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iMovie09 to FCE 4.0

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Hi Friends,
After using imovie i felt it was too limiting but a great entry level for mum to use. Now i am wishing i was mum. lol..... FCE is a huge jump and challenge for me.

I have issues with FCE and need help please.

After using mpeg stream clip to convert to Quicktime, Aapple DV/DVCPRO: it 1. seems every time i add a filter or crop in timeline i have to re render for play back and checking etc.
Why? is there a way around this?
2. I find the green screen filter in iMovie better than FCE, possibly user limitations, i tried youtube for tips and help. iMovie seems to do it simply & is great. chroma,green-blue key seems to not work.
3. Now i have to format all music that is in itunes thousands of songs.....

4. *****is there a more user friendly upgrade from imovie?
5. where are background pictures that are in iMovie. i cant find stored location any tips? i hope it is not extra $$$
can i import them .xml file does not work?
6. i also have sony AVCHD Camera. log and file is not working properly. this is why i am recording in mpeg. again imovie imports avchd.

Help suggestions are appreciated, it must be the user.

T
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Late 2013 rMBP, i7, 750m gpu, OSX versions 10.9.3, 10.10
Hi,

I'll try to answer your questions as best I can:

1) Mpeg streamclip - you're using AVCHD, convert to AIC, NOT Apple DV/DVCPRO. Otherwise, you can try adjusting your sequence to use DV/DVCPro as your preset, but you'll do better with AIC since that is the codec that is generally used for AVCHD on FCE

2) Chroma/Green screen - usually, You would have 2 video clips. One with the green screen and the other being the background - you need 2 video tracks, the green screen video on top and the background beneath. You just need to add the chroma key effect to the clip that has the green screen and it should turn transparent (may require rendering) to view the video on the track below the green screen video. If you don't already have 2 video tracks, easiest way to do this is to put in the video that will be the "under" video, then drag the green screen video to where it would look like it is above the background video and release (not actually on top of the background video, it should show like there are two lines of video, not one) and it should create another video track.

3) Can't really answer on this one. i've used mp3's in FCE before, and I usually don't use from my iTunes library.

4) Not really, FCE is the next stage from iMovie. iMovie is a really simplistic tool for video editing - but it is fairly powerful. I will note that the current incarnations of iMovie ('08 and '09) do not really work like the majority of NLEs (including MS movie maker) as these other tools use timelines/sequences which is rather different from the drag and drop positioning of iMovie. The features and power is there, you will just need to spend some time practicing to get used to using everything.

5) Honestly, I don't use iMovie enough to comment on "background pictures" - my guess is they are stored in the iMovie package - you can go into your applications, right click on iMovie (cmd+click) and select view package contents and you can navigate the folder and most likely find the images you're referring to - unless they are stored in iMovies extra files in /library.

6) With an ACHD camera - what you would do is either hook the camcorder up via USB, or take the memory card and plunk it into a reader. In FCE you would then use Log and Transfer and it should identify the footage and make it possible to import (it will automagically convert it to AIC for you). DO NOT attempt to directly import the mts/m2ts files directly - that will not work.

Hope this helps!
 

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