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Canon 5D Mark II native editing in FCP 7
Hi everyone,
I´m editing a feature shot on canon 5d mark II ( 30 fps, 44,1 kHz) on FCP 7. I followed your setup guide and it seems to open without any problem in fcp. It´s a german production and will be converted after the final cut to 25fps. Right now we edit it with 30fps native, I can´t afford transcoding the h.264 to prores. I understand that the camera doesn´t deliever editing friendly format but I´m only the editor and for educational purpose, I would like to edit it native. I have a mac pro 3,1, quadcore intel xeon, 3,2 GHz, 8 GB RAM, running mac os 10.6.3, we are using blackmagic card. the project is on a raid 8TB (4,12 TB free) with fairly good speed test for 10bit YUV 422, HDTV 1080 fps read at 129 and write at 132 MB/s, by NTSC fps read at 770, write at 782 MB/s. Why doesn´t the picture play back properly? the sequence setting for compressor is h.264 and there´s no choice on RT on the timeline. in the viewer it plays fine but not in the canvas, it stops every second with dropped frame warning. I have been looking into the user settings and others and can´t find what I could possibly have done wrong. I must admit, it´s the first time I use 30pfs editing timebase but that shouldn´t matter, should it? Any help would be very much appreciated.
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14 Replies
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You can’t afford not converting from h264 to ProRes. FCP doesn’t edit h264 natively. 30fps to 25 fps is going to be a problem, but the immediate problem is all your footage must be converted to ProRes 422 and the sound must be converted to 48khz.
If you choose to ignore this advice, which has been repeated here endlessly since the 5Dmk2 hit the streets, you will not be able to play the footage smoothly whilst editing. Search this forum for the best advice on how to go about converting your footage. The latest advice is to use the Log & Transfer plugin from Canon.
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that sounds really bad for me but thanx for ur prompt reply. the shooting team ran a test workflow n they told me it worked well, that´s why they want to keep editing it native and it´s only possible with fcp 7 so far i´ve been told. it´s my first canon 5d video project and it´s turned out not working for me. i´m not doing the 30- 25 conversion lucky me. the reason why we want h.264 also because of color correction and grading later. the dop wants it h.264. from her test, prores looses lots of image information, especially in low light.
maybe someone has a different experience, hopefully a successful one to share?
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H264 is NOT an editing format. Search this forum (and every other forum that deals with FCP and Canon HD DSLRs) and you will find a lot of people that have run into problems and take note of the advice experienced people have given them. If you persist with this workflow expect to run in to a lot of problems. Your color grading will be particularly problematic.
Why are shooting 30fps when you want to output at 25fps. There is a firmware upgrade for this camera that allows it to shoot 24, 25, 30fps.
If you want to get an experts advice about using this camera start here https://philipbloom.co.uk/
Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/ -
Hi Trang,
Probably you will be able to cut in FC, but as soon as you start to apply any kind of filter, transitions,speed changes or more than one layer, you may start to have problems.
In those cases there is no much point to asking around. Try it your self and see if it’s works.
rafael -
the film was shot between 2009 and 2010 so it started with 30fps and the team decided to stay with 30 fps until the picture lock. it is already shot and i´m only in charge of the editing. my search over the internet also have shown that H.264 not a friendly editing format. the team that performed the test workflow are now not available so I´m searching and hope to find some answer before they get back to me. if there had been some misunderstanding/mistake and i would have to transfer it to prores 422, would one then conform to H.264 for grading or on what codec/format would you grade it?
I appreciate your response.
Trang
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Hi Trang,
I think that the easier and best way is to convert from the beginning to Prores p25 and work with that.
You can do it in Compressor (set the Frame Control ON for the time base conversion).
You may try as well MPGStreamclip that is faster. Make a test.
rafael -
YOu can edit H.264 in FCP…and you won’t need to render. But it won’t be easy. H.264 is a difficult codec to work with, as mentioned, it isn’t an editing codec. You won’t get any of the RT options you see with other codecs that ARE editing codecs. H.264 is pretty processor intensive, decoding the codec while trying to work with it. And you really could benefit from fast external hard drives, but they will only help a little.
Professionals that shoot with The 5D and 7D…the DSLRs, convert to an edit friendly format. Well, some will try not to, and for very short projects (say 30-seconds to 2 min), it might be OK, but far from as easy as the editing codecs.
If you want things to work right, you need to make sure that they are converted properly. If not, you will be struggling. This has been the experience of many many people.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
The DOP thinks H264 is better for color correction? WOW that is a first. It will come down to spending time up front and get it over with or have slow downs all through the process. ProRes will hold up better through the process especially the color correction.
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Thanx everyone for sharing your opnions, experience and advices. I´m now considering editing the film in avid as an option. the canon structure (card structure) and file names have been changed which makes it difficult for me to transcode in batch with mpegstreamclip/compressor. Well I guess I´ll encounter the same problem with transcoding in DNxHD. It´s an option cos the grading coudl be done on nucoda filmmaster and it works well with avid project.
it´s pity that there´re not many threads on avid-canon 5d. anyone got a hint?
thanx in advance,
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tia
when i transcode my footage in compressor do i choose
Apple ProRes 422 for Progressive material (High Quality)
or the Apple ProRes 422 for Interlaced material (High Quality)Ross Byron Boughton
Editor / Webmaster / Sound Designer
https://www.inch.com/~bellevue/
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