FCP – EVS

[Tom Meegan]

Here is the EVS solution…

https://www.evs.tv/Products/MediaXchange.asp

My opinion is that that you will likely be better off outputting the time lapse from FCP as baseband video into the EVS from the router.

Here are my reasons.

1. MediaXchange requires an xFile be on the EVS network. Not all OBs (or mobile units as we call them here in the states) have an xFile.

2. Baseband video through a router is a tried and true method. Every engineer and most technicians have a good grasp of how to trouble shoot problems with baseband video signal paths. This is not true of MediaXchange transfers.

3. You are doing this once, and if it doesn’t come off you will disappoint a client. If you were going to be doing quicktime to EVS transfers on a weekly basis, the the time spent exploring the MediaXchange possibility would be worth it. For a one time event, my suggestion would be to outfit your FCP system with an appropriate Black Magic Design or AJA card, and send the video through the router to the EVS when the time lapse is complete.

My two cents.

Tom

[Ben Holmes]

Tim

We’re EVS and FCP specialists in the UK – always happy to help…

Firstly, transferring a 20 sec clip from a Mac to EVS is most easily achieved by simply playing it off the timeline via an SDI card into the router. It’s not as technically clever as using MediaXchange, but it’s a lot quicker – and EVS would tell you that themselves. Using the EVS transfer via an Xfile is only truely useful for longer edits or larger pieces of footage.

If you have a ‘beauty shot’ camera in the arena you could use for the timelapse, and enough storage, I would be tempted to capture video in large chunks to the Mac and speed it up to timelapse it on the Mac itself. Or if your EVS is an XT running version 7 or 8 of multicam, loop the beauty shot few times at 4x speed on the EVS itself – of course both these options tie up the Mac or EVS during these processes, but both may be easier than importing SLR images and manipulating them in FCP. If this is a process you are familiar and happy with, then apologies – go with what you know!

Any more help we can be, just ask.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations. FCP systems just used on Sky Sports coverage of the Ryder Cup – live from the K Club.

“The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com

[Joe Paolo]

http://www.oxblue.com

This is a service with a still camera that, via cell phone, sends a picture to a server as often as you want. You download the stills and make your movie.

We have never used them but seem nice on the phone. We use a home made time lapse still digital camera rig. It requires every-other day attention to change batteries and mem sticks. Works great for shorter events. (state fair, circus, etc.)

The oxblue solution seem perfect for construction jobs.

joe

[Ben Holmes]

Forgot to say: The reason you can’t just transfer files directly via the Mac and EVS is that, whilst FCP supports M-JPEG, the MXF wrappers on the EVS files are proprietory, and need converting before transfer to the Mac – and vice versa.

There is also a piece of software available called PictureReady which allows you to capture video and edit with it before capture is complete. It may be an ideal way of doing all this on a Mac – I would imagine you’re talking about no more than an hour for a venue to fill up – maybe two? Pete Wiggins, who often posts here, has more experience of this software, and may be able to help.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations. FCP systems just used on Sky Sports coverage of the Ryder Cup – live from the K Club.

“The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com

[Tom Meegan]

Just pitching in to support what Ben said about creating the time lapse in the EVS. I’ve done this many times, and it works very well on same day events. If you need to turn something around very fast, the alternate technique below may help.

Record the afore mentioned “beauty camera” for the hours it takes for the stage to come together directly into the EVS (lock the router panel that feeds this EVS

[Ben Holmes]

Yup – Tom’s right, that’s the rough and ready EVS timelapse option. I have found that often doing the fast jog, then double speeding the resulting looped record gives a smoother look.

It’s very quick, but it never looks quite as good as a proper timelapse.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations. FCP systems just used on Sky Sports coverage of the Ryder Cup – live from the K Club.

“The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com

[Trevor Asquerthian]

Tom, Ben,

How does the EVS file exchange with FCP work for you in the real world? What length clips are you moving around? Is it feasible to be editing 20 minute clips from multiple machines on the network (say main and 5 isos) on FCP? Currently we handle them across the network using a local XT hooked up to a linear editor, editing to tape, and thus have access to all record trains.

Last time I looked the transfer time from EVS to xFile was about 5x real time (nb 5x quicker than RT) – but I never really had a chance to see the transfer time out to FCP.

This speed was affected by how busy the rest of the network was. As we were only using it as nearline storage (and not a conduit to FCP) then that wasn’t really an issue. Well not until there weren’t enough hours in the day to transfer all the clips we had made 😉