Chapter 36: Working with QuickTime

Movies

You can use Pro Tools to import QuickTime movies and audio (such as MP3s), perform audio post production tasks, and export the finished product as a new QuickTime movie.

Pro Tools serves as a fast, random-access visual reference for “sweetening” the movie by adding sound effects, music, foley, dialog, or other audio.

About QuickTime

QuickTime is digital video technology designed to produce compact video files for multimedia use.

Pro Tools Movie track displayed as frames

Using QuickTime Movies in

Pro Tools

Pro Tools allows you to import QuickTime movies into your Pro Tools sessions.

Once imported into Pro Tools, a QuickTime movie is displayed in its own Movie track in the

Edit window, and in a floating Movie window.

This floating window can be viewed on a second monitor with appropriate video hardware (including FireWire output of QuickTime DV).

With a QuickTime movie in the session,

Pro Tools Movie window

Pro Tools provides precise, frame-accurate audio and video synchronization. This means you can use your Pro Tools system as an off-line audio editing system, leaving the video editing suite free for video editing.

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With Pro Tools, you can:

◆ Import a QuickTime movie into a session

◆ Import audio from a QuickTime movie

◆ Import audio files from a CD or a CD-ROM

◆ Import audio from an audio CD (Macintosh only)

◆ Synchronize audio events to a QuickTime movie, using the Pro Tools editing features to spot and nudge regions to video frames

◆ Scrub audio elements in tandem with a Quick-

Time movie

◆ Use the Pro Tools Bounce to QuickTime

Movie command (Pro Tools 6.1 and higher) or

Bounce to Movie command (Pro Tools 6.0.x and lower) to compile a new “flattened” QuickTime movie file that can be read by any QuickTimecompatible application

If you want to edit or in any other way modify a movie, return to your video capture and assembly software (such as Avid Xpress DV) for editing, then import the edited movie into

Pro Tools.

You can capture Avid-compatible video in

Pro Tools with AVoption, AVoption|V10, or AVoption|XL.

Video Capture/Playback Cards

For professional applications where full-screen,

25/30 frames-per-second playback is critical, we recommend that you invest in a Digidesign-approved third-party video capture and playback card, or an external DV Firewire device.

For more information on compatible video capture cards, visit the Digidesign Web site.

If You Are New to Audio Post

Production

If you are new to digital video, time code, or audio-for-post production, the following suggestions will help you manage your session’s audio and video requirements. Not all of these may apply to every project.

Plan Ahead Think through your entire project before you start capturing your video. For best results when working with SMPTE time code, make sure that time code is burned into a window in the movie. Try to anticipate compatibility and configuration issues that may arise.

Make Sure your Movie is Conformed Be sure to conform your captured QuickTime movie to the desired frame rate. Consult your video capture software’s documentation for information on how to ensure frame-accurate captures. We recommend that you do this to all video captures to ensure accurate playback in Pro Tools.

With Pro Tools 5.2.x and lower, if your destination is a pulled-down Pro Tools session, this pull down affects QuickTime movie playback speed.

You should conform your movie to a 30 fps frame rate for use in a pulled-down session.

Destined for Video or Film? What is the ultimate destination of your work? Is it for DVD, HD, TV, film, audio CD or CD-ROM? This will determine such things as the best sample rate to use, the correct timecode rate, and pull-down or pull-up rates. Double-check the time code frame rate.

You must make sure that you know the correct frame rate of the video source.

Storage Make sure you have enough disk space on your drive, and optimize your hard drives regularly.

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Video Compatibility If you are not digitizing the video material yourself (if the material is already on hard disk) check into the type of video capture and playback system that was used and make sure you can accommodate that format’s compression method. Check whether or not time code is “burned into” or superimposed over a small area of the video.

Optionally, you may also need:

◆ QuickTime movie capture hardware and software to digitize your own movies from a video tape or video camera source.

◆ A DVD or CD-ROM drive to take advantage of commercially-available QuickTime movies and sound clips.

QuickTime Requirements

Pro Tools supports playback of QuickTime videos without additional hardware. However, with older Macintosh computers that had video inputs, performance will vary in terms of maximum movie size, frame rate, and smoothness of playback. Capture of 30/25 fps (frames per second), 60/50 fields-per-second video requires a video capture card, and associated software and hardware.

About Frame Length and QuickTime

Movies

Not all video capture software can guarantee consistent frame lengths. Refer to your video capture software documentation for information on ensuring frame-accurate captures, and on conforming your video to proper frame boundaries.

To take advantage of Pro Tools QuickTime movie playback capabilities, you will need the following:

◆ A Digidesign-qualified version of Apple’s

QuickTime System Extension. Refer to the

Digidesign Web site (www.digidesign.com/compato).

◆ QuickTime movie playback and editing software (such as Avid XPress DV) to edit and compile QuickTime movies.

Movie Playback Quality

Options

Pro Tools supports three options for movie playback performance: Normal Priority Playback,

Medium Priority Playback, and Highest Priority

Playback. In most cases, you should leave the priority choice set to Normal Priority Playback.

If you are running QuickTime Movies natively, that is, without a capture card, you may need to use one of the other playback priority options. If this does not apply to you, leave movie playback priority set to Normal Priority Playback. This is the default setting.

See also “Firewire Playback of QuickTime

DV Movies” on page 579.

Hard Drive Tips for Best Performance

If possible, connect the hard drive you are using for video capture and playback on a different

SCSI, ATA/IDE, or FireWire bus from the drive with your audio files. This minimizes interference between drives when Pro Tools requests audio and video data. With most capture cards, and moderate data capture rates (800 kilobytes per second or less), this should provide good performance.

For complete information on hard drive requirements, visit the Digidesign Web site.

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Importing a QuickTime Movie

Before you import a movie, you should digitize your video material and know the correct frame rate and sample rate when applicable.

If a video card with hardware video compression was used to create the QuickTime movie, Pro Tools cannot play the movie without the compression hardware. Make sure the video card is installed and configured correctly before starting your session.

To import a QuickTime movie into Pro Tools:

1 Launch Pro Tools and create a new session, or open an existing one.

2 Check the time code settings of the session to make sure they match those of the movie you want to import, and save the session.

3 Choose Movie > Import Movie.

Import Movie dialog

4 Select the movie and click Open. Pro Tools imports the movie and displays it in its own Movie track in the Edit window as well as in a floating

Movie window. The first frame of the movie is automatically placed at the start time of your session.

Movie track above an audio track in the Edit window

About the Movie Track

Once a movie is imported into Pro Tools it appears in the Edit window in its own Movie track.

Depending on the setting of your Movie track view, the movie displays as blocks, or as a picture-icon (picon) “thumbnail” overview of the frames of the movie it represents. The Movie track will show greater or lesser detail depending on your current zoom level in the Edit window—the closer in you zoom, the greater the number of individual frames that are displayed in the Movie track; the farther out you zoom, the fewer the number of individual frames that are visible.

The Movie track behaves much as a Pro Tools audio or MIDI track in that you can move the movie region with the Grabber or other editing tools. This allows you to offset the movie to any start point. However, you cannot edit the Movie track by trimming it or capturing regions from within it.

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Only one QuickTime movie can be associated with a session at a time. If you want to import a different movie into a session, repeat the previous steps. The new movie will replace the original in the session. A Movie track takes its name from its associated movie file and cannot be independently renamed.

Frames View Performance

When using Frames View to view movie content in the Movie track, your computer may exhibit reduced or sluggish performance. If this happens on your computer, switch the Movie track view to Blocks mode.

You can also hide the movie track to further optimize performance, if necessary.

Firewire Playback of

QuickTime DV Movies

With the addition of an external DV transcoder

(decoder), you can play QuickTime DV Movies out through your computer’s Firewire port.

These can include QuickTime movies exported as QuickTime DV from Avid Xpress DV.

TDM Systems Requires Pro Tools 5.3.1 or higher.

LE Systems Requires Pro Tools 6.x.

For the latest compatibility information on

Firewire transcoders, see the Digidesign Web site. For specific information about the Canopus

Transcoder, check the Canopus Web site

(http://www.canopuscorp.com).

QuickTime DV performance may vary, depending on the specifics of your system and projects.

Supported QuickTime Movies

Referenced and Consolidated Media Exported

QuickTime DV movies can be either complete

Quicktime files (where media is copied into a

Quicktime file) or Quicktime reference files

(where just a small composition is in the Quicktime file which references the original DV files).

Codec Requirements When exporting from

Avid Xpress DV, always use the Apple DV codec.

Do not enable “Use Avid Codec” in the export dialog. If an Avid-codec DV movie is imported into Pro Tools, you will not be able to play it.

DV Stream Movies Pro Tools does not support audio from a DV Stream file. DV Stream files contain the entire data stream that's been transferred or recorded over the FireWire cable from a camera. In this type of file, the audio and video data are stored in an interleaved fashion, as opposed to a QuickTime file where audio and video are stored separately.

See also “Exporting QuickTime DV from

Avid” on page 580.

To Play DV Movies through the FireWire Port:

1 Import a QuickTime DV movie into a

Pro Tools session by choosing Movie > Import

Movie.

2 Choose Movie > Play DV Movie Out Firewire

Port.

When this item is enabled, Pro Tools will play

DV movies (NTSC or PAL) out the FireWire port to an external DV decoder. This can improve system performance by removing the need for the movie to be software decompressed by the

CPU and displayed on the computer screen.

If the desktop Movie Window is open when video is playing out the FireWire port, it will display the text “DV Movie Is Playing Out FireWire

Port.”

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Delay Between Video & Audio

There can be a considerable delay between video and audio playback when using this feature.

To compensate for delay between audio and video playback:

1 Choose Movie > Set Movie Sync Offset.

2 Enter a value appropriate to align the audio with video.

Generally, you will need to set this value once for each type of DV decoder used.

For a list of Digidesign-qualified video capture cards and transcoders, see the

Digidesign Web site

(www.digidesign.com/compato).

Exporting QuickTime DV from Avid

The following instructions list export settings for Avid XPress DV. These settings are required to create QuickTime DV movies that can be played back in Pro Tools through the Firewire port.

To export a QuickTime DV reference movie for

Pro Tools Firewire playback, set the following:

1 Enable the following export options:

• Flatten video tracks

• Fill in spaces with black

• Render all video effects

• Use Apple DV Codec

• Enable the Apple DV codec

2 Make sure Use Avid Codec is not enabled.

These export settings can be saved in

Avid XPress DV3.0 as a default, simplifying future media exchange. Refer to your

Avid XPress documentation for more information on export settings and defaults.

Scrubbing the Movie Track

You can use the Scrubber tool to scrub the

Movie track with full frame accuracy. If you scrub directly on the Movie track, only the movie will scrub (no audio will play). If you scrub on an audio track, audio and the movie will scrub simultaneously.

Scrubbing a movie track

To scrub the Movie track:

1 Select the Scrubber tool.

2 Click in the Movie track and drag the Scrubber.

To scrub with finer precision, press the

Command key while scrubbing

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About the Movie Window

The Movie window displays the movie playback or the current frame if playback is paused or stopped. You can drag the Movie window anywhere on your computer screen.

Movie window

To display the Movie window:

■

Choose Window > Show Movie Window. If a movie has already been imported, the Movie window will appear.

See also “Firewire Playback of QuickTime

DV Movies” on page 579.

Using a 14-inch Monitor for Playback

If you capture 320 x 240 (NTSC) movies and have a second monitor with 640 x 480 resolution (a standard 14-inch monitor), clicking on the Movie window will route movie playback to that monitor. The Movie will “bounce” over to the second monitor, and will be pixel-doubled so that it takes up the whole screen.

Tips for Optimizing Movie Playback

Since Pro Tools uses QuickTime to play movies, the quality of the playback is dependent on the speed of your computer and hard drive, the size

(in pixels) of the movie, and the quality of the video hardware used to capture and play back the digitized video. While QuickTime doesn’t produce broadcast-quality playback, it is frame accurate when spotting to picture.

On PCI-based computers, Pro Tools continuously re-syncs the movie. The movie resolves to the audio sample clock. This allows the movie to smoothly track the audio even when your system is varispeeded.

For more consistently smooth movie playback, here are some suggestions:

◆ Use a Digidesign-approved video capture and playback card for 25/30 frames-per-second fullscreen movie playback.

◆ Display the movie on a separate monitor driven by a video capture and playback card.

◆ If you don’t have a video capture and playback card, set the movie playback priority to Medium Priority Playback or High Priority Playback using one of these commands in Movie menu.

This gives priority to movie playback, rather than other screen graphics tasks such as moving faders.

◆ Use the fastest computer possible.

◆ Capture and play QuickTime video from a separate hard drive than your Pro Tools audio drives.

◆ Remove unneeded System Extensions and

Control Panels (Mac OS 9).

◆ Disable the Automation Preference for Faders

Move During Playback.

◆ Set No Auto Scrolling in Operations > Scroll

Options.

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◆ Reduce the size of the Edit window to the smallest possible size.

◆ Close unnecessary windows.

◆ Reduce the overall length of the SCSI chain of your computer system for improved throughput.

◆ Reduce the pixel size of the movie (for example, reduce it from 640 x 480 pixels to 320 x 240 pixels).

◆ Hide the video track when not needed.

◆ When using video capture cards or transcoders to play back externally to the computer monitor, it may be necessary to keep the Quick-

Time window open in order to output the movie. In these cases, you can improve screen management by keeping the movie small and out of the way on your computer monitor.

To reduce the size of the QuickTime window using

QuickTime Player:

1 Close the session.

2 Open the movie in QuickTime Player, and resize the movie so it is very small.

3 Choose Save, then Quit QuickTime Player.

4 Open the session, and move the QuickTime window away from any Pro Tools windows.

Setting the Movie Start Time

(Movie Offset)

When you import a movie into your session, the first frame of the movie defaults to the start time of the session. In some cases, however, you may need to offset the movie by some amount forwards or backwards so that you can accurately spot audio to the movie.

Since a movie can be moved inside the Movie track, it is fairly easy to match these two times.

In fact, you may not have to move the Movie track at all.

For finer adjustment of a movie’s start time, you can use the Set Movie Sync Offset command to offset the movie in 1/4-frame increments. This is more accurate than dragging the Movie track, and is especially useful in cases where your movie track happens to begin with a partial frame.

To set the movie offset:

1 Double-check that the session’s SMPTE frame rate matches that of the movie.

2 Choose Movie > Set Movie Sync Offset, enter an offset value, and click OK.

The Movie Sync Offset is always defined in quarter frames, regardless of the session time display.

3 Lock the movie in place by choosing Edit >

Lock/Unlock Region.

To spot the movie to a sync point:

1 Double-check that the session’s SMPTE frame rate matches that of the movie.

2 In the Edit window, enable Grid mode.

3 Set the session time display to SMPTE.

4 Set the Grid Value to Time Code.

5 With the Selector, click in the Movie track to place the cursor where you want to create a Sync

Point. Often, the best spot will be the “2 beep” two seconds before the first action frame (the start of the video). You can use the plus and minus keys on the alpha keyboard to nudge the cursor and the movie one frame at a time.

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6 Choose Edit > Identify Sync Point to place a

Sync Point at the current cursor location.

7 Enable Spot mode by clicking the Spot button in the Edit window.

8 Click the Movie track with the Grabber. The

Spot dialog appears.

9 Enter the time code number displayed in the window-burn of the frame you are spotting to (if the movie has a SMPTE time code window burned into it) and click OK.

The movie’s sync point moves to the SMPTE location you entered.

Spotting Audio to a QuickTime

Movie

For accurate spotting, Grid mode provides you with an effective tool for quick and accurate selection of waveforms, and alignment of regions in tracks. When Grid mode is enabled, the Selector will snap to the current Grid Value, and regions selected with the Grabber and dragged to a track will also align up with the Grid Value.

Make Sure Your Movie is Conformed

Before you spot audio to a movie, you should make sure the movie file is conformed so that each frame starts and ends at valid frame boundaries. The movie should be conformed to a timecode rate that Pro Tools can work with (30 fps or

29.97 fps).

In Pro Tools 5.2.x and lower, if your destination is a pulled-down Pro Tools session, the pull down affects QuickTime movie playback speed. Make sure you movie is conformed to a 30 fps timecode rate for use in a pulled-down session.

Consult your video capture software documentation for more information.

More Tips for Spotting Audio

◆ Specify your movie size up front. For purposes of spotting audio, 320 x 240 is usually adequate.

If you are displaying the movie on a second monitor with 640 x 480 resolution, with pixel doubling, it will fill the screen.

◆ Try to work with a window burn in the movie, since it will help you spot material. You can produce your own window burns for the capture using Digidesign's SYNC I/O.

◆ Use a continuous scrolling option. Pro Tools includes two scrolling options that are particularly useful in post production: Continuous

Scroll During Playback, and Continuous Scroll with Playhead. Enable either of these scrolling options by selecting them from the

Operations > Scroll Options submenu.

Continuous Scroll options require more

CPU power, and may degrade the quality of your movie playback.

Using Grid Mode to Spot and

Nudge Regions with Frame

Accuracy

(All TDM Systems and Pro Tools LE Systems with DV Toolkit Only)

Grid mode allows you to constrain the movement of regions so that they snap to SMPTEbased measurements (minutes, seconds, frames, or subframes).

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To spot audio to a movie:

1 Click the Grid button at the upper left corner of the Edit window. This ensures that the audio will align to a frame boundary.

2 Set your Grid Value to Time Code using the pop-up menu.

3 Choose a desirable Grid unit setting. Note that you can set the grid units independently of the

Main Time Scale.

4 Using the Selector, place the insertion cursor at a location in the movie. If you want, use the

Nudge Value pop-up to set the nudge units to frames. You can then use the plus and minus keys on the alpha keyboard to nudge the insertion point frame by frame.

5 While pressing the Control key, drag a region from the Regions List to the appropriate track.

Pro Tools will automatically spot the region to the same time location as the cursor.

To spot elements directly to locations in the movie, use the technique described above. In this scenario, Auto Spot mode is not recommended, since it uses incoming MTC for location information.

Pro Tools supports the following compressed

QuickTime file formats:

◆ MP3

◆ QDesign

◆ uLaw 2:1

◆ aLaw 2:1

◆ Intel ADPCM

◆ Microsoft ADPCM

◆ IMA 4:1

◆ 32-bit floating point

◆ 64-bit floating point

◆ 16-bit Big Endian

◆ 16-bit Little Endian

◆ MACE 6:1

◆ MACE 3:1

QuickTime files can be imported into sessions using either Import Audio from Other Movie or

Import Audio from Current Movie menu commands.

Importing QuickTime Audio

(and Other Compressed Video

Files)

Pro Tools allows you to import audio directly from a QuickTime movie. You can import audio from a movie currently loaded into a session, or from a different movie. The procedure is the same for both.

Sample Rate Conversion Quality

If you import QuickTime audio that was not originally recorded at the session’s sample rate, the sample rate is converted to match the audio to your session. Pro Tools allows you to choose the quality of the sample rate conversion by means of the Conversion Quality setting in the

Editing Preferences. The higher the quality of sample rate conversion that you choose, the longer it takes to perform the sample rate conversion.

The five conversion settings range from Low to

Tweak Head. The Low setting provides results that are considerably better than the Macintosh’s built-in sample rate conversion. For most applications, the Better setting will yield excellent results.

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Because the Best and Tweak Head settings take significantly longer than the others, we recommend that you use these only in cases where the highest fidelity is absolutely essential and you have a considerable amount of time. The Tweak

Head setting in particular can take several hours to perform sample rate conversion on moderatelength files.

To set the sample rate conversion quality:

1 Choose Setups > Preferences and click Editing.

2 Click the Conversion Quality pop-up menu and select a conversion setting.

To import audio tracks from a QuickTime movie:

1 If you want to import audio from a QuickTime movie that is already in the session, choose

Movie > Import Audio From Current Movie.

– or –

If you want to import audio from a QuickTime movie that has not been imported into the session, choose Movie > Import Audio From Other

Movie.

2 Select the QuickTime movie from which you want to import audio. The Track Import dialog appears, listing information about the audio tracks.

Importing Audio from a QuickTime

Movie

You can use the Import Audio From Current

Movie and Import Audio From Other Movie commands to import audio tracks from a Quick-

Time movie currently in the session. To import audio from other QuickTime movies on your hard disk or on CD (Macintosh only), you can also drag and drop tracks from the DigiBase browser.

To use DigiBase to import audio from CDs

with drag and drop, see “Importing Audio

Files with Drag & Drop from a DigiBase

Browser” on page 113.

For additional details on using DigiBase, refer to the DigiBase Guide.

Track Import window showing audio track in a

QuickTime movie

3 Select the audio tracks you want to import by clicking them. To select multiple tracks contiguously in this dialog, Shift-click them. To select discontiguous tracks, Command-click them.

4 Click OK. The audio is converted to the session’s sample rate and bit resolution, and a new region appears in the Audio Regions List for each imported file (two regions appear for each imported stereo file). The regions are listed in the Audio Regions List with the region name, the number of the originating track, and the number of the region from the track.

5 Drag the imported regions from the Audio Regions List to tracks in your session.

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Bouncing to a New Movie

When you have finished your final mix and synchronized your audio events to the movie, you can use the Pro Tools Bounce to QuickTime

Movie command (Pro Tools 6.1 and higher) or

Bounce to Movie command (Pro Tools 6.0.x and lower) to compile a new QuickTime movie with the bounced audio embedded in the QuickTime movie file as the soundtrack. As a QuickTime file, the new movie is supported by all software applications that support QuickTime video.

To create a new QuickTime movie with bounced audio embedded as the soundtrack:

1 Adjust track output levels and finalize your mix. Any inserts and effects settings that are active on tracks will be permanently written to the bounced tracks.

2 Make sure that what you are hearing is what you want to bounce, and that your “bounce-todisk” output assignments correspond to the outputs you are listening to.

3 If you want to bounce the entire session, press the Return to Zero button on the Transport to go to the beginning of the session. The new movie file will include all the video and audio material in the session, even if the duration of the video material is longer than the audio or vice versa. If you only want to bounce a portion of a session, open the Edit window and select the section that you want to include in the bounce.

4 Choose Movie > Bounce to QuickTime Movie

(Pro Tools 6.1 and higher) or Bounce to Movie

(Pro Tools 6.0.x and lower).

Bounce dialog

5 Select the file format for the movie audio.

Choose Stereo to retain the stereo mix of the session for the movie audio. Choose Mix-to-Mono to combine the left and right channel output of the session to a mono movie soundtrack.

Mix-to-Mono may result in clipping if you do not leave 6 dB of headroom in the mix.

6 Select the resolution for the movie audio. Red

Book audio CDs are always 16-bit, while some multimedia presentations and CD-ROMs use 8bit resolution. You cannot create a QuickTime movie with 24-bit audio; audio from 24-bit sessions is converted to 16-bit or 8-bit audio, depending on what you choose.

7 If you intend to convert the session to 8-bit resolution for use in multimedia, use the

Squeezer option (click the Convert after Bounce option, then the Settings button to access this feature) to improve the fidelity of the converted

8-bit audio. This option uses a proprietary DSP algorithm that preprocesses the audio using compression, limiting and gating before converting to 8-bit resolution. This option is recommended for optimal results for 8-bit audio.

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8 Select the Sample Rate for the movie audio

(click the Convert after Bounce option, then the

Settings button to enable this choice). The default audio sample rate is 44100 (44.1 kHz), which is the standard sample rate for audio CDs.

Multimedia presentations and CD-ROMs may use a sample rate of 11025 (11.025 kHz) or

22050 (22.050 kHz).

9 Click Bounce, name the new movie, and choose where to save it.

10 The audio tracks are converted to the selected sample rate and bit resolution, and a new flattened movie is created incorporating the audio. You can open and play the flattened movie in any software application that supports Quick-

Time.

Pro Tools sample rate and bit resolution conversions use large amounts of processing power. You can save time by selecting a lower sample rate conversion quality in the

Editing Preferences.

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