FCP 5.0.4 and XDCAM

[Mark Maness]

Well… That’s what I am doing right now anyway. We have all the newest updates and lastest patches applied and I still would rather use the old method at the moment. Let me explain why…

At the current time, the Sony plugin only supports the 25 mb/s HDV setting in XD HD. To me, that’s no good. I want the best possible quality so we are using the 35 mb/s setting on our F350 camera. I then use my F70 deck to output thru HD-SDI to my Kona 2 where I capture using DVCPRO HD. The quality is absolutely fantastic.

Let me say… The HDV (25 mb/s) setting is the same type as Sony’s HDV cameras, but the other settings (18 mb/s and 35 mb/s) are different than standard HDV. The 35 mb/s setting is the best quality that uses a type of HDV but its not the same. And to eliminate all the HDV drawbacks, its always best to capture in another codec. Your only choices at the moment are Uncompressed 8-bit or 10-bit OR DVCPRO HD (1080 or 720). The Uncompressed codecs for myself are somewhat of overkill. DVCPRO HD is slowly becoming the industry standard for any HD work. Mainly for space considerations.

So…. to answer your question… The quality of DVCPRO HD and XDCAM HD is absolutely gorgous! Personally, I’d still upgrade your FCP to 5.1, its only about $99. If you have any other questions about XDCAM HD, feel free to ask!

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Michael Allen]

Will I be able to get the same results using the component inputs on my Kona LH. The 330 has component output and my board has component in. Does this change things?

[Michael Allen]

One option I may have to live with is using the glass off of my DSR 400 for a short time until I can afford the HD lens. How much was your lens? Have you tried any SD lens on this camera? How do you think the 35mb XD Cam holds up against cameras like the varicam or other broadcast HD cameras? Also, I did post a question about using the component inputs on the Kona LH because the 330 has component out. Does this create another level of compression that may give me problems?

[Mark Maness]

No… not really. But using the HD-SDI is always better. But we also use HDV and I capture it using the component ouputs on my M10U deck. Quality looks great to me!

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Mark Maness]

Well, using an SD lens could create problems for you. The glass in an SD lens is not as sharp as an HD, but I do understand the cost considerations. We have not tried to use and SD lens on ours. We purchased a Canon wide angle lens, the industrial model, not the pro model. We, too, have tight budets and have consider it BUT after lots of discussions we decided to get an HD lens with our camera.

As for being able to hold its own with other HD formats. YES! The quality is such that the Discovery Channel recently ok’ed it to be used for their prodction standards. And their standards are extremely high, kinda like National Geographic. That says alot! I dare you to be able to pick it out of a sample of other HD formats when compared. Its awesome!

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Ian Roach]

Hi All,

Finding this post has been very fortuitous. I’ll be starting a project using the F350 XDCam HD at 35 Mb/s and I’ve been looking for the best edit workflow.

I have been editing HDV footage with Sony Vegas (with very good results) but I’ve been looking at either Avid or Final Cut Pro for the XDCam HD. I was a little disappointed to find out Final Cut (and Avid too unless you spend a pile of money – unless I’m reading the literature incorrectly) only supports XDCam at 25Mb/s. Does anybody know why? Or more importantly, when Final Cut will support XDCam HD at 35 Mb/s? It would be nice to take advantage of file based transfer rather than going through a component conversion – although it is comforting to know I can do it.

Further to that, is 10 bit uncompressed HD possible to work with in Final Cut Pro or is it just too sluggish on the system?

We’ll be renting the cameras for this project and should be getting them at the end of this week. If people are interested, I would be happy to post my thoughts about it once I get a chance to play with it.

Thank you for your input.

Ian

[Mark Maness]

Well, Ian….

The workflow choice for everybody at the moment is the DVCPRO HD workflow. It doesn’t tax the system and the quality is absolute stunning. You could do 10-bit just fine, but you would need a huge storage and a super fast computer (nothing slower than a dual 2.7 with plenty of RAM).

If you’d like, I think there is an update for Vegas to use the XDCAM HD. I heard that Vegas could do XD HD at NAB. And that would make since, it is Sony’s software and they did kill their edit station again. BUT FCP does use DVCPRO HD really well and I would bet that almost all of us with XD HD are using this method.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Andy Mees]

The really big adopters for XDCAM HD are news stations, the format and workflow are an awesome combination for short form ENG work.
Working with an MPEG based codec for longer form editing is a real pain, and its no surprise so many are opting for the baseband to DVCPRO HD route

Its still probalbly a little early to tell what will be the industry standard for HD work, but for now, on the FCP platform, there is a groundswell of opinion in favor of DVCPRO HD.

With so much more to come in the HD realm, it will be really interesting to see where it all takes us. I’m looking forward to the second incarmation of the XDCAM HD hardware and codecs with 2/3″ chips and 4:4:4 color space.

Cheers
Andy

[Mschirad]

Unfortunately I’m using HDV 25 XDCam HD footage on a Quad G5, and I’m trying to export to HDCam HD disk our hour and 7 minute program. It’s telling me 11 hours of writing video to disk, which is something I’d expect for HDV conforming, but…..I thought I did a “conform” render yesterday already.

I started the export process overnight, but at some point it crashed FCP; no idea why. So I’ve started all over again.

I’m looking for ideas why an XDCam HD export might crash, and why it seems….seems as if it wants to conform/render the entire sequence from the beginning even though that render process has already happened.

And yes, I left the “re-render” option unchecked on the XDCam HD export dialog box.

Soooooo, I’m under deadline and looking for perspective. Any to spare?

thanks,

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Gareth Sylvester-bradley]

Have you tried using the ‘Current Settings’ option in the XDCAM Export dialog? This seems to avoid the re-render. (Of course, you have to make sure your sequence settings exactly match your XDCAM configuration.)