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Help with DV Cam Capture Settings
My limited experience with FCP v4.5 has been to capture Beta SP footage onto a G-Raid hard drive via a Mac dual 2.5 G5 with a Blackmagic SP card. I capture at 8bit uncompressed, edit and master back to Beta SP.
I now find my self with 8 hours of DVCam footage and a Sony DSR-1800 DVCam deck. I want to capture this DVCam footage at a low resolution to preserve hard drive space, off line the project, recapture the selects at a high resolution and master to a DVD with a Beta SP backup.
I want to be sure I start this project off correctly, with respect to settings, so that I don’t make problems for myself somewhere down the line. Can anyone offer suggestions as to the best way to configure the work flow for a project like the one I’ve described?
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4 Replies
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Open a new project using the DV/NTSC Easy Setup.
Nothing could be easier.
Now…does that DSR 1800 have a firewire connection? I recently worked with a 1500 that did not.
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Thanks for the response. Yes the 1800 has a Firewire 400 connection which I’ve hooked to the G5. It works fine. But when I finish the offline won’t I want to recapture the selects at 8bit uncommpressed? Isn’t 8bit a better quality than the DV, or am I mistaken?
And if I do want to recapture at 8bit do I run into some kind of FCP compatibility problem trying to replace DV footage with 8bit? Sequence settings? Project settings? As you no doubt can tell I’m very confused by the various capture vs. sequence settings.
When mastering to tape I’ve been getting an error message suggesting that I “may have attempted to output a clip with compression settings that do not match the current output settings.” I’ve even gotten this message when only trying to lay down bars to tape. And I still haven’t figured out what’s going on. I just didn’t want to set myself up for aggravating times down the road.
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If your footage is DVCAM, you gain nothing in capturing 8-bit…unless you are adding lots of graphics, then the GRAPHICS are better in 8-bit, not the DVCAM. When you capture DVCAM via firewire, you are capturing it at full resolution. So it is best to work with it at DVCAM quality from start to finish.
As for the error message, that is a bug:
Shane’s Stock Answer #18
To Edit to Tape you either need to have your sequence loaded in the VIEWER, or simply drag it from the BROWSER onto the Edit to Tape window and choose Assemble Edit or Insert Edit.
For both methods, the tape needs to be black and coded and have TC already on it. And you need to mark and IN point in the ETT window.
For all the stock answers, click on this link:
https://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?50@941.OTrRaOS9SEl.0@.68a3b883 -
Shane thanks again for taking the time to help me out. From previous posts on this forum I gathered that 8bit took up more hard drive space than DV so I guess I assumed that, if for no other reason, 8bit was a higher quality compression. My project actually will include a lot of text and a few 2d graphics. I’ll take a look at the quality of those and see what I think when I get to that stage.
As for your stock answers, what a trip! I actually came across those a while back when trying to find out what was going on with my “edit to tape” problem. And #18 did indeed help me work around the error message. I still thought that I was doing something wrong though, even when all I was trying to do was lay down bars and tone. I’m okay with the problem being a bug, it makes me feel a little better about myself.
You’re a nice guy to have taken the time to put up those answers on the Apple discussion board. When first I discovered them I read through the list and it difinately helped me out. I still have a long way to go. This FCP system is no where near as easy to learn and use as the Media 100 system I migrated from … but then, it’s no where near as simple and limiting either. Onward and upward!
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