FCP format War

[Rainer Wirth]

Hi John,

you have to use Pro res (no HQ) compressor HD. Don’t change the timeline settings. The HDcam material and I think the DVCPro material will turn green in the timeline. It means you have to render, but only in the end a little. It depends on your Mac. The only other way is to capture over a deck, which you probably don’t have, because you would need two or one and leave the other untouched.

Tell me whether this works.

Rainer

[Aaron Neitz]

Export one to the other’s format before you start editing. Takes time, but saves time and frustration later.

[Dan Brockett]

XDCAM is a long GOP format which will quickly degrade with rendering, color correction, etc. so you should just convert it to ProRes before editing. If you have a fast Mac, it won’t take long at all and if you have a slow Mac, it doesn’t take that terribly long either. ProRes and DVCPRO HD play very well together in the time line.

This whole thing about mixed format time lines is overrated, it still pays off in the end to just convert to ProRes.

Dan

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[Michael Sacci]

If it was me I would convert the HDV to DVCProHD to match the other footage. While ProRes may play nice why have to different codec? I would agree about using ProRes if there was not DVCProHD to match up with.

But like others have said, a little time up front will save a lot of time through out the edit. It will also retain quality.

[Dan Brockett]

Not a terrible choice but:

1. DVCPRO HD = 8bit, ProRes = 10bit
2. DVCPRO HD = abbreviated raster 720=960×720, 1080=1140×1080
ProRes = full raster. Assuming the XDCAM footage is XDCAM EX, it
begins in full raster, why reduce it? If it is regular XDCAM HD,
then that format too is abbreviated raster, then it wouldn’t
matter as much.

I just cut a project that was DVCPRO HD and ProRes on the same tine line, it worked great. I have converted 5D MKII footage to both DVCPRO HD and ProRes and didn’t see any difference. Just depends on how much of a purist you are and what kind of source material you have. If there are a lot of gradients and high-con edges, 10 bit has much less banding and jaggies.

Dan

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[Dean Sensui]

Use Compressor to convert your footage to a common format. Compressor can use all processors in your Mac, whereas if you export from FCP it’ll take a lot longer.

Compressor also provides much more options in format conversions.

Dean Sensui — Hawaii Goes Fishing

[Michael Sacci]

Understand the differences but since his main footage is DVCProHD with all its limitations I would keep it all the same, his HDV footage is not 10 bit anyway so once again there is no real gain in going to ProRes, the banding and jaggies are already in his footage.

Now if you have 10-bit material to begin with I probably would not go down to DVCProHD because of the reason you listed, but that is not the case.

But in the end it is not that big of a deal, main thing is to get it out of the HDV codec.

[Andy Mees]

[Dan Brockett] “XDCAM is a long GOP format which will quickly degrade with rendering, color correction, etc. so you should just convert it to ProRes before editing. “

FWIW whether you convert it before or after editing, the quality of the result is still the same.
There is an advantage to converting your rushes before editing, that being the subsequent ease of use of an all I-frame codec versus a Long GOP codec (better performance with I-frame due to less computational complexity) … but there is also the disadvantage of the conversion time involved in pre-rendering the rushes vs post rendering only the actual footage used in the cut, plus the additional storage and bandwidth needed for the higher data rate of the target codec. Basically its swings and roundabouts.

[Dan Brockett] “This whole thing about mixed format time lines is overrated, it still pays off in the end to just convert to ProRes.
“

Sadly, nothing is ever that black and white in my experience. What may never pay off for one man’s workflow can be the perfect solution in a another’s.

Just another perspective
Andy

[John Marino]

I’m going with the HDV to DVCPro HD choice. Exporting the HDV into DVCPro HD right now. When I do the conversion it is telling me “medium quality” under the video settings yet it does not give me an option to change the quality? Should I be concerned about that? The end project is going to be compressed into a standard def DVD and I’m worried about artifacts becoming an issue.

Thanks for the advice

John