Decompressing video

I compressed my project's timeline in QuickTime, have the file on my desktop, and now want to decompress it to correct an error - yep - the original timeline and project file (including the Autosave vault) are no longer in existence. How do I do it?

You didn't backup any of your materials? Project file, Autosave Vault? You didn't export a full-quality movie file of the edit before wrapping it?

The previously exported file will most likely have heavy compression on it, so your final movie file will have double compression.

The best you can do is try to edit using a timeline that has the exact same settings as the exported movie file so you won't have to compress it further. Not an ideal situation at all.


www.derekmok.com

wow! what the heck were you thinking?!?!?!??!?!?

you cant "decompress" a video. it is what it is now (aside from maybe cutting or adding in qt pro perhaps). you're likely very much out of luck.

You have not "compressed" anthing, if this is a .mov file directly exported from a FCP timeline.

Quicktime is a "wrapper", not a compression scheme. If this is the case, you have the "timeline" in it's editied form. Just open the .mov file in FCP and continue on.

its now flattened. it wont be editable, at least as far as changing titles or modifying dissolves and such...

you wont be able to moidify existing edits, just make new ones.

John had the answer! It was just a .mov file, so I opened it, put it on the timeline and made the one change necessary in about a minute or so. Thanks!

And yes, guys, I do back up stuff like mad, but the DVD I had made of this became corrupted, and the autosave version which I left in the vault wasn't the last one, which would have meant more editing, as opposed to the very brief change which was done in under a minute.