Making Clip Properties Match Timeline

[Tom Wolsky]

FCE does not support DVCPRO HD. It will not work in FCE.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Sean Mcculley]

Seeing that Final Cut Express does not support the format that I was given (720/60p)- what are my options to convert it into a usable form?

The final outcome of the edit session will be a widescreen SD dvd.

Thanks!
Sean

[Ron Craig]

Seeing that Final Cut Express does not support the format that I was given (720/60p)- what are my options to convert it into a usable form?

You have two ways to go: Upgrade your system to handle the video material or downgrade the video material to work in your system.

If this job brings enough profit it might be your opportunity to upgrade your system to FCP with a RAID array, etc. That’s a fair chunk of change but you’ll eventually be glad you spent it if you’re going to be in this business.

Your other option is to have the source material downconverted to a form your system can handle. If you have access to the tapes, one option is to have them dubbed to Beta or Digibeta in 16×9 aspect ratio. Can your system take in those formats? I haven’t used FCE so I don’t know. Bear in mind that the downside of this option is that you’ll be doing your quality loss through a downconversion at the front end, before the edit. Generally, downconversion is something you want to do as a last step in order to maintain all the quality you can through the edit process. But if your final deliverable is a SD DVD I think you’ll still be fine.

[Sean Mcculley]

The footage came to me via hard drive – no tapes. It was recorded onto a Firestore FS100. I then copied all the footage to my hard drive.

What can I use to transcode?

I’ll look into getting the Pro version of Final Cut. I also have Avid Media Composer 3.0 on the same computer and Premiere Pro at work if there is a work around using those. I’m trying to get the footage to work with the Avid in the meantime. I went with FCE because the Firestore FS100 folks said that the format it was recorded in was native to final cut. I took a guess that I needed a DVCProHd codec to get the clip to play in a quicktime viewer – which does work – I just can’t match my clip properties and timeline properties. Is Quicktime Pro a good way to export the clips into another form or is there a much easier way?

Thanks again! I really need the advice.

Sean

[Ron Craig]

Sean, I’m going to hope someone else chimes in because I haven’t done exactly what you’re proposing to do so I can’t give you the best advice. First, though, yes it is possible to downconvert HD files to an SD format that you system can handle. But I’m unable to help much because with what you have on your system I don’t know what your best option is. Do you have Compressor? If so, that should be able to do the job but, depending on how much material you have it could take forever. Then there is the added complication of the Firestore. I love using Firestore but I don’t see how you can use that imported data and manage to keep the metadata (camera start-stop) the Firestore enables when you do a downconversion.

Bottom line: Unless someone else can offer you better advice I would suggest you push to get the original tapes and get them dubbed to Beta or Digibeta 16×9. Or perhaps find someone who is willing to take the Firestore and do and conversion for you. Some post production house no doubt could do that.

I wish I had better advice.