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FCP Partial Log and Capture of RED footage

If you're using FCP Log and Transfer to import RED footage into an FCP project, once you click on the "Add Selection to Queue" button, don't click anywhere else. Go have lunch. Doing anything else in the Log and Transfer window or FCP will cause the current clip to get truncated, importing only a partial clip to your bin.

There is no warning, and no error message. Just a perfectly fine looking truncated clip.

Looks like we have to manually verify Media Duration in Log and Transfer with the clip durations now, and all of the time saving benefits of sorting and editing while importing clips is gone.

Compressor setting for Grass Valley Turbo

Here's a compressor setting to prep just about any HD video (720P, 1080i, or 1080p) for a High Definition Grass Valley Turbo box. The resulting 1080i MPEG-2 video files should get sucked into the Turbo without any recompression. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with the Turbo's very long compression times and unpredictable results.

Download the Compressor setting here, unzip it, and put the .setting file in your ~user/Library/Application Support/Compressor folder. Restart Compressor, and you'll see it in the Custom Folder of your Settings window.

Warning: Always do full play-through test screenings after ingesting your footage into the Turbo.

Compressor setting to output 2:1 RED footage to DVD

Problem: If you want to make a 16:9 widescreen DVD from a video project that was shot in RED's 2:1 aspect ratio (ie. 2048x1024), some precautions must be taken during the final compression in order to avoid stretching.

If just drop your 2:1 video into Compressor, and apply a DVD preset, it will stretch your video vertically to fit the 16:9 frame. The problem is that it's a somewhat subtle stretch, so it's easy to miss the problem altogether.

Solution: We need to add letterboxing to the top and bottom of the video such that when it plays out in 16:9 widescreen, everything looks normal. It's easiest to just create a new Compressor setting to do this. If you don't want to follow these steps, skip to the download below.

In Compressor, locate the "DVD: Best Quality 90 Minutes" preset folder (in the "DVD" folder). Click on it, and then click on the "duplicate" icon (the third icon in the settings window). This will duplicate the entire folder, with the video and audio presets, into your custom settings folder (at the bottom of the settings window).

Locate the new settings folder. If you click on the folder, you can rename it in the Inspector window. I just appended "2:1 to 16:9" to the name.

Now, click on the MPEG-2 setting in that folder. This will bring up a bunch of info in the inspector window. Go to the Geometry tab of the inspector (5th icon), and change Padding Top to 27, and Padding Bottom to 27. Click on the save button in the lower right of the inspector.

Now all you have to do is drag your new "DVD: Best Quality 90 Minutes 2:1 to 16:9" folder on top of your video, and you're all set to go. The final output (which you can verify in DVD Studio Pro) will be a 16:9 Anamorphic video with some black on the top and bottom, so when it stretches out to widescreen everything will look right.

Download: If you're having problems, I've zipped up my Compressor setting for you. Download here. Unzip it, and drop the folder into the ~user/Library/Application Support/Compressor folder, then restart Compressor. The preset will appear in your custom settings.