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Best workflow for multiple HD clips
This is my first time posting here but this site has helped me before by just reading through the boards. I always come here looking for answers but I finally decided to post hoping someone can help me. So here’s my dilemma…
I’m shooting high school football games in 720p 60fps with my HVX-200. I have 9 clients to do separate videos for. Each video will be the edited footage of the game with the player’s number/name/position at the beginning and end of the game footage.
Because each video is specific to the player, each one will have to be exported,encoded and burned as its own sequence instead of just making one master disc and making 8 copies. I’m working with a Macbook Pro (OSX 10.6, 2.6 Dual Intel, 4gb RAM), FCP 6 to edit the P2 clips and if i export as Quicktime movie, the file is around 9Gb.
Now after this step is where i’m looking for a better workflow. The last game i worked on I exported using Compressor to get the footage into H.264 format just to save time when i would have to export all 9 sequences but still have good image quality. I found out the hard way (and after reading it soon after) that H.264 is not an editing format. Since the deadline was drawing closer and couldn’t wait 3 hours for another Compressor job, I had to put titles around the clips and then encode and burn using Toast 8.
Can anyone give me some advice on which formats or Compressor settings i should be working with on a project like this? I’ve been pulling my hair out all weekend trying to find a smarter way to approach this.
Thanks in advance…
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8 Replies
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Stick with DVCProHD and buy an external hard drive. The codec is easy to handle, it’s what you’re shooting, external hard drives are relatively inexpensive.
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I’m not too clear on what you are trying to achieve (what do you want to deliver to the client, exactly?) but never the less I think this question is better posted in the Final Cut Pro Forum?
If you have a specific compressor, H.264 or encoding/compression question then we are here to help.
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“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”Steve Ballmer To USA Today
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I’ll be giving the clients a SD DVD each with titles specific to the player. Since I have 9 sequences to export individually would it be better to use Compressor first then work with the smaller file to save time exporting those sequences? And if so which is a good Compressor setting for be?
I tried to compress the main sequence first using “DVD-Best Quality 60 min” but it gave me a file with a .m2v extension and I couldn’t bring it back into FCP. I couldn’t even play the file in Finder.
I’m just looking for some advice on which Compressor settings I should be using to get decent image quality to a 4.7Gb DVD and save some time working with these 9 sequences. I’ll post my question about the workflow in the FCP forum. Thanks for getting back to me 🙂
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Does the client want a DVD that plays in a DVD player or a DVD full of clips that they can then further edit with?
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“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”Steve Ballmer To USA Today
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It would be a DVD to play in a DVD player.
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Right, normal workflow would be to complete your editing and then export your finished sequence with the same sequence settings to Compressor which will then encode MPEG-2 files that you would then drop into DVD studio pro in order to author & burn the finshed DVD, with titles chapters etc..
Stick with the 60 minute best setting in compressor__________________________________________________________________
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”Steve Ballmer To USA Today
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I actually tried to use convert the footage using the MPEG-2 Best Quality 60 min setting in Compressor, but it ended up giving me a 2.5Gb file that I couldn’t open. It had the .m2v extension and couldn’t open in FCP, DVD SP or Finder.
Usually all the clips have a thumbnail of the video in Finder but this one just had the Quicktime logo and said “Can’t open this file”.
Is there a codec I’d need to be able to open it? I have Perian and thought that was the do-it-all wonder codec 🙂
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[Chris Bahr] “Is there a codec I’d need to be able to open it? I have Perian and thought that was the do-it-all wonder codec :)”
You should be able to open it using VLC, which is free, otherwise you’ll need to buy the MPEG-2 Quicktime component from Apple. If VLC can’t open it then there’s something wrong with the file and you need to re-transcode it, but don’t mess with the settings in compressor or you might make another unusable file
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“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”Steve Ballmer To USA Today
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