Need easy offline editing workflow

[Mark Raudonis]

What you want is called “Off-line RT HD”. It’s a very compressed format that takes up approx 1/30th
the size of full rez. SD resolution is 320 X 240. HD is alittle bigger.

You need to convert ALL your footage to this format BEFORE you start editing. Either you retain the full rez version on your drives somewhere, or UPREZ once you’ve locked picture.

There are plenty of “gotchas” in this workflow. I’d suggest you find someone who’s done it before to walk you through it. Having said that, we’ve successfully worked this way for years. The secret is to plan for enough time to do the uprez AND check for frame accuracy or inconsistencies. Speed ramps, “non video” elements like GRFX or Stills will NOT go smoothly. Know that and plan accordingly.

Good luck.

Mark

[Margus Voll]

Hi.

Just buy cheap external hdd for pro rez proxy.

Even with 10 tapes it takes 200 gb.

Get 1TB and you are go.
Less mystery later to reconnect etc.

Generally it is more easy to capture all stuff in Full Prores
if you have the room.

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[David Roth weiss]

[Mark Scudder] “Because of the size of the footage and the fact that I only have a MacBook Pro 2.4 with 4GB of RAM, I would like to import footage in a smaller size/quality, even if it’s only 500-600 pixels wide, just big enough to edit.”

When you say, because of the size of the footage, exactly what problem does that present for you? HDV is only 13Gb per hour, precisely the same file size as DV, and its 1440×1080 image size should have no bearing on anything. So what’s the big deal?

Mark Raudonis has good reason to use the online/offline workflow. His company routinely shoot about a zillion hours of tape each week, which must be multicam edited using about a zillion angles. Your edit however, from just 6-7 HDV tapes is really not one that calls for the extra labor and potential issues of an offline/online workflow. Yours is a routine edit that’s done all the time on laptops and towers without an offline/online workflow. Please explain why you would want to spend the extra time to work this way?

One of my pet peeves, as you would see from my Cow profile, is doing a job more than once. So please, I have to know why you find it necessary in this case to bring that upon yourself?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Shane Ross]

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/offline_rt.html

This workflow is still VERY viable for FCP 6 and 7. Main thing that changed is that there is OFFLINE RT HD and now ProRes Proxy…depending on what footage you are using. Also, Media Manager is much better. But other than that…that is the current workflow.

With minor tweaks if you have been doing it as long as Mark has…

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Mark Scudder]

Thanks for the good tips. To answer your question, I’ve had performance problems in the past if for example I need to put text over a shot, or transitions that aren’t hard cuts. I also may have a 3-camera multicam project behind it, and the last time I tried HD multicam in FCP, I had to give up because the project wouldn’t play at more than a frame a second. I honestly don’t know if frame size has anything to do with it, or if decoding HDV (as opposed to decoding ProRes proxy) presents a performance hit. I thought it stood to reason that if I was pushing fewer pixels, that performance would increase.

I also might like to edit on my laptop away from external drives, in which case cutting with a much smaller set of files would solve several problems at once – disk space, performance, battery life, heat output, on and on and on.

My initial idea was that I could capture at some stupidly low res/quality and FCP could “remember” where this footage was (because I’d “Log and Capture”) and then at some point when the project is ready for a final render, it could go back and recapture just what I needed at full res/quality – in other words, the Media Manager downconvert in reverse. If that’s NOT true, then yes, I will simply cut what I need out of the tapes at full res and edit full HD.

I don’t do a ton of video but when I have to do it, I’m the one who has to do it… I don’t know if this is stupid to say, but I wish this sort of process was simpler.

[Shane Ross]

[Mark Scudder] “the last time I tried HD multicam in FCP, I had to give up because the project wouldn’t play at more than a frame a second.”

That might be related to the hard drive the footage is stored on, and how many STREAMS it supports.

[Mark Scudder] “I’ve had performance problems in the past if for example I need to put text over a shot, or transitions that aren’t hard cuts”

What codec did you encode/capture to?

[Mark Scudder] “also might like to edit on my laptop away from external drives, in which case cutting with a much smaller set of files would solve several problems at once”

But not all of them. Multicam on the SYSTEM drive? The one that is busy running the computer? You will get dropped frames, only a matter of when. Small bus powered drives are readily available and well up to the task.

[Mark Scudder] “My initial idea was that I could capture at some stupidly low res/quality and FCP could “remember” where this footage was (because I’d “Log and Capture”) and then at some point when the project is ready for a final render, it could go back and recapture just what I needed at full res/quality”

Yup…that’s the general idea. And the ability has been around since FCP 3. That article I linked to on Ken Stone lays out the process, and the process is relatively unchanged today, if you use that codec. Capture via firewire (DV) to offline RT, edit, then use the media manager to CREATE OFFLINE making a new sequence with only the footage you use in the cut…recapture. If you are using HDV or any other non-DV format, you will need a capture card in order to capture to the lower resolution. If it is a tapeless format, FCP support encoding to lower res PROXY files with many formats, but others require full res import, then transcode to lower res.

[Mark Scudder] ” in other words, the Media Manager downconvert in reverse. “

media manager does this…has since Version 3.0. Only it is better at it now.

[Mark Scudder] “I don’t know if this is stupid to say, but I wish this sort of process was simpler.”

Pretty darn simple if you ask me.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Mark Scudder]

Shane, what I’m starting to understand from the link you sent is, you use FCP’s “Offline” tools for a move in either direction – offlining or onlining? So I can theoretically “Log and Capture” in whatever goofy format I want, put the edit together, and then use “Offline” to recapture in full res – essentially onlining using a function called “Offline”? If this is what I missing, then I get it now.

[Mark Raudonis]

[Mark Scudder] “I wish this sort of process was simpler”

Perhaps you should be looking for a different line of work?

Dealing with these issues comes with the territory. If you’re getting paid to edit, then it’s your responsibility to know the tools of your trade. Understanding workflow, media management, and basic computer concepts is part and parcel to that.

Mark

[Mark Scudder]

Wow, Mark. I hope I would be less surly to people who my need help in the future. I’m sure you got where you are by listening to every naysayer on the internet.

I’ll repeat myself for you: I got lost in the terminology (you can Online an edit with the “Offline” function), but other than that, I now understand that FCP does do exactly what I want it to do.

So, I got my question answered and I made you feel smugly superior – everybody got what they wanted!

Thanks to those who helped.

-mark

[Shane Ross]

Time for some terminology corrections…

OFFLINE EDITING – Editing at lower than fully resolution. Very small, highly compressed video files that contain the source TC and reel number and all the stuff you need for recapture…but at a much smaller data size and rate so that you can store many countless hours of footage onto your hard drive.

ONLINE EDITING – Bringing the offline footage to FULL resolution. Taking the final finished LOCKED cut and recapturing at full resolution, or reconnecting to the full resolution files. This also includes color correction and prepping the show for output to your mastering format.

If you edit your footage at full resolution from start to finish…dunno what to call that. EDITING. Because you aren’t recapturing anything when you output, just color correcting and preparing for final output.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def