Hi there Well, the first thing I would do is view my clip with the QT player using high quality setting. This does normally give me a good indication of how my exported file looks like. So be sure whenever you export a QT movie and viewing it with QT player the High Quality setting is set [command + J]. Now the second and most important thing is the compression. I would recommend to use compressor for your purpose because it has some presets that match your requirements. Select from the presets the one that is more applicable to your client needs and after the compression, view it with your HQ-set QT-Player. Good Luck. Hisham

Not that I know of, but you can zoom in the whole timeline using SHIFT-Z, you will be able to see the playhead over the whole timeline. Hisham

Hi there Well this shouldn't take that long, and I am assuming you haven't done highly sophisticated compositing with many effects. In addition to the above, if FC asks you to render, this means that it can't play in real time without "baking" your effects with the footage first. Something you may also want to check in general, I would first close any unnecessary applications that are open, I would render only a saved project, I'd check my memory preferences allocated to FC in my user/system preferences, including cache. Other things that I normally do as a maintentance beyond the applications is to run disk utility to repair permission, zapp my RAM occasionally (this is only me), run maintenance scripts and check that I am using all the SW updates for the apps that I am using. That sounds like a lot but maybe FC is having a bit of difficulty with something litte but causing the headache. Try the above and good luck. Save any work you have done before though. Looks like you solved the problem anyway. Hisham

Hi Joe The length of the fotage should not affect your quality. What affects the quality is first how good is raw footage, secondly what you are doing to it and lastly how you are compressing it. Okay, I will assume that you are doing point 1 and 2 perfectly, everything is set up and it looks fantastic BEFORE export or compression, right? I am also assuming that you want to compress for DVD and not for web, iPod, apple TV ...etc. For DVD SP4 you can even use a Non-selfcontained FCP project file (as long as your media files are available on the same or linked drive) to do your compression. Please use in your settings for compression DVD MPEG-2 SD (or HD, if that is what you are shooting) and also check the options of Mode, Bitrate and field order. There are some guidelines there, if you google them, but normally the default settings do work quite well. in iDVD is the same. The quality should not really suffer from the length of your footage. It is just a longer workload for your machine, not a harder one! Cheers Hisham

Hi m I am not sure if I have understood your question. But maybe try system preferences under Monitor and use mirroring/extending monitors. Hope this helps somehow. Regards, Hisham

In addition to the tip you can also drag the audio file from the browser and from your finder straight to your timeline.

Hi there There is, but you do know about copyright matter and DRM, right :-) Well, the easiest way is just to make a CD copy backup of your purchased music and then drag the file from your CD to the timeline. You can also "re-copy" it back to your Mac and use it from there. Good Luck. Hisham

Hi There I would make a little test run first. I would delete my clip from the timeline, edit a new fresh one in, reduce its speed to the speed you want, then exporting it. Before I go into DVD Studio pro, I play the sequence to test the speed. If it is ok, then I go ahead. If not, then you have to tell me how you are editing you speed in the timeline. Good Luck. Hisham

also ensure that the sequence settings are the same as your captured footage.

Hi there My general advice if you are REALLY going to use heavy motion graphics or 3D animation programs is not to save on 3 items, they should be your top notch items: Processor, Video Card & RAM. Your computer (or laptop) should by well fed with these because you are going to challenge it. Though this will cost a bit but it will ease the pain of waiting. Normally the MacPro is more configurable to these kind of items and you can change & swap as you go. With laptops (MacBook Pros), because they are sleek and small, they offer limited configurability, therefore, I had to get the most expensive MacBook Pro jammed with the 3 top notch items with my order. I am quite happy with it, I could use even more power (there is never enough) but I do enjoy the mobility & portability. This is where you have to decide. Good luck. Hisham