Final Cut Pro 3.0 unwanted blur

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I recently started playing with FCP 3. I imported a piece of animation and trimmed the head and the tail. When I exported the piece and compared it to the original quicktime file, It looked like a blur filter had been applied. It seems like I heard somewhere that FCP had this symptom but the level of damage it does to my pristine animation is UNBELIEVABLE! Is this just the state of things in FCP 3? Will FCP 4 be any better?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    buckeyebuckeye Posts: 358member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Sybok

    I recently started playing with FCP 3. I imported a piece of animation and trimmed the head and the tail. When I exported the piece and compared it to the original quicktime file, It looked like a blur filter had been applied. It seems like I heard somewhere that FCP had this symptom but the level of damage it does to my pristine animation is UNBELIEVABLE! Is this just the state of things in FCP 3? Will FCP 4 be any better?



    I have been through this. I had the same issue on a primetime animated series when we made the mistake of using FCP (quickly remedied with an Avid). Any rendering (filters, speed changes, etc) caused a total blur.



    Are you using a video card? Kona perhaps? Tell me more and I can probably help.



    I am using FCP 4 right now and there are still some bugs, but there are work arounds.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    If you rendered to DV (which is FCP's default codec) and you view the video without "high quality" enabled it will look blurry just as you described. There's an option in the Final Cut Pro preferences to show DV video in high quality even on slower machines (on faster machines it defaults to showing DV in high quality). There's a similar preference in the Quicktime player movie properties.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    syboksybok Posts: 7member
    I'm running it on my 12 inch PowerBook G4. The animation is a quicktime file I previously loaded on an Avid Media Composer which looked great. I just thought that FCP3 would do Quicktime as well as the Avid. I'm going to burn the FCP3 version to a DVD and compare it to the Avid/MPEG-2/DVD.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    buckeyebuckeye Posts: 358member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Sybok

    I'm running it on my 12 inch PowerBook G4. The animation is a quicktime file I previously loaded on an Avid Media Composer which looked great. I just thought that FCP3 would do Quicktime as well as the Avid. I'm going to burn the FCP3 version to a DVD and compare it to the Avid/MPEG-2/DVD.



    It has nothing to do with Avid/vrs. FCP. It has to do with what codec you used. Did you use Mpeg 2?



    You probably just don't ahve the right sequence and / or render settings in FCP. The nice thing about Avid is that it turns anything into OMFI; it's own media type, but FCP relies on you to tell it what your footage is. I am sure it will work just as well if you get the settings right.



    That being said, why use FCP if you have access to an Avid?
  • Reply 5 of 6
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by buckeye



    That being said, why use FCP if you have access to an Avid?



    Or, why use avid when you have access to FCP?
  • Reply 6 of 6
    syboksybok Posts: 7member
    Thank you all for your comments. I no longer have access to the Avid so, I'm starting to work with FCP. The project I'm shooting right now is on DVCAM and will be delivered on DVD and shown on a 4 x 3 plasma screen at a trade show. Any settings suggestions?
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