-
FCPX and analog video.
I am curious if anyone has used FCPX with older analog video. The reason I ask is that I have come into possession of boxes of old VHS and Betacam video we shot in the late 80s and early 90s.
I am going to be digitizing these old films (raw and edited footage). The main work will be cleaning up the image and audio — nothing too complex with very little re-editing.
I will be upgrading my system in the next month and plan to add FCPX to my arsenal. I currently am using FCP 7 and PPRO. However with the amount of video and the fix-it nature of what I am doing, I am wondering if FCPX might be the better choice. My real concern about FCPX is that it may not play well with older source material.
Any advice would be appreciated.
-
59 Replies
-
I should note my standard practice in dealing with analog video is to convert it to DV (I know this isn’t the greatest method but generally works for what I do).
-
Is that .dv or .mov with a dv codec?
If .mov, FCPX is fine.
-
[Jeremy Garchow] ” Is that .dv or .mov with a dv codec?”
Will FCPX take in .dv or DV .avi and re-wrap it? I found out yesterday that it won’t accept HDV files in the MPEG-2 Transport Stream container.
I will have to use Premiere CC to do that for me.
-
Well, I do have options. I have an old Canopus converter that creates .mov files. I can also use my old Sony HDR-FX1 which records to a miniDV tape. I also recently purchased a Roxio converter but it is crap frankly. I prefer the Sony as it gives more consistent results, but is a pain because it is a much longer process (analog tape to miniDV tape to capture computer.
My other concern is both the Canopus and Sony use firewire and are EOL. I’m not sure they have updated drivers for Thunderbolt. However, that probably won’t be a problem because I am keeping my old 27′ imac.
-
[Gary Huff] “Will FCPX take in .dv or DV .avi and re-wrap it? “
AVI is difficult on Macs, and FCPX cannot read native transport streams without a file structure.
a .dv movie can be used natively, and cannot be optimized, so FCPX thinks it’s fine.
it’s just that .dv does weird things in other apps, best to stick with .mov at least in my experience.
-
[Clint Wardlow] “My real concern about FCPX is that it may not play well with older source material.”
[Andy Branner] “Why wouldn’t it? It’s merely a question of how you’ll get it in i.e. what type of 3rd party hardware you have. And I’d say even DV is lipstick on the VHS pig, so I see no reason NOT to use it. Efficient, small, very low overall demand on your system. Sounds perfect to me.”
Actually, this is untrue — which goes to show what happens when you assume rather than test.
All SD is non-square pixel, but all Motion-based effects with FCPX are apparently handled exclusively with square pixels — which means the source is scaled going from FCPX to Motion, then scaled again when the processed effect comes back. This double-scaling leads to noticeable softening. (Native FCPX effects like the color board and keyer are not affected.)
Oliver Peters identified this issue early on, and here’s a more recent sub-thread about the issue:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/57279#57328
Also, personally, I’d capture analog to ProRes instead of DV. Better chroma-subsampling, reduced macroblocking/edge ringing artifacts.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Andy Branner] “Why wouldn’t it?”
I have only played around with FCPX and it will be a new UI frontier. That is why I ask.
One of my concerns is how it deals with dropped frames. I know on injest FCP7 complains of dropped frames but you can turn off the warning. And frankly when converting old tape formats there are dropped frames aplenty (cleaning tape heads and making sure tapes are tightly rewound can mitigate this).
-
[Andy Branner] “There is no such thing as a “Thunderbolt driver”.”
That’s not what he said.
-
[Clint Wardlow] “I have an old Canopus converter that creates .mov files.”
Just be sure it does, in fact, create .movs
I, very recently, had nearly 4TBs of material handed to me that was .dv from a Canopus and it was an awful experience.
We ended up securing all source tapes (old archival stuff like you are talking about) and had them all recaptured to ProRes for a pretty penny.
Whoever did the original captures, really screwed up the footage to unusable, so be careful if you are going to take the time to do this, and do it right the first time.
What’s nice about going to tape, is at least you’ll have the dv tapes as backup.
I have never captured DV in FCPX, so I don’t know if it works. Supposedly, it does.
-
[Clint Wardlow] “And frankly when converting old tape formats there are dropped frames aplenty (cleaning tape heads and making sure tapes are tightly rewound can mitigate this).”
I think you are speaking of dropout, not dropped frames.
You will get some dropout, most likely, but it shouldn’t slow you down any. If you are worried about it, you can get a timebase corrector to clean up the signal as well as possible.
Sometimes, a TBC isn’t good enough depending on the footage and physical quality of the tape.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up