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Ingest a 12-hour clip?
As a follow-up to my DSLR Video Forum post (https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/280/9397) about a single 12-hour clip… assuming it’s possible to acquire such a monster clip, the next awesome challenge is preparing it for viewing at an art exhibit.
I tested, and in fact an SD card with content shot from a Panny GH2 will play its native files directly on a Panny TV, from the TV’s internal SD card slot. Although after a bit of time the card does get hot! So it could be shown as is, straight from the card.
But here’s the question for this forum: what if a touch of color correcting, simple audio work, or adding text head and tail is necessary? Is it possible to ingest and manipulate a 12-hour clip in FCP?
I’ll have the media drive space, and of course I’ll copy the SD card folder onto an external drive before ingest, but will Log & Transfer freak out with such an immense clip?
I’d simply test it and find out, but a 128GB SD card is $160, and I’d otherwise not need one. The budget will come through after planning is done.
Anyone with experience in ULTRA-long clips? Any knowledge of operational limitations of FCP?
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5 Replies
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afaik, there is a 2 hour sequence length limit in FCP.
Now that does not have to be a problem. You can break up the captured clip in multiple parts, and append them later on.However, if you’re using a cheap cam like this and the price of the card is already a concern, how do you feel about a couple of days editing?
Even audio post alone makes that you need to listen to the entire part…My advice, be prepared as good as possible and do it right in the first place. For top/tail, remember the good old days. A fade in was done with the lens, as it was expensive in post. No reason you could not do the same.
Personally i’m afraid that you make so many wrong choices during shooting (it is a close to impossible job for this duration) that there is no editing that can fix it to be convincing. So just let it happen and be happy with whatever comes out.Bouke
https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros -
I don’t know of any time limit in FCP timelines, and I’ve done some long ones. I just finished working on a 5-hour 720p DVCPROHD recording from a conference. There were some issues with log and transfer crashing FCP when trying to finish writing the captured file, but setting in and out points on the source, then importing it in smaller 1.5 hour clips worked fine. I then just put them together again in a timeline.
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Thanks, Chris, that’s a very helpful experience, and it’s the sensible method to break the native clip up into segments, as Bouke also suggested, and import them rather than use Log & Transfer. If this project moves forward, that’s what I’ll do.
That also made me realize I could edit the whole thing in segments as well, manageable chunks each as long as a feature film. Then the issue would be how to play them consecutively– seamlessly–at the exhibition. That playback issue will be much easier to address than these very weighty clip ingest and edit challenges.
Bouke– I think you meant that FCP has a clip length limit, not a sequence length limit of 2 hours (or else many feature films would be practically un-editable with FCP). I’ve had long sequences before, just never crazy-long as this project might need.
And as far as the costs and fees and such, this particular project is an art exhibition, which I mentioned in the linked original post in DSLR Video but not here, sorry. 90% of art projects are poorly funded and have many volunteers and supporters like me who depend on their commercial jobs to pay the bills. So you’re right it would be a “wrong choice” if a regular job, but in this case it’s for art’s sake!
Finally, just a note about my “cheap” Panasonic GH1 and GH2 cameras– for two years they’ve been the foundation of a very happy body of documentary work, the clients of which don’t know or care what I paid for them. Each kit was almost 1/10 the original cost of my HVX-200 and Firestore kit which they replaced– and now I get depth of field!
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Oh, no disrespect from me!
Just, get it done in a sensible way you keep your sanity and meet your deadline.For appending the smaller pieces, that can easilly be done in QT (I even can get you a simple app. that does this for you), or you can cat some codecs using simple command line stuff.
Great if you have little depth of field, but for a project like this 🙂
Bouke
https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros -
Thanks, Bouke… I’ve “pasted” clips together in QT Pro, but that may or may not work with a gargantuan clip build; I can try it using a long movie file and see. Probably better to figure on seamlessly playing multiple clips at the exhibition.
But now I’m curious– what Mac app do you recommend to append segments into a new movie file?
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