Converting Final Cut Pro Movie For Youtube
I have a client that wants to convert an exported Final Cut Pro movie and upload it to youtube. Since she lives in Raleigh and I’m in Greensboro I decided to post this tutorial for her.
First thing is to right click, or if your mouse does not have a right click, control click, on the media file and from the pull down menu select Open With and again from the pull down menu select QuickTime Player.
If you don’t have QuickTime Pro you can purchase it at Apple store for $30 and they will email you a registration name and number. In Quicktime goto File and select Registration and put the new information and it should work fine.
Now assuming you have QuickTime Pro you can go ahead and export a smaller file either as a Quicktime movie or MPEG-4. For this tutorial, I chose MPEG-4 I now used Quicktime movie. Go to the top menu and click on File and select Export.
A new window will pop up and this the export save as window. At the bottom of the window you will see two pull down menus. Select the top pull down menu that says Export: besides it.
Select Movie to MPEG-4 Movie to Quicktime Movie
Now since we are uploading a relatively short media file we want to encode it as high as possible. Select the second drop down menu that says Use: below the Export menu, and select Broadband - High.
Now just pick a place to save it on your computer and let the software so it’s work. After it completes the encode go to Youtube and sign up for an account or if you have one go ahead and upload your MPEG-4 .mov file. Remember to tag it with keywords that will help google and other search engines to find your video. Any questions feel free you ask away.
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[...] Converting Final Cut Pro Movie For Youtube After it completes the encode go to Youtube and sign up for an account or if you have one go ahead and upload your MPEG-4 file. Remember to tag it with keywords that will help google and other search engines to find your video. … [...]
Can’t you just export it to MPEG-4 through quicktime conversion in FCP?
Of course you can. I should’ve put that in there. Thanks for commenting.
My client already had her project exported to a FCP movie file so I just wanted to show her how to do a shortcut instead of opening FCP and exporting it through quicktime conversion.
Anyone here would suggest on how to use the H.264 for youtube ?
or which export options would yield the best quality youtube video ?
Please help. I have read this and that but still in vain. I just got quick time pro for my windows. Not very user friendly though, but seems to have lots of options for encoding. Having too many choices makes it difficult to make a decision…. What’s the choice under `export’ best for youtube ? Can anyone give me details on that please! I will give you a credit on a video if you like that. See some very bad quality videos in the channel.. http://www.youtube.com/k6yardotcom
I would suggest using
Export… Movie to MPEG-4
Use… Broadband-High
and let er rip that should do a good quality video for youtube.
Is there any conflict with AAC audio and Youtube? I saw they recommend MP3 audio but FCP doesn’t output that way, any suggestions?
Hey . . .
how do you use this method for any lengthed video? the limit on youtube is 100mb , does this method always ensure it is within this limit?
Leon-
Youtube now only allows you to upload 10 minutes no matter how big your files are…unless you are grandfathered into the 100MB limit no matter how long the clip is. If that is the case and you can upload clips longer than 10 minutes you can do this.
In the Export menu select the Export dropdown menu to: Movie to MPEG-4 and Use: Broadband - High
Click the Options button on the right and MPEG-4 Export Settings Menu will open. Change the Data Rate anywhere down to 300. You will see the File Size: on the bottom of the menu change.
I hope that helps.
Brain M-
Don’t worry about what Youtube recommends go ahead and upload your video via Quicktime and AAC audio. It will work fine. Sorry it took so long for me to get to your comment.
Cheers . . .
it looks damn good !
http://www.ianponsjewell.com
check out my films if you’d like, Augustus Lullaby is the newest . . .
thanks again . . .
Howdy folks. This is a very informative column, however uploading in DivX and the mpg4 seem to be crappy quality? The file size is small- but why does the video look so pixelly and blurred? I tried using FCP QT conversion, and exporting the full DV and then converting via Quicktime…
any help? some of my attempts are at http://www.youtube.com/thinkbrb
(nice vids Leon- excited to get home and check them out with sound)
Hi. You can export with the codec divx in FCP, export using quicktime conversion, in format select divx, in audio options select mp3.
The codec divx download here: http://www.divx.com
From the page of you tube:
Uploading Your Videos to YouTube
Once you’re happy with your final result, you’ll need to save the video in a format that YouTube can accept in order to upload. Unless you’re a professional video producer, we recommend that you save your videos as either QuickTime .MOV, Windows .AVI, or .MPG files? these are the most common formats and they work well within our system. We specifically recommend the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format at 320×240 resolution with MP3 audio. Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your clips look better on YouTube.
How can I make anamorphic movies in Youtube
Hello I am trying to find a good setting for youtube but I have a major issue that I can’t seem to get down. I would like to put the best quality on here but it seems no matter what I do I get these little lines that I notice show up on the raw clips and me being new to the Final Cut Pro world I have messed with everything but I can’t seem to get rid of them.
The only resort I have will result a Generation Loss in the quality because it would require me using one of my windows programs because it seems that has always gotten rid of the lines.
It is all I can really think of please can you help me with this I have a few videos I’m working on and I have been pressed for time into figuring it all out.
Also I do realize that the cause of the issue in the first place is the cheap old Analog To Digital Converter I have.
Saberfang,
Where are these lines located? If they are located at the top and bottom of your clips there is nothing you can do about it except crop the footage in FCP. I noticed if you import from VCR or TV analog, the top and bottom of the screen have a small buzz effect that you can easily crop out.
Where on the computer is the best place to save video?
The best place to save video is in a new folder for video.
Create a folder and name it FCP Media
Create another folder in FCP Media and name it whatever the name of your project is then save the video in that folder.
That is just an organized way of saving things.
when you de-interlace choose ‘lower even’, thats what got rid of my lines (top left)
ok there is another problem I have this new HD camera I bought and I am using the SD video but the raw footage have lines all over the video whenever motion occurs is there any way to get rid of these I would like to be able to properly know what to do especially if I am working on big projects.
Anyone have any idea why I’m getting this “greyness” in the first second or two of my videos? Happened last year, and this year, too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl7HCNQvIn0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APzvY7G8mDY
Thanks!
I can make a rough guess. Every time I exported from Quicktime as an mp4 for youtube, the gray appears for the first couple of seconds. I would export with .mov instead of .mp4.
Good luck
Hello I have two short films in mpg format that i made with fcp but in following your above steps I found that the video uploaded but not the sound. I did some digging around in the settings but can’t find the problem. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you in advance!
I edited my movie on FCP but then had no choice but to upload it to YouTube using a PC. As long as the file you’re working with was exported by FCP as a Quicktime movie, it can be read by Windows Media Player. In this case, just “Save As…” in WMP, and type the “.mov” extension after the filename.
I’ve got an even easier step for those of you who want their video ready for upload with minimal steps, straight for the timeline.
Simply export your project to livetype. It’s that easy!
File (or whatever it is - can’t check im on a pc)>Export to Livetype
Make sure you uncheck the box that says ‘include markers… blah blah blah’, and you are good to go.
minimal size, effort and decent quality for youtube.
Has anyone else had trouble getting audio in their youtube movies to sound good? I have tried numerous ways of exporting quicktime from FCP, but the sound is always horribly distorted when it gets converted to youtube!
When I use the “options…” button within quicktime pro, it says my soundtrack is in AAC format, which seems like it may be the cause of the problem, but how does one convert the soundtrack of a FCP-exported QT movie to mp3 or another youtube-friendly format? Thanks!
The best recipe for HQ YouTube movies is simple. Forget H.264, forget 320×240 format.
Upload Your movie at:
480×360, H.263 codec (the best results gives XViD) 1000 kbps, MP3 audio 96 kbps.
After uploadnig You will see an option at YouTube: WATCH IN HIGH QUALITY
I have been making movies for a Western agriculture weekly newspaper. I use FCP, and when they receive my video it looks fine. When they put it on YouTube, for every frame played it skips several frames, thus looks very jerky and bad. Do you know what my problem is, and how can I fix it??
thank you!!
What kind of movie file are you making it into I know there’s a lot of issues with MPEG I usually make them into Quicktime at the highest quality possible without making it over 500MB
When I sent it to the newspaper it was 64.4 mb, because I was told YouTube won’t take more than 100mb. I sent it in QuickTime. It was 3/35 minutes. The last 2 turned out jerky like that. One before did also, but they had a tech person who somehow ran it through iMovie and that fixed it, although the quality was v e r y low. I don’t know how to do iMovie and would prefer sticking with FCP and quicktime.
thanks for your attention!
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