Chapter 3. Ingesting Media

Whether you record your images to tape or to flash memory, or draw them with crayons on paper and scan them into a digital image sequence, at some point you need to get your files into Final Cut Pro. That’s what this chapter is all about.

You can bring images into Final Cut Pro in one of three ways: capture your images from videotape, transfer them from tapeless media, or import images that the computer can already read, such as Photoshop documents.

This chapter starts by looking at still images—typically a complete snake pit of confusion and conflicting advice. Using the information provided here will make your life a whole lot easier.

Using Cover Flow to Find Shots

Here’s a handy way to find stuff fast.

Have you explored how useful Cover Flow is in OS X 10.5 (Leopard) for finding a missing shot?

Adam Lloyd Connell wrote me about this recently: “I am currently working on a long project with around 500 takes, and the cinematographer had only supplied one take of a particular cutaway to an object on a table. Trying to find that specific clip without the continuity notes easily at hand was a pain, and using FCP’s thumbnail view was slow.

“However, opening folders with footage from the XDCAM and selecting Cover Flow mode made it so easy to flash past all the hundreds of (quite large) thumbnails, and we found the shot in minutes. I’ve gotten into the habit of finding my missing shots in Finder this way. Try it next time you’re trying to find that elusive shot.”

Just open your media folder, select all the images you want to review, and press the spacebar. Ta-da!

Picking the Best Format for Still Images

Not all image formats are created equal.

The general rule for working with still images is to keep them at the highest quality possible at all times. However, not all image formats are designed for high-quality work. Some are designed for very small file sizes, or reduced colors, or even no colors at all.

For instance, JPEGs and GIFs are designed to generate small file sizes optimized for the Web. But the compression they use decreases the quality of the image.

LAB and CMYK images are designed for print work. Final Cut Pro won’t even import them.

Others, like EPS, are optimized for maximum resolution, providing extremely high quality with a small file size by employing vector-based mathematics. However, since all video images are bitmapped, this format needs to be converted to bitmaps before it can be used, which reduces the value of using vectors.

Image formats that work best for video are bitmapped, uncompressed, and high quality. The two formats I recommend for single-layer images that don’t contain transparency are PNG and TIFF.

If you’re creating an image that contains transparency, save it as a PSD.

Importing TIFF Images in Final Cut Pro

Not all TIFFs are created equal.

When creating images for importing into Final Cut Pro, you can use the TIFF or PNG format. Both are excellent choices.

When saving your TIFF files, be sure to use LZW compression. Files saved using ZIP compression often refuse to import properly into Final Cut Pro.

Also, be sure to save TIFF images using Macintosh byte order. Final Cut Pro has trouble importing TIFFs saved using IBM byte order.

Stills Don’t Have to Be 10 Seconds Long

You can change the duration of imported images. Here’s how.

By default, Final Cut Pro imports all still images and creates freeze frames, applying a 10-second duration.

You can change this by selecting Final Cut Pro > User Preferences, selecting the Editing tab, and adjusting the Still/Freeze Duration setting.

Sometimes, Mid-Tone Gray Isn’t

Mid-tone gray is determined by the gamma setting. Here’s how to set it.

Macs, PCs, and video set the value for mid-tone gray at different points. This setting is called Gamma (think “G” for gray and gamma).

The Mac sets Gamma at 1.8, while PCs and video set it at 2.2. This means that an image that looks perfect on the Mac looks light and washed out in video. Conversely, an image that looks great in video looks dark and muddy on a Mac using standard Mac Gamma.

Final Cut Pro adjusts for this by changing the default Gamma setting to 2.2 while the program is running. Most of the time, that’s fine. However, if you import a file that just doesn’t look right, you can correct it—either before importing the image or afterward in the Browser.

To set the Gamma setting automatically on import, select Final Cut Pro > User Preferences, click the Editing tab, and adjust the gamma in the Gamma pop-up menu.

To change the Gamma setting in the Browser, select the clip, and then scroll right until you see the Gamma column heading. Setting Gamma to 1.8 will lighten an image; setting it to 2.2 darkens it.

Playing Still Images in Real Time

You can control how many images play in real time.

One of the exciting challenges in documentary editing is trying to bring a sequence to life when all you have to work with are still images.

Normally, adding a few stills to your sequence causes no problems. But, as you start to add more and more images, real-time playback can suffer.

Final Cut Pro offers a preference setting that allows you to allocate more RAM to your still images. It’s called the Still Image Cache and here’s how to set it.

Choose Final Cut Pro > System Settings and click the Memory & Cache tab. By default, Memory & Cache is set to 10%. If you’re working with lots of images, bump this up to 15%, or maybe as high as 20%. I would not recommend going higher than that.

The size of the still cache is limited by the total amount of unused physical RAM installed in your computer within the standard 4 GB memory allocation used by Final Cut Pro. The larger the still cache, the more still images can be played back in real time in the currently selected sequence.

Sizing Still Images for Import into Final Cut Pro

Create images that look good both on the computer and in video.

Nothing drives editors crazier than trying to figure out how to make still images look good. The problem is that video uses rectangles for all its pixel shapes, while computers use square pixels; this is called the Pixel Aspect Ratio.

Hundreds of pages have been written about this, but let’s keep this simple. If you are creating a full-screen, still image in Photoshop to import into Final Cut Pro, use the following table.

This table assumes you want the image to display full screen, without transparency, and without movement on the image. To use it, find your video format, pick your aspect ratio, and then create your image to match these specs.

GUIDE TO SIZING IMAGES CORRECTLY

Sizing Images for Moves

If you want movement on your images, use this table.

The previous Power Skill provided sizes for still images that won’t contain movement.

But what if you want to pan, tilt, or zoom an image? Well, the one thing you don’t want to do is enlarge any image more than 100 percent. That just makes it soft, grainy, and unpleasant to look at.

Instead, create the image larger than you need so that it gets reduced in size inside Final Cut Pro. That way, your images will have great-looking quality, even when you zoom into them.

The sizes in this table are designed only for single-layer images (TIFF or PNG; PSD images are covered in the next Power Skill). Remember to always create your images at 72 dpi.

These image dimensions will allow you to pan as much as you want and zoom in up to 2.5 times without any loss of image quality.

GUIDE TO SIZING IMAGES THAT WILL CONTAIN MOVEMENT

PSD Images Are a Special Case

PSD images are treated as sequences, not as images.

Sizing single-layer images is easy compared to sizing PSD files. This is because Final Cut Pro imports PSD images containing transparency as though they were sequences. This just confuses everybody because PSD files still use square pixels while video uses rectangles—so after you import the image, it doesn’t look the way you expect.

Here’s the solution. From the following table, create your image sized from the Master Image Size column based on the video format and aspect ratio you’re using. When all the design work is complete, save your file as a PSD. This becomes your “Master” file.

Using this Master file, in Photoshop, choose Image > Image Size. Turn off Constrain Proportions and then resize the image to the specs in the Squished Image Size column. Save this resized file. This is the “Squished” file that you’ll import into Final Cut. Next, and this is a critical step, in Final Cut Pro make sure your Easy Setup settings match the sequence you plan to edit this image into. If they don’t, your PSD files won’t import properly.

Finally, import your images. If you follow these steps, everything will look great.

SELECTING IMAGE SIZE

Working with Long Image Sequences

Too many images gum up the system.

An image sequence is a number, generally a very large number, of still images that you want to build into a movie. They’re most often created in stop-motion animation or exported from 3D packages during rendering.

It’s a bad idea to load large numbers of individual images into Final Cut Pro. The frames are loaded into RAM, which fills up quickly. Even if you adjust the Still Image Cache setting, it’s easy to bring your system to its knees if you’re using thousands of images.

Instead, open a long image sequence in QuickTime Pro by selecting File > Open Image Sequence. Pointing to the folder containing your images, open them as a single file.

Then select File > Export to export this sequence as a QuickTime movie. For highest quality, set the codec to either ProRes 4444, or QuickTime Animation if you are on an earlier version of the software; or you can match the codec you plan to use for your Final Cut Pro sequence to save rendering time.

A Faster Import

Here’s a fast way to import a gaggle of clips into a folder in the Browser.

Yes, you can drag clips from the Desktop into the Browser. But dragging a slew of clips and trying to accurately hit an itty-bitty Bin folder depends too much on my fatigue factor. Instead, my preferred method is to Control-click the Bin in the Browser that I want the imported clips to land in and choose Import Files.

In the Choose a File window, you can preview clips and Command-click to select the ones you want. Click Choose and all your chosen files show up in the Bin you wanted them to land in. No chance of missing the Bin—slick!

Working with PowerPoint Slides

You can easily integrate PowerPoint or Keynote slides into Final Cut Pro.

Need to integrate Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote slides into a video presentation?

The trick is to create and design your PowerPoint or Keynote slides to match, as closely as possible, the image size of video. For example, with SD, create them at 800×600. For HD, try 1280×720. You’ll still experience a loss in quality, because video is lower in resolution than the images you create on your computer, but doing this will minimize the quality loss.

Remind your artists to decrease the amount of text on the slide and make the font size bigger. Also, export the slides as either TIFF or PNG images to get the best quality possible to import into Final Cut Pro.

Importing Text for Text Clips

You don’t have to type text into text clips—you can import it.

Normally, you create a text clip and type your text into it. But what if that text exists in another file. Can’t you just import it?

Well, yes and no.

Let’s say you have your text stored in a Microsoft Word document. If you simply copy and try to paste it into a Final Cut Pro text clip, it won’t work. That’s because text stored in any rich text program like Word has hidden formatting codes embedded into it.

The key is to get rid of those codes before pasting it into Final Cut Pro. Here’s how.

After you create your text clip in Final Cut Pro, copy the text from Word and paste it into TextEdit (a simple word processing program that ships with your Mac). TextEdit strips out all the hidden codes and displays just the text.

Next, in TextEdit reselect your text and choose Edit > Copy (press Command+C). This step is critical; otherwise, the old Word-formatted text is still in the clipboard.

Switch over to Final Cut and paste your text into the Text field for your clip.

Reconnecting Media

It isn’t hard, provided you follow a few simple precautions.

Final Cut Pro is designed so that you can store your project file anywhere. However, Final Cut expects that once you capture, transfer, ingest, or import media, that source file is going to stay put. Even more important, Final Cut expects that you will not rename any files or folders containing files.

If files get moved or renamed, that worrisome red line appears in the missing clip in the Browser and the Timeline displays the red Media Offline warning.

You can reconnect three types of media: offline, online, and render files. First, never reconnect render files. Their naming convention is obtuse beyond words. Just give them up for lost and re-render. Life is too short.

Second, the only reason to reconnect an online file is if, in a fit of editorial passion, you connected the Browser clip to the wrong media file on your hard disk. While not unheard of, this is pretty rare.

Third, and most common, is when a media file gets moved or renamed on your hard disk.

Whatever the cause, select all the Browser or Timeline clips you want to reconnect and choose File > Reconnect Media. Here you have essentially two choices: Locate and Search.

Use Locate if you have changed the name of the file and you need to find it.

Use Search if you have moved the file, but not changed the name, and you want Final Cut to find it. Search is much faster.

Setting the Reel ID

The Reel ID tracks where your media came from. Here’s how to change it.

Whether you’re using tape or tapeless media, Final Cut Pro uses the Reel ID to keep track of the source of your media.

To digress for a minute, there are four key pieces of data that Final Cut uses to link clips in the Timeline and the Browser with the source media on your hard disk: the filename, source timecode, Aux 1 timecode, and Reel ID. Change any one of these and they are changed everywhere—in your project, in your sequences, and on your hard disk.

Originally, the Reel ID linked the box of videotape your media was recorded on with the clip in Final Cut’s Browser, which made recapturing clips from videotape possible. Now, with tapeless media, the Reel ID also links to the name of the folder containing your source media. This means that if you ever need to recapture tapeless media, Final Cut will know what folder(s) to look in to find the source material.

You can change the Reel ID in several places. Probably the easiest is the Browser. Select the clip, or clips, you want to adjust, and then scroll right until you find the Reel column.

If the Reel ID already exists, Control-click the column and pick the Reel ID from the pop-up list. Otherwise, just double-click the column entry and type the ID you want to use.

Final Cut displays a warning just to make sure your changes are correct. When you click OK, the Reel ID will be changed in the Browser, in every related clip in the Timeline, and in the media file recorded on your hard disk.

Only Capture the Audio Tracks You Need

Select which audio tracks you capture or ingest.

In both the Log & Capture window and the Log & Transfer window, you can specify which audio tracks you want to bring into Final Cut.

In both cases, reducing the number of audio tracks you capture reduces the storage space needed for the file.

In Log & Capture, click the Clip Settings tab in the top-right corner.

In Log & Transfer, click the Import Settings tab below the Preview window.

Toggling the green visibility light determines whether the audio is captured. In either screen, an illuminated green visibility light indicates an active track that will capture audio. Dark green means an inactive track that won’t capture audio.

Monitoring Audio During Capture

You are not going deaf—the audio is off by default.

Audio monitoring during capture first appeared with Final Cut Pro 5.

Open the Log & Capture window and click the Clip Settings tab. Make sure Preview is checked. This turns on audio play-through during capture.

The Fastest Way to Control a Tape Deck

The world may be going tapeless, but tape decks still exist.

Here’s a great little Power Skill that makes controlling a tape deck a piece of cake. When in the Log & Capture mode/window:

• Press L to play the deck going forward.

• Press J to play the deck in reverse.

• Press K to stop playback.

With that as background, let’s see what else we can do:

• Press L up to six times to go forward up to six times faster than real time.

• Press J up to six times to go in reverse up to six times faster than real time.

• Press K+L at the same time to go in slow-motion forward.

• Press K+J at the same time to go in slow-motion reverse.

Converting Media

Final Cut Pro does not like compressed media. Here’s how to convert it.

Final Cut Pro was designed to work with original source media. It really doesn’t like media that’s been compressed. For instance, putting MP3 or AAC audio in Final Cut Pro’s Timeline often results in audio with clicks, pops, and drop-outs.

Trying to play MPEG-2, or M2T, or other compressed video files will frequently bring Final Cut to its knees. A much better approach is to convert your media into something Final Cut Pro can work with before bringing it into the program.

iTunes is a great conversion utility for audio. So is Soundtrack Pro, or QuickTime Pro. In Soundtrack, open the file you want to convert as an Audio File project. Choose File > Save As Copy and select AIFF from the Format menu at the bottom.

For converting video, Squared 5 Software’s MPEG Streamclip is the acknowledged master. You can find the current version of this free utility at www.squared5.com.

Log & Transfer Beefs Up

Working with tapeless media is improved in the latest version of Final Cut Pro.

Log & Capture is how we bring in media from tape. Log & Transfer is how we bring in media that is tapeless. And the latest version of Final Cut Pro has made this process much more robust.

Most times, for safety, we store the original source media on hard disks that are not attached to our computer. That way, we can’t erase files by mistake. Final Cut Pro 7 makes it easy to find and mount missing volumes when you need to recapture clips.

In addition, the Logging section has been improved to make it simpler to log clips with an improved naming section.

Batch Capturing Media After Disaster

I know you didn’t mean to erase your hard disk, but, well, accidents happen.

OK. The worst has happened. Some or all of your media just disappeared. Gone. Permanently. Missing.

Clearly, the first thing you need to do is stand up, swear, and blame the computer. Because this certainly wasn’t your fault! However, this is only a temporary solution, because it won’t bring your media back.

Recapturing can... provided, that is, you’ve been obsessive and made sure every clip has a Reel ID—whether tape or tapeless. With the ID, everything is possible. Without it, it’s gonna be a loooong night. (If clips are missing a Reel ID, you can still add them, even if they are offline. I covered this earlier in this chapter.)

All the missing clips have a red line through them in the Browser, so select all the clips you want to recapture. These can be from different tapes or folders; Final Cut is really good at tracking all this stuff. It processes tape-based media first, then tapeless.

Choose File > Batch Capture. If you need to recapture tape media, the Batch Capture window appears. This is the same window we use during regular capture. The cool part is the next window. This is a list of all the different tapes Final Cut Pro needs to recapture your media. As long as your Reel IDs are accurate, all you need to do is load each tape when Final Cut Pro asks for it, and poof! All your media gets recaptured. (I love watching the computer capture all my clips automatically.)

If you’re working with tapeless media, be sure to mount the hard disk containing the source files before starting this process. Final Cut automatically opens the folder in which you stored the original media. (The folder name is used as the Reel ID during transfer.) It asks permission to start, and then pulls all your media back in.

Working with AVC Media

A new family of video codecs provides more options.

AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) is a video format jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic. There are, currently, three varieties: AVCHD, AVCCAM, and AVC-Intra. The first two use GOP (Group of Pictures) encoding, while the latter uses I-frame encoding. GOP files are smaller, while I-frame files edit without requiring conforming.

Final Cut Pro does not support native editing of AVCHD or AVCCAM. Instead, when you ingest them using the Log & Transfer window, it transcodes (converts) it to ProRes 422. The benefit to this conversion is that ProRes edits, renders, and outputs faster than any GOP-based video codec. Plus, ProRes provides equal or greater quality for clips, transitions, and effects.

The latest release of Final Cut Pro now supports AVC-Intra video natively. Currently, AVC-Intra is only recorded on Panasonic cameras. Now you have two choices: You can play, edit, and apply effects to AVC-Intra footage natively, or you can transcode during ingest into ProRes 422.

The question of what to do depends on where you want to spend your time. The advantage to working with AVC-Intra natively is that you can ingest quickly and start editing faster. However, you can’t export back into the AVC-Intra format, which means you need to transcode into ProRes, or some other codec, during final export.

Transcoding into ProRes takes longer at the beginning of a project, and it also increases your storage requirements because you need to duplicate all the media. However, output is very fast because you don’t need to convert the media during export.

Before ingesting AVC-Intra media natively, you need to select the P2 AVC-Intra plug-in. To do this, open Log & Transfer, click the small gear to open the preferences window, and select P2 AVC-Intra in the Source Format column.