Log and Transfer in FCPX

[Michael Kammes]

For baseband ingest, the 2 most popular cards are by Blackmagic and AJA. Both solutions come with BASIC capture programs. Not the most elegant, but at least it *should* be functional.

As for firewire (HDV, DV, etc.) your guess is as good as mine. If Apple makes no such provisions, it may be time to look for a 3rd party capture software.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Andy Mees]

Blackmagic Design’s Media Express comes bundled with their I/O cards and boxes .. and its looks to be far from BASIC:
https://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/decklink/software/

AJA’s VTR Xchange is certainly somewhat more basic tho. Matrox’s Vetura apps are still very basic.

[Michael Kammes]

IMHO, Compared to a full featured integrated (with the NLE) capture application, yeah, it’s kinda basic.

For me, the biggest is limited metadata support for use within the NLE…that feature alone is worth it’s weight in gold when capturing from baseband.

~M

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Andy Mees]

IMHO, Compared to a full featured integrated (with the NLE) capture application, yeah, it’s kinda basic.

Fair enough. Am always interested in another perspective. Would be interested to hear your expanded thoughts on that with reference to the existing capture tool in FCP7. You do note that specifically you’d miss the extended metadata that you’re getting from baseband capture in FCP vs using a 3rd party tool (like Media Express). Can you expand on that?

Cheers
Andy

[Scott Sheriff]

Just keep FCS2 or 3 on your system and use the L&C in it.

Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

I have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed…

[Mike Jeffs]

I for one don’t mind at all if apple drops log and capture. If they do i’m 100% sure that 3rd parties will pick up the slack. I’m sure AJA or Blackmagic will create far better untilities then there current ones.

One of the major complaints we had with log and capture is once you start captureing, boom FCP is locked up, you couldn’t do anything else. which in why about 2 years ago we invested in a telestream pipline for our SD Tape ingest. This system lets you start ingesting a tape and almost immeditly (like 10 second lag) you can start editing that clip in FCP and as more is captured more shows up in the file. Its super slick.

So if Apple does drop capture i’m sure other compaines will start to add features like this.

Mike Jeffs
Video Coordinator
BYU-Idaho

[Mark Suszko]

I like Phil a lot, but this idea that Log and Capture is dead is after all, only a guess at this point. I hope that’s not true, as our shop will be based on DVCPro25, 50, and HD for some time to come yet.

I’m sure something can be worked out with a third-party application, but it seems to me we shouldn’t have to look for a third party app for something like that.

By the look of all the other features we DO know about: i.e. the color correction, facial recognition, motion-stabilization, logging and audio cleanup during ingest – that to me implies the new FCP has more than enough processing power to handle realtime live or tape ingest, because a log and transfer function brings the data in way faster than real time. If you can do zero to sixty in five seconds, I’ll assume zero to ten isn’t a problem, not that the car is forbidden to drive below sixty, or it explodes. Woah.

So I would not expect capturing a slower data stream like live from tape or a live camera input to be a huge deal to the software, if it can do all the other things. Such a limitation is, I’m going to assume, less a technical limitation than a strategic decision. And we’ve seen that happen with Apple decisions before, so there IS the chance Phil is right…

Now, that’s all just talk. I know nothing. I’m willing to be schooled on this, and I’m like everybody who hasn’t signed an NDA, just guessing, myself. Just playing the “if-then” game. It’s fun to play fortune teller and all, but If I can skip all my favorite treats for Lent, I can also wait ’til June for the actual info.

Until then, there is no point in making plans in depth with incomplete information, outside of the entertainment value. If I could make such predictions with a high degree of certainty, I’d be typing this, resting the keypad on the flawless lower back of a Russian-Ukranian Supermodel/beach volleyball player, from the shade of the rooftop helipad on my yacht in Bora-Bora.

“Opulence: I jumps in it!”

[Craig Seeman]

[Michael Kammes] “MHO, Compared to a full featured integrated (with the NLE) capture application, yeah, it’s kinda basic”

Blackmagic Media Express is free software that comes with every DeckLink card. Media Express lets you batch capture and play back 2D and dual stream stereoscopic 3D in DPX, ProRes, uncompressed YUV and RGB, DVCPRO HD and MJPEG files. You can even create your own playlist. Media Express also supports CMX EDL import and export, frame accurate deck control via RS-422, and will even insert and assemble to tape! Media Express is fast, accurate and easy to use and works on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. You can even grab still frames directly from your deck and save them as perfect digital quality still images. That’s a complete solution for capture and playback!

That seems a bit more than “basic” to me.

[Andy Mees]

[Mark Suszko] “typing this, resting the keypad on the flawless lower back of a Russian-Ukranian Supermodel/beach volleyball player, from the shade of the rooftop helipad on my yacht in Bora-Bora.”

I wondered where she’d got to.

[Arnie Schlissel]

There’s no ingest. Right. It will be sold with all of the media you’ll ever want to use, including footage you haven’t shot yet. Actually, we were indirectly told that there is ingest, because we were told that there is (optional) automatic stabilization and color correction on ingest.

Honestly I find this type groundless, irresponsible of statement from Hodgetts, and similar wild conjectures from others who are equally out of the know to be appalling.

They’re making authoritative pronouncements based on what they didn’t see. This is the same logic that tells us that the sun orbits a flat earth.

I don’t mind if these guys want to promote themselves by giving webinars and issuing white papers, but they should do so from a position of actual knowledge, not conjecture and speculation. That’s simply irresponsible.

Read the “Kremlinology” posting on my blog for a more detailed rant on this.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/