Extending freeze frame

Hi all: I have never had this problem before. I am bringing in a Photoshop (alpha channel) scroll for credits at the end of a show which I have done many times. This time, however, when I bring the document to the viewer I get only 12 seconds. I have gone into the User Preference/Editing tab and designated 2 minutes. Then I click OK and re-import the Photoshop document, but it is still only 12 seconds. I don't do this often enough to have it be second nature. Am i missing something here? How do I give the Viewer 2 minutes? Thanks.

Sorry. Forgot to add:

FCP 7
OSX 10.6.8
Macpro
2.16 GHz Intel Duo Core

just go to the duration field in the viewer and type in whatever you want.
should work


nick

That's the problem. I did that. I increased the duration to 2 minnutes, but when I import the image I still only get 12 seconds. Stumped! Do I have to re-start FCP to have it take?

I mean open the clip into the VIEWER,
and then type in 2 minutes in the duration field (top right)

however, it does sound as if you need to trash your preferences if they are acting up like that


nick

I will jump on that right away. Thanks. One more question. What exactly doesan "out of memory" pop-up mean? I have tons of memory but I now get this when rendering.

ok, if you get it rendering it most likely means you've got one or more very large still image files in your timeline.

huge frame sizes can choke FCP, and it helps if you make them smaller before brining them in.
for instance i've got a lot of stills in my current project. their original frame size is really big: i cant remember exactly, but one dimension was over 5000 pixels
doing a very simple reduction to 50% of their frame size (in Preview) leaves them still larger than HD, but a lot easier for FCP to handle.

sometimes FCP can deal with them, and it can help if you render them in isolation,
but just be aware that too many of them is asking for trouble.


nick

Nick: That was the problem. I had a jpeg at 300dpi, reduced it to 200dpi and the problem was resolved. Thanks much.

ah, yes, DPI.
reduce still images to 72 dpi for use in video work.


nick

72 dpi is too small Nick, better to have some free space for movement I find, so I use 150 to 200 ppi - unless it's a special use type still that you want to zoom into or creep around in, then just that one at 300 ppi, but rendered alone

Just a quick review on DPI for video. DPI or Dots per inch is a measure of image resolution designed to be significant for people making physical prints of their work. It means, as it sounds, how many little dots of ink are printed on each inch of the final medium. Obviously the more dots crammed into each inch of the picture, the sharper the reproduced picture will be.

In our video world, DPI is not as meaningful. We are a pixel based medium. Take a typical 1920x1080 HD format. That means that the image is exactly 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels (or lines) tall. There is no relation to the number of inches of the actual display. It doesn't matter if you view the video on your phone or on the scoreboard in Texas Stadium, it is still going to be 1920 pixels wide. Really small pixels on your phone, and really BIG pixels on the scoreboard.

The place where the confusion comes in is with the scaling function of programs like Photoshop. If you change the DPI setting, it will conform the width and height of the images. You can display the width and height information as pixels, inches, millimeters or picas. True, changing the DPI will change the size of the images. But for full control and understanding of what you are doing you should look at the the dimension of your image, in pixels.

Finally, Final Cut Pro classic editions are limited to images that are less than 4000 pixels in either dimension. That is the root of many issues like the one the OP here experienced. A bit of topic, but another thing to look out for is the color coding of your stills. CMYK images, also used in print applications, are not handled well by Final Cut either.

Great response,
Thanks, Vance