[MacDV] Final Cut Pro question

[Mark M. Florida]

If by "High Definition" you mean real HD resolution like 1080i or 720p or
something like that, then you can't really output that without an HD capable
video capture card/box, but if you've got access to an HD rig somewhere,
then go for it.  The DV format supported "natively" by the Mac's FireWire
port is full-resolution video, but definitely *NOT* HD.  Final Cut Pro can
support HD, though, but only with the proper hardware (HD capture card).
Final Cut Pro and iMovie work at the same resolution (720x480), so if you
just need to lay an animation off to video, then iMovie will work just the
same as Final Cut Pro -- FCP has much more advanced editing feature, but
basic playback of rendered files like this is the same.

So...  If you want to render an animation to output to video via
DV/FireWire, just set your project up for 720x534 pixels, and when you go to
render it (or after it's rendered, resize it by re-exporting via QuickTime
Player Pro and changing the dimensions), squeeze the vertical dimension down
to 480 (720x480 - it will look fat when viewed on your computer monitor, but
play correctly through the video out).  If you also use the "DV Stream"
codec in QuickTime, you can just play it out through iMovie as well.

So to answer your questions:

- Yes, you can do an HD video editing/output with Final Cut Pro, but *ONLY*
with HD-capable hardware

- Yes, you can take a series of frames output from an animation program and
convert them into a video file for playback...

But... Some things to think about:

1.  If you don't have HD hardware, then 720x480 is the max res. that FCP
(and iMovie for that matter) can output through the standard FireWire port.

2.  If you want a hi-res movie, why not just do it as a QuickTime movie with
a larger frame size using a good low-loss codec like "Animation"?  (makes
BIG files, though)

3.  If you are having problems with jumping lines on your video output, it's
not because it needs to be "HD", that's just how lines that are smaller than
2 pixels tall behave sometimes.  You'll need a program like AfterEffects or
Final Cut Pro to fix this by using the "Reduce Interlace Flicker" plug-in
set to 1 pixel.

Anyway, maybe that's too much information... But there it is.

- Mark

> I don't own Final Cut Pro yet because I can't yet afford it but I was
> wondering if someone who does have it could answer this question: I've
> thought about the idea of making an animated film that would be High
> Definition  and I thought it could be done by doing each frame as a
> separate image file in correct pixel dimensions. One way I thought the
> frames could be handled for output (they would be sequentially named -
> example: "image0001.jpg") would be that you would use Quicktime Pro to
> combine them into a single Quicktime movie file and then output this
> into a DV stream to get it into Final Cut Pro. (I've done something
> similar with iMovie.) Would I have to go through all this or does Final
> Cut Pro have the ability to import sequential individual images like
> this directly?
> 
> -Dave
> 
> 
> 
> 
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