Best HD codec for FCP 7

[Steve Eisen]

MPEG 4 (h.264) is NOT an editing codec.

DVCPro HD

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Shane Ross]

That might be something that Premiere works with, but not FCP. I don’t think you can export a format that FCP can work with without rendering. With that camera, FCP converts it to ProRes. But Premiere cannot…ProRes encoding is only open to those with FCP. There are a few go-between codecs, but they aren’t directly editable…they need to be converted again for editing. Animation, Photo JPEG…those are lossless codecs.

I’m not sure WHAT workflow you can use that has you start editing in PPro, and then sending the media for final editing in FCP. THis is why you don’t mix editing applications.

I don’t even think Automatic Duck has something for going PPro to FCP.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Michael Gissing]

Under the circumstances of your workflow, the weak point is the upload to server. Using mpeg4 is probably the best size to quality compromise that can be sensibly uploaded via the internet.

Any other codec would take longer to upload than to convert to ProRes at the FCP end. The smart thing would be to use Compressor to convert what you are currently doing to ProRes before they drop it into FCP to save render time.

[Tishin Padilla]

(Please note that I am writing this information exactly how CS4 lists it as so that readers of this post are clear about what I see in the CS4 interface. Adobe calls “MPEG-4 Video” a video codec. Not MPEG4)

If you are suggesting that I use DVCPro HD, I tried that before but, I’m shooting in 1920×1080. What you suggested brings it down to 1280 x 1080 or 1440×1080. I’d like to export 1920x 1080.

In reference to what you suggested, here are the 2 options Media Encoder offers me:
Option 1:

Format: P2 Movie
Preset: DVCPROHD 1080i 50
Video Codec: DVCPro100 1080i 50Hz
Width: 1440
Height: 1080
Frame Rate: 25
Field Type: Upper First

This looks like a PAL format so it is no good and you cannot change the frame rate

Option 2:
Format: P2 Movie
Preset: DVCPROHD 1080i 60
Video Codec: DVCPro100 1080i 60Hz
Width: 1280
Height: 1080
Frame Rate: 29.97
Field Type: Upper First

This is NTSC but knocks the width all the way to 1280

I still would like to know if there is a codec or a preset or a format in Media Encoder that will work and keep the clip at 1920×1080. Please refer to my first post for the full details of of my question. The codec I am currently using is irrelavant because it does not work.

[Tishin Padilla]

Thank you Shane. I understand what you are saying. I wish I could export an AVCHD clip then they could log and capture and have it converted to Pro Res ( maybe). What if I tried a format that forced FCP to use Log and Capture?

[Tishin Padilla]

That makes sense. I will suggest that to them. Do you think Compresser can encode faster than FCP can render?

[Steve Eisen]

You can try this: export your timeline from CS4. In your export settings, select P2 Movie and choose the DVCPro HD preset that matches your sequence. This basically creates a P2 Card. Give the entire card structure to your client to use in FCP.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Tishin Padilla]

First and foremost, thanks for taking the time to reply.

I thought of that but the only problem I see with that is it creates a 1280x 1080 frame size. My original footage is shot in 1920x 1080. The client edits in the native HDV codec. I guess they would use log and transfer to import and change it to ProRes 422 or the HDV preset. I would now be giving them 1280 x 1080 and they would bring it up to 1440×1080. I’m not sure of this but wouldn’t that be like scaling up the footage too far and losing resolution?

[Shane Ross]

[Tishin Padilla] “What if I tried a format that forced FCP to use Log and Capture?”

Log and Capture is for capturing from tape. And Log and Transfer needs footage to be in a certain tapeless file format and file structure.

Might be time to invest in FCP…

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Rafael Amador]

The video codec most interchangeable still being PhotoJPEG.
Makes quite small files and the quality is huge.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com