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Finishing in FCP 7 with an offline in FCP 6
My studio has a small finishing department and a large offline editorial side. In order to upgrade all of our computers to FCP 7, there are still a number of machines that need to be upgraded from G5s to Intels. While this is in the works, it remains a few months off. I was wondering if anyone saw any drawbacks to upgrading the smaller finishing department (all intel machines already) while keeping the rest of the studio in FCP 6. Projects rarely have to go back to the offline side, but when they do, I figured XML can be used to go backward. The upsides of the finishing department going to FCP 7 are obvious between the background export, improved render management, and other improvements. Please let me know if you guys see any downsides. Thanks a lot.
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6 Replies
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There is a huge advantage in finishing in FCP7. Color 1.5!
I grade & online and most projects delivered to me are still FCP 6 so there is not issues going that direction so far for me. There are changes to the way FCP does clip speed between FCP6 & 7 but so far that hasn’t been a problem for me.
XML’s are the only way back but hopefully you won’t need that.
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Yes, I’ve been looking forward to being able to use Color 1.5. I know that stills, speed changes, and sequences in general are supposed to go back and forth smoother. Any other major advancements you have noticed?
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Stills are not round tripping in Color. I have been using HDV and ProRes codecs without issues except ProRes444 on a 2k job returned to FCP with slightly different gamma. Other codecs have been fine.
It is a good way to change HDV 1440 to ProRes 1920 when rendering out of Color. It seems to be happy with the 1440 to 1920 conversion. All my HDV jobs have been interlaced and no issues there with the round tripping either.
It is still a good idea to create a flattened timeline and move graphics & stills out before going to Color. I left dissolves in which don’t display in Color but return with the send to FCP. Third party plugins & tarnsitions may not fair well in a round trip however.
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I’m the online guy for 6 editors. They use FCP 6.0.5, I use FCP 7. Well, I use both. I use 6.0.5 on one partition to prep the sequence, but then move to FCP 7 and Color 1.5 to online/finish. Then I Export an XML, v4, to get back to 6.0.5 so that I am compatible with the rest of the office.
The whole reason I do this is for the improved COLOR, and the fact that we mark a lot of things with MARKERS, and their timing needs to stay, but when prepping for online (adding BARS and TONE, proper slate and blacks at the head, I move the sequence, but I need the markers to move with it. FCP 7 does that.
Now if they’d only get on the same page so that we can have access to ProRes Proxy…
Shane
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Michael, are you sure stills still aren’t working? According to Apple’s new features list it says:
“You can now send most long, complex sequences — including scenes with still graphics, speed effects, multicam clips, and other advanced functions — directly to Color from Final Cut Pro, with no preparation required. Speed changes render faster when you send your graded sequence back to Final Cut Pro”
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Speed effects yes. Multicam? don’t know. Stills- no. A recent job with a bunch of jpegs at various res (but all higher than the sequence) and with moves didn’t import in the send to Color.
Perhaps stills that match the pixel aspect of the sequence and without keyframe moves might work but hey, how often do you find them in the timeline?
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