Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
information has made it from the original camera masters, onto your computer's
hard drives, through the editing process, and finally back onto digital tape.
Don't forget to do a second and maybe even a third backup. This may just help
you to sleep better at night.
Other Forms of Distribution
Final Cut Pro is designed as a video editor, however, just because it is designed
to work with video does not mean that your final output must end up on video-
tape. There are other forms of distribution in this modern world that need to be
considered; for example: DVD, CD-ROM, iPod, Mobile Phone, PowerPoint and
Internet delivery.
For most purposes, those on limited budgets would acquire and edit the mate-
rial on DV/DVCam or HDV tape before compressing to another format. If possi-
ble back up your program to tape - also compress the final edit into a single
file which may be the native codec used to edit the program or another format.
Backing up of material is often a neglected area of the editing room. Losing an
entire program can be a hard way to learn 'always backup!'
QuickTime is a cross-platform (Mac and PC) technology designed and developed
by Apple. This is often the format of choice for both Internet delivery and CD-ROM
production. QuickTime is powerful and achieves results. It is particularly suited
to producing encoded files on a Mac for the simple reason that QuickTime is part
of the Mac operating system. It had been described as the 'the thing' that makes
video on the Mac possible. However, before choosing the exact form of compression,
you need information as to how and where the product will be used.
When outputting to standard definition DVD MPEG-2 is the format to be used.
For high definition DVDs H.264 is the format of choice. Both formats work with
QuickTime.
To output compressed files using Final Cut Pro you can choose to export using
Compressor, which runs as a separate application to Final Cut Pro, or you can
export Using QuickTime Conversion.
Compressor
Compressor is a program designed to encode files to different formats.
It runs as a separate application to Final Cut Pro, though the two programs
