capture HDV as H.264

[Alan Okey]

[stewart charles] “IM using fcp 6 on a Mac book pro I’ve been asked to capture 2 HDV tapes as H.264. Do I do this in the capture settings of fcp or do I have to use compressor to convert to it?. “

You need to use Compressor for this. h.264 is a delivery codec, not an editing codec, therefore FCP does not offer h.264 for capture.

You might want to look into one of the hardware alternatives out there like the Blackmagic Video Recorder:

https://www.decklink.com/products/videorecorder/

I believe that particular product may only be for standard definition video, but there may be a similar product that can encode HD to h.264 in realtime.

[Steve Eisen]

Who asked you to do this? A shooter or editor? Are you sure they didn’t say or mean ProRes. That is what I would use to edit.

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

[Bouke Vahl]

creating good looking H.264 takes massive processor power.
That’s why it’s hard to do so.
However, you might get lucky using Adobe Media Live encoder.
I use it for live streaming SD material. No idea how it handles HDV, but perhaps a SD downscale from the deck is good enough. In that case, it’ll definitly work.

Best part, it’s free.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s

[Stewart Charles]

they have told me to make h.264 files I have told them its not an editing format and they have told me they can edit it in premire as it has multi threading and backgorund rendering!!!

so Im going to give them what they asked for.

http://www.thin-kingmedia.co.uk

[Stewart Charles]

they need me to send every thing to them as soon as possible. I had a go with adobe media encoder and it looked very dark, having said that the compressor stuff looked washed out. I htink its not going to work for them and there going to come back and ask me to work from the HDV footage however in the mean time Im going to give them what there asking for.

http://www.thin-kingmedia.co.uk

[Bouke Vahl]

Stewart,
You’re giving them a bag of hurt.
Chances are big that they end up with a gamma shift and other madness.
It would be best to rent out your deck and let them ingest themselves, saving you some tedious ‘told you’ phonecalls.
(Instead you can rent out your deck again 🙂

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s

[Stewart Charles]

ha ha ok Ill try sepaking to them again!

http://www.thin-kingmedia.co.uk

[Zane Barker]

As had been said h.264 is not a good editing codec in FCP. And I believe that the same is true for Premire.

Giving them H.264 for them to edit mo matter what they are going to edit on is giving them a big bag of hurt.

If is going to be edited in Premire then it really should be captured in Premire. Not doing that will most likely give them headaches and then they will give you headaches.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Stewart Charles]

thanks for all the info
the people Im doing it for are sure thats what they wanted so thats what Im giving them!.
I did it in the end using compressor

http://www.thin-kingmedia.co.uk