Missing Disclosure Triangle in Browser

(Newbie Alert)

I'm trying to use Markers for the first time. My experience with FC is 10 hours. I have searched the manuals and the forums already...

Problem:

I dragged a Master Clip into the Browser from my desktop. It's just a typical video I shot. Then I used the Canvas to place a bunch of Markers.

I thought those marked clips would now show up in the Browser. But there is no Disclosure Triangle next to the Master Clip. So obviously the marked clips did not register (otherwise there would be a Disclosure Triangle and I could click it to see the clips).

Does anyone know what I missed?

Thanks.

> I dragged a Master Clip into the Browser from my desktop. It's just a typical video I shot.
> Then I used the Canvas to place a bunch of Markers.

If you're using the Canvas (ie. Timeline) to place markers, you're placing the markers on a sequence, not the clip. Double-click to open the clip into the Viewer and make the markers there.


www.derekmok.com

That worked. Thanks. Now I have all the clips I want in the timeline. I just dragged them from the browser in the order I wanted.

The next problem is that when I play the sequence, the audio only is a recurring beep, not the actual audio from the clips. Any idea what I need to do to solve that?

Thanks.

Your clips probably have a different setting (usually it's the sample rate) from your sequences. Click on a clip and press APPLE-9 to check the clip. Click on the sequence and press APPLE-0 and cross-reference the two.


www.derekmok.com

I think the issue is that I cannot do realtime editing becuase my computer is too slow. The Video track is orange (can play in Unlimited RT mode), but the Audio track is red. I have to render the audio in order to hear it.

My solution might be to lower the audio capture rate on my camera, and maybe the video size (since I'm okay with small screen resolutions for this application). I'm going to test that next. Maybe I should also record in Mono, not Stereo. I hate lowering the audio quality because to me bad sound quality is a lot more annoying than bad video quality (at least in this application).

I would rather not have to buy a faster computer just to be able to edit in real-time.

I'm suprised that with my current sequence of clips, the Video track is able to play in real-time without rendering, but not the Audio track. If I go in Safe RT mode then the Video track won't play in real-time either.

Anyway, my tradeoff here is time. I need to be able to edit these videos quickly. There are no special effects or anything. Just one audio track and one video track.

Would love to hear any suggestions.

It's very unlikely that your computer is too slow to play the clips. It is most likely that, as derek said, you don't have your sequence set up to play the format you captured in.

Let's make a list shall we...
What is your source format? DV, HDV, etc...
What are your computer specs? G4, G5, RAM, drives etc
What is your capture setting?
What is your sequence setting?

Get back to us and we'll get you through to the place where you can start to read the manuals with enough know-how to get something out of it.
We'll help you here as long as you're willing to try our suggestions.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

My goal it to create 5 minute to 15 minute Flash videos for the Web. These will probably be YouTube size, but I want better quality than YouTube. I plan to use the Flix encoder to create my Flash. I will probably stream them from my Amazon S3 account.

I have a 2 GHz PowerPC G5 running Mac OSX v 10.4.8, 1 GB RAM, 175 GB (free) drive. I have an empty 300 GB Maxstor UBS 2.0 drive standing by.

I am using Final Cut Express HD 3.5.1. It seemed to be adequate to start. I picked FCE because I never have done non-linear editing before. I don't mind buying Pro if I need it.

My current Sequence Setting are:

Filters = [Check]
Frame Blending for Speed = [Check]
Motion Blur = [Check]
Frame Rate = 100%
Resolution = 100%

My current Capture Settings are (under User Preferences):

Real-Time Audio Mixing = [8 Tracks]
Audio Playback Quality = [Medium]
Report dropped frames during playback = [Unchecked]
Abort capture on dropped frames = [Check]


I plan to shoot video interviews using 4 simultaneous cameras at different angles. I want to put clips from each camera into the timeline at the appropriate place. It looked like marking the master clips would be the fastest way to do that. I would then (maybe) fiddle with the clips a little to get the transitions right (if FCE lets me do that - so far no luck).

I read before that it is best to shoot my video in the highest possible quality. Since small format Flash is my target application, I don't know if that advice is correct. My camera can shoot in HD, TV or Web modes as follow:

HD-SHQ (1,280 x 720 pixels, 30 fps, 9 Mbps)
HD-HQ (1,280 x 720 pixels, 30 fps, 6 Mbps)

TV-SDV (720 x 480 pixels, 30 fps, 3.5 Mbps)
TV-SQ (640 x 480 pixels, 30 fps, 3 Mbps)
TV-HQ (640 x 480 pixels, 30 fps, 2 Mbps)

Web-SHQ (320 c 240 pixels, 30 fps, 640 Kbps)
Web-HQ (320 c 240, 15 fps, 384 Kbps)


I plan to add about 3 seconds of music at the beginning and the end using a separate audio track. I also plan to use LiveType a couple of places in the video to show the names of the people talking.

Thanks for your directions...

What kind of camera are you using?
I am guessing it's not a miniDV camera or one that records to tape.
None of your camera settings indicate how the audio is being recorded.

To get the full sequence settings select your sequence in the bin and hit Apple-0 (zero).
To get the clip settings select a clip in the browser and hit Apple-9
The things that should match up are quicktime codec, frame rate, frame size, audio sample rate.

I am not familiar with the limitations of FCE vs FCP so those shortcuts may be different.

One likely solution would be to shoot at the TV-SDV setting as that is the closest to straight DV. I don't know what codec your camera uses but it would get you in the ballpark.

So now we need to know
What camera is it?
What media does it record to?
How are you getting footage into FCE?
What does Apple-9 get you on a clip in the browser?

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

> My current Sequence Setting are:
> Filters = [Check]
> Frame Blending for Speed = [Check]
> Motion Blur = [Check]
> Frame Rate = 100%
> Resolution = 100%
>
> My current Capture Settings are (under User Preferences):
> Real-Time Audio Mixing = [8 Tracks]
> Audio Playback Quality = [Medium]
> Report dropped frames during playback = [Unchecked]
> Abort capture on dropped frames = [Check]

You should read the manual because you don't seem to know where and what your settings are. What you've listed above are User Preferences, not Capture Settings or Sequence Settings. These don't contain any of the information we need, such as codec, quality settings, audio sample rate,etc. Reread the commands Andrew and I outlined above and do them.


www.derekmok.com

Okay.

Sequence setttings:

Tracks = 2V, 4A
Vid Rate = 29.97 fps 720 x 840
Compressor = DV / DVCPRO NTSC
Pixel Aspect = CCIR 601
Field Dominance = Lower (even)
Audio = 2 outputs
Aud Rate = 48 KHz
Aud Format = 32-bit Floating Point


Clip settings:

Type = Clip
Creator = QuickTime Player
Tracks = 1V, 2A
Vid Date = 29.97 fps
Frame Size = 640 x 480
Compressor = MPEG-4 Video
Data Rate = 252.5K sec
Pixel Aspect = Square
Audio = 1 Stereo
Aud Rate = 48 KHz
Aud Format = 32-bit Floating Point



I'm pulling the video into the Mac by removing the 2 MB SD card from the camera and plugging it into a USB port on the Mac. Then I just drag the MP4 file from the SD card into the FCE Browser.

Audio specifications on the camera is MPEG-4 audio with AAC compression. Sampling rate is 48KHz. 16-bit stereo format. That is the only audio setting.

Sorry - Meant to say "2 GB SD card from the camera".

pypo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm pulling the video into the Mac by removing the
> 2 MB SD card from the camera and plugging it into
> a USB port on the Mac. Then I just drag the MP4
> file from the SD card into the FCE Browser.
>
> Audio specifications on the camera is MPEG-4 audio
> with AAC compression. Sampling rate is 48KHz.
> 16-bit stereo format. That is the only audio
> setting.

It's the AAC format that's (probably) the main problem. Is AAC the only audio format the camera records? Do you have options for AIFF or WAV?

Also, if I understand correctly, you are not downloading your media to a drive (via the Finder), but rather dragging it directly into an open FCE project? I've never done this, but it seems like it could lead to problems -- at the very least media management problems. Like, do you even know where the source clips are located on your drive(s)?

It seems remote to me that my media management approach or the AAC format is related to the problem of audio not working in Real-Time mode.

[www.apple.com]

I think I just don't know what I'm doing, as derekmok and Andrew pointed out.

Maybe they can look at the settings I posted above and reply to those. I'll keep studying the manuals and testing things out.

One hill at a time...

Thanks.

First off, copy the files off the card and then drag them into your browser. If you are trying to edit the clips while they still reside on that card, it may be the source of your bottleneck.
If that still doesn't give you any joy this is what's next.

Does FCE come with any version of Compressor?
The clips your camera is creating are not really editing-ready clips. They play fine and they fit on a 2GB chip but, as you are finding out, aren't really editable out of the box.
So, your best bet would be to convert them to an editable format. For quality's sake you could shoot at the highest resolution that you can and convert to DV. FCE can play back DV no problem. You would run into aspect ratio issues though and judging by your recent familiarity with FCE, maybe that ain't the way to go.

Give this a shot. Do one clip and make sure it works.
Open up Quicktime. (FCE comes with QT Pro right? anyone?) Open one of your clips. Choose Export from the File menu.
Select Movie to QT Movie in the Export pull down and set the settings like so by hitting the option button to the right:
Video-
Settings Compression DV/DVCPRO NTSC
Frame Rate - 29.97
Compressor - Best
Scan Mode - Interlaced
Aspect Ratio 4:3
Filter - Ignore this
Size
Dimensions - NTSC 720 x 480 4:3 (seeing a pattern yet?)

Sound
Format - Linear PCM
Channels - Stereo
Rate - 48.000
Render Setting
Quality - Best
Linear PCM Setttings Sample Size 16
Uncheck the Prepare for Streaming box and save the file somewhere on your computer, NOT back on the camera card.

Drag the resulting clip into FCE and put it on the timeline. How does that work?

You would have to do that for every clip. Unless you had compressor, or another video utility like it that would convert all your clips to DV NTSC, 48 KHz audio in a batch.

For my own interest what other progs came in the box with your version of FCE?

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Andrew -
FCE comes with:

What's in the box
? DVDs containing Final Cut Express HD 3.5, LiveType 2, and Soundtrack 1.5
? Printed and electronic documentation and tutorials
[store.apple.com]

So no Compressor. And it seems that you need to shell out the extra $30 for QT Pro.

Pypo, Just for clarification, one of the things that Andrew's saying (in a much more thorough and detailed way than I did) is that AAC is not an editable format. That's why he's suggesting converting to linear PCM. The recurring beep is because you have audio that doesn't match your sequence settings, which are never going to be AAC.

- Matt

OK. Thanks for the 411 Matt.
Get Mpeg streamclip. it's free. It's also insanely great.
[www.squared5.com]

Look in the menus for Batch list (Hint: it's under List).
In the batch list add all your files
It will ask you for a output folder and give you an output format page.
select Apple DV/DVCPro NTSC.
It should set everything for you but make sure that audio is set to Uncompressed, Stereo, 48KHz.
Hit "To Batch"
On the Batch list hit "Go"
Wait
Import the results into FCE and drop them in the timeline.
I would do a test on one clip first before you do a whole batch just in case.

Capice?

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!