A few newbi questions

1. I can't figure out what's going on in my composer window (is that what they call it in FCP?) Some clips are stretched out and some are squashed as if I captured them with the wrong setting. Most of them are fine though. Is there some kind of view option I need to change?

2. Just need to know how to make a simple text mask. i.e. So I can have clips behind or in the text.



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

Sounds like it could be you captured 16:9 footage in normal mode, or vice versa. Check the clips vs. the sequence settings. Select a clip and press APPLE-9 to check clip settings; select the sequence and press APPLE-0 for sequence settings. You can also tell if there are resolution or pixel aspect-ratio discrepancies.

As for the text effects, check out one of those great Ken Stone articles:

[www.kenstone.net]

Thanks alot man.

Ah, of course! I forgot about Ken Stone for a moment.

Thanks again.



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

Alright, I checked my sequence settings and everything seemed normal (Capture settings and so forth). I also checked various clip settings and they were all normal (I'm just dealing with normal mini-dv footage).

It seems that just the viewer window is displaying the clips as 16:9. When I throw it on the timeline it's fine. There are a few clips, however, that look fine in the viewer; but after placing them on the timeline, they look squished horizontally in the canvas window.

Can I adjust the settings for just the viewer and canvas windows?



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

Check your clips in the Browser. Do they have a checkmark on the "Anamorphic" column? If they are normal clips but have the Anamorphic column checked, select all the clips and CONTROL-click on the column to turn Anamorphic off.

I'll take a look.



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

Hmmm...A few of the clips did have that checked, but it didn't help when I unchecked it. I placed one of the squashed clips on a video track above the rest of the video, and you can actually see the clips on the bottom tracks on the sides of the frame. It's like it has a crop filter on it, but there are no filters on the clip. The frame of the squashed clip has a black border around it. So, I don't know if it's really a display problem.



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

Here, you can see what I'm talking about:

[img445.imageshack.us]

[img445.imageshack.us]



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

The clip is anamorphic and needs to have the anamorphic flagged set for it. Go to Item Properties and turn it on.



All the best,

Tom

I didn't shoot the clip in anamorphic though. It's just min-dv footage. I looked at the capture settings and it's set for normal 720 x 480. I'll try your suggestion though.



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

This doesn't look like an anamorphic issue. Anamorphic footage without the proper 16:9 crunch applied to make letterbox will fill the entire 3:2 frame.

Perhaps your clip was shot in 640x480? Also, check the Motion tab and make sure no distortion, crop etc. settings have been applied. Do a screen capture of your clip and sequence settings (SHIFT-APPLE-3 or SHIFT-APPLE-4) and post that.

You're right. The frame is 4:3. But that's what 16:9 material put in a 16:9 frame without the flag set would display as. There's too much discrepancy for 640 I think. All the settings look screwed up, capture and sequence.



All the best,

Tom

I'll check it out. Post back in about an hour.



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

No motion or anything like that on these clips. Here's some more screen shots:

[img253.imageshack.us]

[img253.imageshack.us]

[img253.imageshack.us]



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

bump



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."

Alright, I went back to an earlier project:

[img4.imageshack.us]

This one seems fine. It must be some project setting for the canvas window. The canvas window in this earlier project is a normal 4:3. The one I'm working on now has a 16:9 window for some reason. I'll keep searching, but please post if you have any ideas.



"A man that does not reply to his own thread after receiving help truly sucketh."