Anyone want mixed formats in the same timeline badly? More than multicam?

[Jeff Carpenter]

Hardware is what you need.

With the right capture card you can capture anything to the same format (hopefully uncompressed). That’s how the Avids do it and it’s really the only solution I can think of. I mean, if you’re trying to edit formats with different numbers of pixels in them that’s going to be a problem, no matter how advanced the software gets. If you do the conversion as you capture then there’s no problem.

[Shane Ross]

Need to mix formats? Capture them all with a capture card in one format: 8-bit or 10-bit uncompressed. Different formats have different dimensions, so you are going to have to resize and render in one format or another.

With the version of Avid that I use (meridian, symphony) you have to digitize in one format to work…mixing formats does not.

Need uniformity…use one uniform capture setting and use a card.

[Tim Langston]

It a shame that Cinewave is going bye bye. Compressed and uncompressed on the same timeline, it’s beautiful. I have Tiger sitting right here waiting, that will kill my Cinewave and mixed formats. Shed a tear for me.

Tim

Tim Langston
Cryin’ Out Loud Productions
Fort Wayne, IN
http://www.colproductions.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

What would be nice is a true offline/online process as elegant as Media100s. M100 still has the best hardware I have ever worked with, I just wish they made it for use with FCP. At least give us the opportunity of have an offline version of the uncompressed codec that plays nicely with the uncompressed codec on the same timeline. That would be tremendous.

I imagine once hardware manufactures get their HD feature sets completely up and running, we will start to see a little more tinkering with mixed formats in the same timeline. Just a hunch.

jg

———–
AJA Kona2>HD10C2>D10A

Decklink Extreme

[Dom Silverio]

Actually, Avid does more than that. You can mix different format – DV25, DV50, uncompress 8 bit, 10 bit, HD, SD, etc. [some limitation on the SD/HD mixing]. Given it is all OMF or MXF [even that you can mix] it is still better than all DV or all uncompress. You can even render on different formats.

[Shane Ross]

Well…yes you can, but they aren’t in their “native” format, which is what people are wanting. When you capture with an Avid, you capture 15:1, 2:1, 1:1, 20:1…basically capturing all the footage as the SAME format. So, yes, it played from a DV25 deck, or a digibeta deck, but you captured it using Avid’s codecs, thus making them all uniform.

it is the mixing of native formats that some people want…and that cant be done easily.

[Mel Matsuoka]

[Shane Ross] “Need to mix formats? Capture them all with a capture card in one format: 8-bit or 10-bit uncompressed. Different formats have different dimensions, so you are going to have to resize and render in one format or another. “

To me, it’s FAR more important for FCP to be able to playback Animation codec clips in realtime than it is to have it play different resolutions at the same time in realtime.

Until the Apple/Blackmagic Uncompressed 8 & 10-bit codecs can support alpha channels, using the Animation codec to render clips with transparancy will continue to be the main workflow in most studios. It’s really frustrating to have to continually re-render clips that have an alpha channel on it, even if the clip is the same resolution as the current sequence.

[Walter Biscardi]

[JeremyG] “What would be nice is a true offline/online process as elegant as Media100s. M100 still has the best hardware I have ever worked with, I just wish they made it for use with FCP. “

I asked for a while to get the simplicity of Media 100’s offline / online process to FCP and I don’t think it will ever happen. Too much money invested in the Mangler (whoops, Media Manager). I mean how much simpler can it be than to capture at low rez, edit your project, then recapture your Sequence at high resolution. I guess that’s too simple for FCP.

Media 100 still has the best offline / online workflow of any NLE out there. It’s a shame others can’t grasp the simplicity of it.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Dom Silverio]

This is no different if you use DV25 or uncompress codec from Apple. You still can’t mix DV50, DV25, DV100 and uncompress SD in FCP and they are ALL Apple’s codec. Avid can mix these format.
So I think you are arguing semantics.

MXF and OMF can be in the same timeline. These are 2 different file formats [with the same ‘root’]. DV50 and HD do not exist in the Avid Meridien codec but 15:1s, 1:1 8 bit, etc. So yes Avid makes all of them but they are still of different formats – just like DV50 and 8 bit 1:1 from Apple.

Third, you don’t need special hardware. Xpress Pro in software mode can mix all this in the timeline and play it back. Given it won’t output to firewire unless transcoded in DV25 or DV50, however, you can play it back and apply some RT FX with no problem. You can even do multicam. With Mojo and Adrenaline you can play it out in RT.

[Shane Ross] “but they aren’t in their “native” format, which is what people are wanting.”

What native format are you talking about? DV25, DV50 and DVC Pro HD are all supported in their native formats. There is no native format for HDCAM, at least for NLEs except in XPRI, as you know.

So I am not understanding how you are differentiating.

[Dennis Lisonbee]

AMEN to that! FCP Media Manager works, but you have to do a dance on the full moon.

Media 100 also had great bins, where one organize great looking clip icons in useable sizes and no unusable “negative” space. This is one place the bin hold over from Premiere just does not make it.

Dennis Lisonbee