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Post by obsessive24 on Nov 10, 2011 17:34:51 GMT -5
General tech thread for Mac vidders.
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mlyn
New to the Pub
Posts: 14
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Post by mlyn on Nov 16, 2011 1:21:35 GMT -5
I'm using Final Cut Pro for editing, Mac the Ripper for ripping source, and I have MPEG Streamclip for clipping. The thing is, I don't much like making clips. I've made a couple vids where I was able to put a chunk of source in the bin and clip in FCP, but my next vid will require buckets of source that won't neatly go into the bin (VOB files that come split up). The last time I tried using VOB files in FCP it would accept them into the bin, but the source appeared disordered and scenes went missing as I scrubbed through it. Anybody have a suggestion for getting source into compact files without losing quality by making copies or clipping?
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kuwdora
New to the Pub
squeedora
Posts: 17
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Post by kuwdora on Nov 17, 2011 0:33:14 GMT -5
VOBs are tricky buggers... You could try to demux with MPEGstreamclip but I recommend only doing that if you are working with DVD source (as you are with your indicated VOB files). Demuxing means to split up the information in the video file into two separate streams--the video and the audio. This is advice I got from Laura Shapiro and when I ended up demuxing my clips of non-DVD source, it made FCP so fucking unstable that I couldn't click anywhere on my timeline without my program crashing... so a cautionary tale for that.
Demuxing can also be a little bitchy depending on how the DVD was encoded. I haven't successfully demuxed all my source in the past and I'm not ultimately familiar with why there are problems that happen with demuxing, but they do happen.
When you have MPEGstreamclip open, go to File and Demux and there should be some extra options on what to demux. Go for the video option and it should export it into an m2v file. If you were to open your clip in quicktime or VLC you will see that this is exactly the same video quality as the VOB, but it should be a manageable file size and without the audio.
Let me know if this helps!
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mlyn
New to the Pub
Posts: 14
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Post by mlyn on Nov 17, 2011 0:46:20 GMT -5
OMG kuwdora, that works beautifully! Thank you so much! (And thanks to Laura as well...wish I'd seen her tutorial earlier!)
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Post by killabeez on Nov 17, 2011 1:32:04 GMT -5
OMG kuwdora, that works beautifully! Thank you so much! (And thanks to Laura as well...wish I'd seen her tutorial earlier!) I've also had this sometimes work and sometimes crash and burn, depending on the source. But it's cool when it works!
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mlyn
New to the Pub
Posts: 14
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Post by mlyn on Nov 17, 2011 1:38:07 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm not deleting the VOBs until I start editing and see how it works...but they're loading into the bin just fine.
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kuwdora
New to the Pub
squeedora
Posts: 17
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Post by kuwdora on Nov 17, 2011 2:05:16 GMT -5
Yeah, I haven't demuxed in a rather long time, not since I first picked up that method from Laura about two years ago. I'm just used to having to accommodate for my gigs (AND GIGS) of files since I always just save my clips to the super large .dv format and go with that flow.
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Post by suchheights on Nov 17, 2011 11:01:28 GMT -5
Ooooh - so, wait, you demux and make lossless m2vs and can then work with them directly in Final Cut? What magic is this?!
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mlyn
New to the Pub
Posts: 14
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Post by mlyn on Nov 17, 2011 11:13:39 GMT -5
suchheights, that seems to be the case. I scrubbed through one file and FC didn't hate it. I haven't tried actually cutting with it, though.
One detriment seems to be the size; I quit FCP last night, then decided to load one more m2v file in after it had finished demuxing. It probably took 15 minutes for the project file to open as it apparently had to reload all those files in the bin; and this is only half of the episodes I want to use. I'm praying the program works fine once I have the project open—it loaded the last m2v file just fine, anyway.
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Post by suchheights on Dec 9, 2011 11:27:38 GMT -5
Question for other Final Cut users - what export settings do you use? I export using the divx setting but it's not as shiny as I would like, but I've yet to have great success with any other technique.
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Post by killabeez on Dec 9, 2011 12:48:09 GMT -5
I use h.264, though I actually use QuickTime Pro to do it. (I have the old version of QTPro, v.9). Not as many people have it as divx, though. I wish they did, because I think it's a lot better (JMO). I'm not sure of the actual percentage —I think most people have it, but occasionally I get a note from someone that they didn't have the codec.
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Post by suchheights on Dec 9, 2011 17:21:15 GMT -5
So do you export the full file from Final Cut and then open it in QuickTime and export from there?
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Post by killabeez on Dec 9, 2011 18:18:35 GMT -5
So do you export the full file from Final Cut and then open it in QuickTime and export from there? Yes, exactly, because I like to archive the full res mov, but you can export h.264 directly from FCP using Export Using Quicktime Conversion.
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Post by suchheights on Dec 9, 2011 20:26:17 GMT -5
Oooh okay, thank you! I will give that a go.
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Post by icepixie on Dec 11, 2011 15:00:47 GMT -5
iMovie users, how do you export your vids? I've been using the "export using Quicktime" function and selecting the H.264 compression method on high or best quality, but I find that it'll often macroblock if there are large swathes of solid color such as a blue sky or even someone's solid-color clothing. Is there a better way to export vids from iMovie while keeping a reasonable file size?
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