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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy Using prores and AIC in the same project

  • Using prores and AIC in the same project

    Posted by Thomas Metcalf on August 12, 2009 at 12:43 am

    I am quite a newbie and I’ve discovered that I’ve been capturing from my avchd camera into Apple intermediate code (AIC) which apparently is less good than capturing into prores 422 (originally I thought I should go for AIC to save space… but now I have bigger ambitions for the material)

    Now am at a crossroads, I have about 200 clips downloaded into aic… wondering if I should keep using aic, or start capturing in prores 422…

    My other concern is size, prores 422 and aic both create huge files, and cause I have to travel with my harddrives (with 1 backup!) space is always an issue… so while i have final cut 6 academic, I’m wondering if its worth me actually buying final cut 7, in order to be able to edit prores proxy files… though I have no idea how difficult recapturing from the proxy files to the real would be, and whether I’d mind only seeing the downgraded material when editing… oh and there’s that 1000 euro price tag on final cut 7 🙁

    So my two questions summed up are these:

    –> should I start downloading using prores and will that create problems when I start editing with both prores and AIC in the timeline?

    –> Or should i bite the bullet and purchase final cut 7 and edit using proxy prores files?

    Many thanks for any answers.

    Macbook Pro 3.06 8gig ram FCP 6

    Thomas Metcalf replied 16 years, 10 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • David Roth weiss

    August 12, 2009 at 2:17 am

    Hard drives are so inexpensive now that the most efficient use of time and money is simply to buy a bigger drive. Honestly, there’s no rocket science involved. 1.5Tb SATA drives are available all over the Web for just $120, and you can just chuck one in an inexpensive firewire enclosure and be done with it. Do you really want to deal with proxies and offline/online scenarios when it’s so needless? Isn’t time valuable to you?

    David Roth Weiss
    Director/Editor
    David Weiss Productions, Inc.
    Los Angeles

    POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

    A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

  • Mike Chandler

    August 12, 2009 at 7:44 pm

    A friend wants to edit HDV on his laptop while shooting out of the country. He asked if he should capture his tapes as HDV (30-40hrs) and then convert to SD for faster editing. I suggested he keep the files HDV and edit on a Pro Res Proxy or LT timeline. What do you suggest for his best workflow?

  • Thomas Metcalf

    August 15, 2009 at 6:57 pm

    I agree with you completely… my only problem is that I am travelling a lot and living out of my backpack at the moment and this for the next 6 months so having the macbook, the camera, mic, monopod etc… then enough harddrives to have one copy + back up on me is very heavy and tedius… I travel with 2.75 tera bytes in total and its heavy when i have take it all handbaggage on flights!

    In the end I think i’ll go Prores 422, and render all my aic files into prores… I think that makes the most sense. as you say, it might just mean another harddrive..

    Thanks for the answer tho!

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