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HDV Workflow – offline FCP, online Avid DS
Hi all,
I’ve recently finished a doc shoot with about 40 hours of HDV 1080i footage, ultimate destination is broadcast and DVD and will probably result in three hour-long episodes. a large portion of the shoot was 3-camera interviews shot in a large theater at difficult distances, so for the online session, scene-to-scene color correction, and especially brightness/iris matching, is going to be a major consideration. Online will likely occur on a DS. Output for broadcast will need to be both HD with a downconvert to SD.
For budget reasons I would like to do the offline on FCP, although it may end up being Avid (a big IF for the purposes of this question, I know).
The big question is how to encode for traditional offline/online workflow. I am not so concerned about the quality of the various codecs – biggest concern is that since, from all I’ve read, I can’t get a grip on whether we could use the original tapes to do a conform and finish in the DS after sending out a list from FCP, what would be the best way to go? I see two options:
1. Ingest and edit native HDV. There won’t be lots of layers in the offline, mostly cuts – but there will be a large number of still photos worked in, and from what I’ve read so far all those 15 frame dissolves are going to be a bear to render if we’re working in HDV. Export the list from FCP and then do the conform from shoot tapes and grade in the DS.
or:
2. Use an intermediate codec (AIC or ProRes), lose the original timecode (yes?) and have everything on harddrives I bring to the finish session. Can we conform from those captured files, and if so, is it recommended?
Bottom line is, we’ll be doing the rough cut in the producer’s office on FCP and doing the finish in a high-level DS-HD shop. I’ll be hitting up the shop for their workflow advice of course, but was sure the wisdom of the COW could help out.
Thanks,
Stace -
2 Replies
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In my humble opinion you would be crazy to offline this in FCP if you have the option of offlining on Avid.
Still photos will not appear in any EDL. EDL’s only understand 1 video layer and only sources that originate from tapes.
The best way to move projects between FCP and Avid is Automatic Duck…but I dont think it would work that well considering all the stills you will be using. FCP and Avid handle stills completely differently….Avid does not import hi res stills the way FCP can.
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“Still photos will not appear in any EDL. EDL’s only understand 1 video layer and only sources that originate from tapes.”
John, I’m not sure I follow you here. I used several still photos in an hour-long doc this past January within FCP 4.5, then used Automatic Duck to transfer the EDL to an Avid Symphony. I used up to 9 video layers at times with graphics and stills that were simply in a folder on my hard drive. I later dumped those off to CD, took them to post which the online editor then loaded into their drives that the Avid accessed and reconnected to the clips in the timeline. In fact I remember the stills were all connected before the batch capture was complete.
With all respect I must add that I cut my teeth in NLEs on Avid dating back to the nubus days, but have spent the last several years growing with FCP. I currently teach both systems to students, but would much rather work in FCP than Avid. Another humble opinion. To each his own I suppose.
Randall
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