Formats in Editing
Editing can be a lot of fun. Some people don’t think so, but I find it to be fun. What does this have to do with anything? Not much, but the topic for today is dealing with video in editing software. Don’t expect me to explain how to edit, at least not now. Today we will discuss rendering and how to avoid doing more rendering then needed.
Rendering is not something that is fun. It is time consuming and often feels like it is an unnecessary step. The thing is that most people deal with a lot more rendering than is actually required. The dialog box that everybody sees but few understand is this one.
This popup is there to see if you want to make your sequence match the format of the clip. Usually the safe answer to this question is yes, but we are going to see why that is and the circumstances that you would say no.
We have already learned how to determine the format that a video file is in, and now we will see how to use this information in a real world example.
To explain it simply if the file you are putting into your editing timeline is a different format from what the timeline is, rendering will be required. More than you want since it has to render almost every time you play back. The popup from above is asking if you want to set the sequence format to match that of the video format you are putting into your timeline. Doing this will almost always reduce the amount of time rendering since it isn’t having to transcode it to a different format before playing back. This trick will work on almost all file formats. The one that won’t that you are going to come across a lot is H.264 files. Any recent DSLR will film with H.264 compression which is great for file size, but makes it harder to edit with. The easiest way to work with them is to convert them into the ProRes 422 format, and the easiest way to do that is to use a droplet. Droplets are simple easy to use convertors. Just extract the file from this ZIP folder http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6910936/ProRes422.zip and open it. Then drop your DSLR footage into the droplet and set the location. Then submit. The droplet will disappear, so open the application Batch Monitor. From there you can watch your files recompress to a useable format. After that is done import the new files and edit like normal.
What do you do if you need to change the format of your sequence? That is an easy process. In Final Cut Pro, click Final Cut Pro in the Menu bar then select Audio/Video Settings. This will bring up a box. One of the first things you should see is a drop down next to a setting labeled Sequence Preset. From here you can select the format that will best fit the clips you are going to be editing with.
Another quick hint. If you forget the format of a file you are using while inside Final Cut Pro just go to the browser window and scroll over. It will show you all the same information that we found when using Quicktime Player.
Most of this tutorial was for use in Final Cut Pro although most of it is also available in Premiere Pro. To use DSLR footage in Premiere Pro it also needs to be converted for best results, but you will need to use Adobe Media Encoder rather than a Droplet or Compressor.
Have an questions you want answered? Email them to techforfilm@gmail.com
Tech for Film 
Dude, you are my hero for writing all this out!