Hello,

I am creating a video for Facebook and have created my project to be 1080x1080 pixels (a square) because that's what their algortithm favors right now.

I am new to Media Composer and quickly discovered after importing my footage into bins that it squishes my media to fit the 1:1 aspect ratio of my project. I looked into how to fix this and came across the Frame Flex feature, but it seems that the feature only works with linked footage, as importing footage changes it's resolution to 1080x1080.

Frame flex would work great if I was using linked footage, but because I'm using an external hard drive and editing with the footage linked from it my MC has been very slow. For this reason, I wish to import it.

Is it possible for me to use Frame Flex with imported footage? If not, is there any way to have the footage exist outside of frame (if it's a 4k clip, for example) and I can scale it into the frame as I like? (Like when using the "resize" effect and scaling a segment?)

If not, maybe I'll just move my footage to my PC and edit with the footage linked from there so things process a bit more smoothly.

Thanks for the help.

Scrap teh imported media ( I only suggest importing media that can't be linked)

AMA link the sources. Set the frame flex as needed and then transcode. You have the same type of media as you would have done via import but with more control.

If you select a batch of AMA linked clips in a bin and chosoe source settings framflex you can adjust them all in one hit. Just click apply and ok at the end.

Hi Pat, 

I have a somewhat similar problem. I want to use 4K Video in a 1920 x 1080p project. AMA Linked footage is too slow to work with. I am able to use Source Settings on Linked media to set the section of the footage I like and then hit Transcode on the linked file. However, this only works for an interview type footage where the subject doesn't move much. I also have footage in which subject is moving (playing/ running etc), for such footage I want to be able to move the section I want to use in the clip. That seems to only be possible after I place the footage on the timeline in a sequence and use Effects mode to keyframe the panning I need in the footage. Transcode doesn't seem to work in this case.

What do you recommend in this scenario? Export the sequence from the timeline and import back into the bin?

Thanks,

Swati 

Pat Horridge:

Scrap teh imported media ( I only suggest importing media that can't be linked)

AMA link the sources. Set the frame flex as needed and then transcode. You have the same type of media as you would have done via import but with more control.

If you select a batch of AMA linked clips in a bin and chosoe source settings framflex you can adjust them all in one hit. Just click apply and ok at the end.

After playing with the transcode options a bit, I found that if I choose Source Frame Rate/ Source Dimensions,  the Transcoded file remains at 4K, allows all kind of manipulation when dropped in the timeline and works at fast speed too, which is what I think you were alluding to in your earlier comment as well!

I don't think this process should need any re-linking either and can be rendered with these transcodes. 

Indeed if you transcode and retain the original raster size you can key frame in the timeline. 

As long as the Transcoded quality is high enough that can be exported without conform back to the sources.

Thanks for the confirmation Pat. 

Interestingly, I noticed that linking 4K footage inside a 4K project also gives the option for Frameflex. I was under the impression that Frameflex is only available when the linked footage has a higher resolution than the project raster size.

Also, playing with this 4K frameflex transcoded media inside a 4K project, I can see that it is still possible to pan & zoom using keyframes inside the timeline. I am assuming that this feature is only going to be useful in a 4k project if the final export is made at a lesser resolution than 4K otherwise cropping into the footage would degrade the quality of a 4K export? Would you agree?