Final Cut Export To YouTube

[arashaw]

Hi friends-

I've been trying to dial in a workflow for making YouTube vids. I have Logic and Final Cut. I'm doing ok with the audio capture and my video is being recorded on an iPhone 11 at 4k 24fps. My video capture has some "noise" my lighting might need adjustment/improvement or maybe a mirrorless or dslr down the road...

Anyhow, I'm to the point to where I export my iPhone footage (w a SanDisk lighting flash drive) over to my iMac. At first, when I tried to bring that video file into Logic I was getting a file error and it wasn't allowing me. The work around was dragging into the QuickTime player and then exporting back to desktop as 1080p file. After doing that Logic allowed me to import. Seems kinda a long process so if anyone can explain a better flow there I'd be grateful.

I was able to sync audio and video in Logic. Is it best to do it there or bring in separate audio and video in Final Cut and do "synchronize clips" there?

In Final Cut, when I export, should I use Share/YouTubeFacebook? It seems like the quality goes way down on the video to like 480.

I'm basically looking to keep the best quality audio/video through the whole process and I'm feeling a bit stumped.

Thanks for the help in advance!

Aaron

[Doug Young]

When you choose the default You Tube destination, you can select "Settings" on the dialog that comes up, and pick any resolution you like.

I usually just save the file locally and upload it to you tube as a separate step, since I want to edit the text, thumbnails, etc, anyway.

You can also use Compressor to create almost any format/resolution, etc that you want, including uploading to various destinations. I created a compressor preset that delivers 4K, h264 with 24 bit wav audio and a data rate of 4Mbs. That's what I typically save as locally, then upload to you tube. You tube can generally handle almost anything, but the 4mbs gives me what seems to be adequate quality, without the file being quite so large.

[arashaw]

Excellent. Thank you Doug. I had a feeling I missed a step somewhere. I’m gonna go ahead and See if I can mimic that file resolution format you recommended.

Thanks again!

[Doug Young]

Here's my compressor settings. Can't swear these are "best", but they work for me.

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[egordon99]

Why are you importing video into Logic? You want to import it into FCP.

As for the final export, you can either export it as a 4k or 1080 file, depending on your needs. I wouldn't bother with any of the presets.

[arashaw]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Here's my compressor settings. Can't swear these are "best", but they work for me.

Attachment 65894

Attachment 65893

Attachment 65892

Thanks Doug. I’ll have a look when I get back home I appreciate it. I’ve seen some of your videos and they look/sound great so it seems like the settings are working for you!

[arashaw]

Originally Posted by egordon99

Why are you importing video into Logic? You want to import it into FCP.

As for the final export, you can either export it as a 4k or 1080 file, depending on your needs. I wouldn't bother with any of the presets.

As I stated, I tried both. I imported to logic to try to do the old school hand clap manual lineup method. I found, one time, when I went direct to Final Cut, the video audio seemed just a hair out of sync using final cut auto sync.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by arashaw

As I stated, I tried both. I imported to logic to try to do the old school hand clap manual lineup method. I found, one time, when I went direct to Final Cut, the video audio seemed just a hair out of sync using final cut auto sync.

In Final Cut, I'd just make a MultiCam clip out of the video and audio - even if there's only one video. It will automatically sync the audio for you.

I've never had that not work for me, but if there's still a sync issue, then Logic's easier to work with, since you can slip audio at the sample level, and zoom in far more than in Final Cut.

I often do the video editing with a rough audio, then bring the final video, ready with titles, etc, back into Logic for audio tweaking, EQ, reverb, levels, then export the final movie from Logic. it's sometimes nice to see the video while working on the audio, it tends to shape your perception a bit.

(Edited to fix my mistaken reference to Final Cut where I meant Logic)

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I often do the video editing with a rough audio, then bring the final video, ready with titles, etc, back into Final Cut for audio tweaking, EQ, reverb, levels, then export the final movie from Logic. it's sometimes nice to see the video while working on the audio, it tends to shape your perception a bit.

Humm ? I'm a bit confused with your last paragraph ..Did you mean to say you do the video editing in FC with "rough audio" then bring the final video back into Logic (rather than FC) for audio tweaking and export from Logic ?

Another question do you think there is any video advantage to working and exporting in 4K resolution, with a video that shot at 1080 ? Or is that really only viable with video shot at 4K ?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Humm ? I'm a bit confused with your last paragraph ..Did you mean to say you do the video editing in FC with "rough audio" then bring the final video back into Logic (rather than FC) for audio tweaking and export from Logic ?

Another question do you think there is any video advantage to working and exporting in 4K resolution, with a video that shot at 1080 ? Or is that really only viable with video shot at 4K ?

You're confused because what I said made no sense :-) I meant that I may bring the final edited movie back into Logic (not final cut) for final audio. I'll fix my original post.

Logic allows you to open a movie, extract the audio, tweak it, and then save the movie+new audio. Depending on the scenario, I may use one of three workflows:

1) Process the audio however in Logic, save the mix, then import that along with video(s) into Final Cut, where everything gets sync'd automatically. Edit the video - mostly camera angle switches , maybe some color correction, etc - and save, then post to You Tube or whatever.

2) Load the videos and rough audio into Final Cut, edit the movie, and save. Then import the movie into Logic, extract audio, and do whatever I need to do to the audio - apply some reverb, adjust levels, fades, etc. Save the result from Logic to a new movie, upload to you tube.

3) Do the same as 2, but in Logic synchronize the imported video with existing multi-track recordings, and then do a real mix.

The benefit of 2 & 3 is that I get to watch the video while I'm mixing audio. Not a huge deal if it's just me playing guitar, tho even there, I tend to find that the visual colors my perception - I usually apply less reverb when I'm watching a video, for example, it just seems to not match what I'm seeing. Far more important with more complex shoots. I did some stuff for a local theatre recently, for example, where we had 20 tracks of vocals, all remotely recorded during lockdown, and a very complex video presentation, with lots of scenes, people in different locations thru-out, so seeing video in Logic while doing the audio mix was important - I needed to know where people were on the screen for panning, and even stuff as simple as "I see a mouth moving, but hear no audio from that person", something I might not have noticed if I was just listening to audio. Someone else did the video in this case, so it was an iterative process. I did a quick rough mix, they edited the video with that, then sent the edited video back to me for final audio mixing.

I don't think there's any benefit to working with video at 4K unless your raw material is in 4K. Upscaling just boggs the computer down. You might have mixed media, of course. Maybe your footage is 1080, but you have 4K titles or something. I just shoot in 4K these days, then downscale if I only need 1080. Just seems sharper all around.

[anton]

Im glad i was not the only one confused by Doug's typo. I just bought Final Cut after playing with the demo for a few months.

Initially I exported the final edited video into Logic, then would export it from Logic with the new synced better quality audio, ditching the camera audio. That worked fine, though lately I've going the other way around, getting the audio perfect in Logic, then importing it and the video(s) into FCP, creating a multi cam clip and using the Logic audio only.

This video lays out the multi cam clip plus audio process pretty well. Even if you are just using one camera plus audio I think it would work the same. The FCP sync always seems correct to me.



I never thought about the video influencing how I mix the audio, as Doug mentioned. Ill have to try that sometime.

[arashaw]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Here's my compressor settings. Can't swear these are "best", but they work for me.

Attachment 65894

Attachment 65893

Attachment 65892

Looks like I need to buy a compressor to set my own parameters..
I did end up just changing settings in the YouTube export window and that's great thanks! What is you experience with upload time at 4k. took about an hour for me..

[arashaw]

Here is where I'm at so far...

I went through the basic steps of bouncing down audio from Logic, import audio into Final cut, import iPhone video to Final Cut, synchronize, then share at 4k. I haven't done any editing yet.

It seems like my audio levels are low? I don't really know how to use compression or bounce from Logic, in the most optimal way. Any videos on stereo out/bouncing down that anyone knows of (or tips) would you be willing to share links? Thanks for helping so far..

Sorry the A string is out of tune..

Aaron

https://youtu.be/HKbY1hzmtos

[arashaw]

https://youtu.be/HKbY1hzmtos

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by arashaw

Here is where I'm at so far...

I went through the basic steps of bouncing down audio from Logic, import audio into Final cut, import iPhone video to Final Cut, synchronize, then share at 4k. I haven't done any editing yet.

It seems like my audio levels are low? I don't really know how to use compression or bounce from Logic, in the most optimal way. Any videos on stereo out/bouncing down that anyone knows of (or tips) would you be willing to share links? Thanks for helping so far..

Sorry the A string is out of tune..

Aaron

https://youtu.be/HKbY1hzmtos

Short answer is (IMO) you need to set the "loudness" and peaks of your audio track in the mixing/mastering phaser before you import into FCP because tweaking that inside FCP is too late, simply because it's not an DAW, even though it does have some abilities to process the audio. You'll also want to understand the loudness "quasi-standards" at use in streaming services like YouTube.

How to get that set in your final stereo file requires some practice with setting your track levels (clip gain and fader/automation) as well as compression and limiting (the last done in the [pseudo-]mastering phase).

Logic has a loudness meter, but there are many other 3rd-party plugins and standalone tools that can be used to measure and manage your LUFS.