Outputtining the highest quality film from FCP 4.5 onto desktop, how do I do it?

The particulars:

I am using fCP 4.5, I have a mac G5, dual 2.5 ghz, saving everything to my external hard drive which has 205.00 gb

Now I want to export a quicktime movie of my film so I can start submitting to festivals. Quicktime movie does not look so good, neither does MP4. When I had just Final Cut Pro 4 I could export movies as "final Cut Pro Movie Files" I don't know how to do that with FCP 4.5. I mean I would like the film too look as good as when I shot it on 24p, quicktime movie and mpeg 4 makes it look very, very low res and horrible.

I'm sure someone has had this problem at some point. I have an editor friend that I drove crazy with question and she kept on suggesting I go to "current settings", which I do not have.

I also have FCP rescue I don't know if that means anything or not. But the basic question how do I output/export my movie so that it looks as good as when I shot it on 24p, so it's not low-res and horrible looking. Does anyone knwo what setting or what I should do?

I have tried a lot of different things and am now open to any suggestions.

Please help

Shane's Stock Answer #3:

To export your DV project so there is no loss in quality, simply go to the File Menu and select EXPORT>QUICKTIME MOVIE. Not Quicktime Conversion, fot this will compress the footage. Make sure the settings match your timeline settings, make it self contained and you are set.

For this, and other exciting stock answers, click on this link:
[discussions.info.apple.com]

But don't Film festivals want master tapes...not QT files?

Thanks, shane, I'm gonna try this tonight before I go to sleep as a test run. This is just for submission purposes, I'll cross the master tapes question when I come to that bridge. But I'll read that thread after thursday.

once again, thanks

Tamir

I don't know of any film fests that take QT files.

I'm just burning the film on a DVD to use for submission purposes. A screener, with the application. If it gets accepted I wouldnt screen a QT file naturally. But if there's a better way to output than a QT file, please feel free to let me know.


I'm probably the greenest person on this board

Do you have DVD Studio Pro or iDVD? If so, export as a QT reference movie and drop that file onto one of those apps and let them do the encoding.

<<<I'm just burning the film on a DVD to use for submission purposes.>>>

So you just talked yourself out of "Highest Possible Quality." The conversion from Self Contained Movie to DVD involvces a great deal of compression and can introduce significant distortions.

But Horton is right. I don't know anybody that will accept QuickTimes.

Koz

I jut got off the phone with SUndance, they said if it can be played ina regular dvd player then it's submittable, I'm gonna drop the QT file into my IDVD and brun a dvd that way. It's how I've submitted before.

But if Greg or anyone else would let me know how to make it "higher quality" or there is a thread from before I would love to know about it.

Thansk for everything again, guys

Because of all that DVD conversion quality mess, I decided to send Sundance a VHS copy of my HDV feature film. I know there's some generation loss from miniDV to VHS but at least it's not compressed. Good thing that Sundance accepts rough cuts so if my film gets accepted, they will inform the filmmakers the first week in December...

Compression is as much of an art as much as making movies. Koz can help you but no way anyone can tell you to just pick this setting and off you go.

Wanna make killer DVDs and web movies? Start with this book.
"Compression for Great Digital Video: Power Tips, Techniques, and Common Sense " by Ben Waggoner

You can get it at Amazon

> Because of all that DVD conversion quality mess, I decided to send Sundance
> a VHS copy of my HDV feature film. I know there's some generation loss from
> miniDV to VHS but at least it's not compressed.

That's an interesting rationale. VHS tapes tend not to look very good, but then again, nor do DVDs burned by non-professionals. Which include me. Koz has mentioned quite aptly in here -- unless you author DVDs for a living, you can't really call yourself a DVD author. And most of us do it as editors for screening purposes, not for commercially worthy product.

also - vhs plays on ALL vhs machines. i would assume that sundance will not try to find a dvd player that works if there is an issue with your dvd. if they don't know you, i think they toss it and move on.

as someone who has played the festival circuit a bunch of times, as well as knowing a bit about the sundance screening process i would actually say a tape is your best and safest bet.

2cents
fp

<<<tape is your best and safest bet. >>>

Depressing, isn't it? Our VHS machines have never been so busy. We go through thousands of DVDs, but the VHS system refuses to die.

I think my favorite festival request was a System Stream MPEG2 submission.

I did it with a little known PC tool, but I'm wondering how many people actually pulled that one off. This was just before FCP5, so you couldn't do it at all in Mac Land. I suspect you still can't.

Koz