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Advice on docu workflow with SD tape footage, FCPX or not?
Hello all,
I come here seeking advice on a docu I’ll be cutting soon,
this post might get a bit lenghty so I thank you in advance
for taking the time to read it and comment!
First off, let me say I am mainly an FCP7/Avid editor,
and have not cut any real projects with FCPX yet,
BUT I have followed FCPX’s development very closely
from the beginning and I know pretty well the program.
So, a docu is coming my way and I thought
it would be the ideal project for trying FCPX more seriously.
Still, I have a couple of concerns that make me wonder
if it would be the right choice and so I’m looking for
your always informed advice.
I haven’t got yet a lot of detailed info on the setup,
but the main thing is this:
most footage is old SD footage captured on tape,
some will be HI8, other PD150 DV.
All will be PAL as I am in France.
I might also have some HDV footage from a sony Z7 but am not sure.
So here are my questions:
1) this is the most important one:
what would be your advice concerning
ingest of the footage, knowing a good part (HI8)
cannot (as far as I understand) be ingested directly into FCPX as it will not be through
a firewire controlled device?
What do you guys recommend for this?
We will have a Blackmagic card for capture,
so was thinking of using Blackmagic’s capture software.
Anybody using it? Advice?
I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet,
but I wonder what the logging capabilities would be there,
and how to pre-organize my footage for FCPX later.
Or if you guys have any other/better ideas
on software for capture/logging
I’m all ears!
I could also log and capture on FCP7
and edit on X…
Of course my worry is that it might get unwieldy
logging the footage outside of the NLE,
as it might be a workflow in which
the director may start taking notes alone
and then maybe we will ingest bits here and there as we go
based on his notes, as opposed to ingesting everything from the go.
This is still not defined, as I don’t know yet
how much footage there is or how many weeks
we will have for the edit, so this will get clearer later.
This is the reason that makes me wonder
if I should stick to FCP7 or Avid, or even try Premiere
– any thoughts on how Premiere handles logging and capturing SD footage,
would anybody recommend that solution?-
in order to ingest and log directly into the NLE,
seems easier to organize especially if we capture
here and there as we advance through the edit…
All your thoughts on this will be greatly appreciated.
Also, what codec would you recommend?
I’m thinking simple ProRes422 would be enough,
although I wonder if even Prores LT could suffice
and make for a lighter workflow.2) How is FCPX handling SD footage these days?
I ask because I remember reading a couple of years ago
here on the cow or maybe over on Fcp.co
people saying that FCPX didn’t handle all that well SD footage,
can’t remember exactly the issues mentioned,
so I ask those of you with experience using SD footage in FCPX
if they have had ANY issues at all and what
they were, as well as solutions they found if needed.3) Finally, performance also makes me weary.
Of course I know a lot of big projects have been cut on FCPX,
but I’ve also read a lot of complaints with FCPX’s performance
on bigger projects (by that I mean of course large sequences in the old parlance…),
even recently here on the cow Oliver Peters seemed to complain
about it.
We will have a new machine which they will buy soon,
probably a 5k Imac or maybe even a MacPro,
so I would suppose performance should be more than ok
for sd material, but still, I wonder…
So, your thoughts?Thanks again a lot for your time,
looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
I’m really hoping your answers will calm my fears
as I’ve been meaning to give FCPX a go for a while
and I’m longing to cut trackless and use
all the wonderful organizational tools it offers…
Just as long as I have a fluid workflow and cutting experience!
Cheers -
80 Replies
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Definitely possible with FCPX but you’ll need the right gear and overall approach. Would definitely do thorough testing before committing to a specific platform.
Ingesting into 7 is definitely a possibility but you could also probably do this more efficiently with the right deck and Blackmagic or AJA capture hardware combo. Might be worth bringing in a workflow consultant if the project is important enough. And yes that was a shameless self-plug.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP eXchange – FCPX Workshops -
If you have the budget, working with a team like FCPWorks would be a VERY smart decision. Re-inventing wheels via personal internet search is sometimes fun, but also can be VERY stressful when serious money is on the line. ; )
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Thanks Noah,
did I mention I’m in France?
I’ll definitely do some testing as soon as I can.
As far as the gear goes I think we will be fine,
as far as I know the director has the decks required to read the tapes
and has some brand of Blackmagic Design’s Intensity cards
that should work OK.
Was wondering more about the fact of capturing using Blackmagic’s
supplied software, MediaExpress,
and then getting that into FCPX.[Noah Kadner] “And yes that was a shameless self-plug”
No worries! All fair game, thanks again! -
Hey Bill,
what happened to the other post you wrote?
I received one notification on my mail
but don’t see it here anymore.
I appreciate your offer and would surely be glad
to talk to someone having gone through that workflow.[Bill Davis] “If you have the budget, working with a team like FCPWorks would be a VERY smart decision”
Bill, sure, that would be pretty nice, but not in the realm of possibilities for this project.
[Bill Davis] “Re-inventing wheels via personal internet search is sometimes fun”
Well, it is clear I won’t be plunging into the workflow based just on some
loose internet search.
I still have some time ahead of me before the start of the project
and will definitely do some testing.
Just wanted to know what the general thoughts on this
kind of workflow from people having done it were… -
Yep that is fine. I would suggest getting it into ProRes HQ for starters. And of course do some math calculations to determine how much storage you need for ingest/backups/etc.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP eXchange – FCPX Workshops -
Some important considerations are what are you finishing with. SD or HD?
At what stage do you intend to do the upscale and what finishing tool is being used?With a lot of SD Hi8 footage what does the deck output? If it is just DV then the Decklink card and capture software may not be best choice. If it is SDI then I don’t think the cheaper Intensity cards are SDI just HDMI but there will be cheap entry level SDI Decklink cards and their capture software is pretty good.
Import to remember is in SD PAL, DV codec is the only lower field format. Having the ability to capture direct to ProRes via an SDI you can correct the fields to upper. That is really important and I would hope you can avoid DV codec which is awful. Even if you use the old trick in FCP7 of converting firewire capture to ProRes codec, the field order will be wrong for PAL.
Given your source material, I doubt you will see any benefit with ProRes HQ over ProRes422 but bigger files.
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Critical to post planning is to talk to the people who will grade, online and sound post this doco. They will have their own issues that may steer you to how best to setup your workflow and if they have any issues with any NLE choices.
All well and good to ask on a forum like this but lots of editors here do not do complex collaborative workflows with transfer of assets to other finishing systems so some advice may not be keeping that in mind. Many do so don’t be afraid to ask about other peoples workflows when assessing advice.
I just do post grade, online and sound post using Fairlight and da Vinci Resolve (12). All NLEs have their idiosyncratic behaviors and Resolve has its own issues. At the moment I am tearing my hair out over naming conventions for still images. Resolve sees stills as a video if the file name uses sequential numbers anywhere in the file name. Knowing things like that will help you setup naming conventions.
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I think Pro Res 422 HQ would surely be overkill
given the source footage resolution,
as Michael says I’d probably only gain larger files but little else… -
Thanks for replying Michael,
my guess is we’ll probably edit and finish in SD,
although that is not yet definitive.
And I definitely will keep a close eye
on the field order issue,
hoping to avoid DV and go all ProRes.
As far as collaboration goes I have done it before
so I am aware of things to be considered.
Also I may be doing the color work myself,
so one less step to supervise… -
I’m in a similar situation with much footage (over 30 years) in SD, primarily NTSC DV, but also Betacam SP NTSC and even 3/4″ NTSC. I’ve done tests with the Blackmagic Teranex 2D and their MediaExpress capture software. It seems to create good ProRes files. I am using Panasonic DVCPro 640/650 SDI out decks, and Betacam/3/4″ Sony decks.. The 640/650 SDI decks can handle mini DV and DVCPro from my broadcast Panasonic AJ-D810 SD camera as well. Even some Nikon DSLR file based, and Sony EX-1 HD NTSC 1080.
I want to bump the SD all to pillar-box 3×4 1080 at the beginning, as that is the primary way people now view video. Saw the Ken Burns Civil War Docs recently, and they were all 3×4 HD pillar box, though they have may have been uprezed after posting in standard SD. At any rate, with the Teranex 2D already in house, I’m thinking of bringing the SD tape in at 1080 ProRes 422 via Blackmagic MediaExpress to begin with and combining that with the file based HD from the Sony EX-1 NTSC HD 1080 and the Nikon footage in a 1920 x 1080 HD timeline using FCPX.
I’m open to any input at this time as I am ready to begin digitizing the tape and doing tests, but that is my approach at the moment. Adobe is not in the picture except for pre or post production, possibly Audition for audio. I do have CS6 Production Premium, but most know my attitude toward rental going forward. Any suggestions would be appreciated here, as well. This is literally a lifetime of work that will end up as quite a few individual projects. Come from a broadcast/feature background, so want to maintain those standards, even if it ends up being mostly streamed.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: Mid 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 15″: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems
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