

http://www.stupendous-software.com/

http://www.virtix.com/imovie/products/SampleEffects.asp

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/osx_software/FreePlugins/FreeImoviePlugins.html

One good option is dubbing your analog footage to a DV or HDV tape with the analog inputs of your camcorder. That way, your footage has been digitized and timecoded, and is ready to capture via FireWire into your system as if it had been shot on digital.

If you have Hi-8 footage, there are Sony “digital 8″ camcorders with Firewire that will transfer Hi-8 footage (no timecode, though) directly into your computer.

This method has a lot of advantages- your footage is more convenient if you wish to use it in other projects or re-edit your project, it will last longer on digital tape, and you can log & batch capture normally with your editing software.

If you don’t like the idea of doing two passes, and you don’t need the footage timecoded, most camcorders have a pass-thru function so they act as a live convertor box. You will probably have to put your camcorder into “VCR” mode, and maybe “record pause” mode. If your camcorder doesn’t have this option in the menus, you may still be able to capture the video onto your hard drive AS it’s dubbing to DV or HDV (this is a hidden secret feature of many digital camcorders- pass thru to FireWire from the analog inputs WHILE recording).

There are various conversion boxes available, but why would you need one* if you own a camcorder? And if you don’t own a camcorder, buying a Canon ZR is not much more money then a box (and comes with a free camcorder to boot!)

*The exception is a box that doesn’t merely convert, but processes the video to correct problems, like this:

http://www.dvcreators.net/video-processordv-converter/