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need help on capturing footage on mac to xfer to PC
I am trying to help someone who needs to use my equipment over the next few days using premiere. I have a few mac computers running OS X/ final cut studio / AJA Kona LHe which I will use to capture live HDSDI out of my camera directly into Final Cut.
This time, however, my friend works on a PC with premiere who wants the same kind of workflow (avoid tape compression, live capture directly to HD). I happen to have the CS3 and CS4 master collection also installed, but want to know what file format I should deliver his files in.
Granted, i am not a premiere expert by any means, but I just need to know what video formats are compatible between the mac and PC versions. I want to avoid having to re-encode/re-compress so he can start editing right away. ( We will be shooting for several days in studio)
The other issue I have is that I think his drive is a PC formatted NTFS drive, so there is another problem I have to tackle. I may end up needing to just copy the files over from Mac to PC after they are captured, but if this step can be avoided, that would be best.
IS the best thing for me to do is just install bootcamp on my mac pro, then install windows, then CS4? It sounds like a lot more work than I had planned on putting in on prep, especially since I will probably have to buy a new copy of windows just to make this thing work.
Thanks
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9 Replies
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We move video to/from Final Cut to PPro all the time. I don’t think it’s a limitation of PPro or Final Cut that would lead to issues, but rather, codec compatibility.
Just be sure you’re exporting out of Final Cut to a Quicktime file in a codec the PC side can read and recognize.
Also, since the Mac has the unfortunate habit of NOT appending extensions to files (i.e., the “.mov” part), be sure you add the extension manually if needed. The PC won’t even see the Quicktimes unless they have a “.mov” at the end of the filename.
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James Orlowski
RYNO Production, Inc.
http://www.rynoproduction.com
800-860-7966 -
okay, that sounds good, which codec do you recommend? I know obviously prores wont work. We will be shooting against green screen so it cant be a heavily-compressed codec either.
Bobby Mosaedi
Magic Video, Inc. -
we constantly move files between systems, generally uncompressed is the best method. especially if its still an ongoing job
~Peter Berthet
Sydney, Australia -
Exactly. Quicktime’s NONE compression should do the trick. It’ll make huge files, however…
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James Orlowski
RYNO Production, Inc.
http://www.rynoproduction.com
800-860-7966 -
Try QTime PNG compression. Still lossless, but smaller than “uncompressed”. Test first, there are sometimes gamma issues in certain workflows.
-jeff
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Jeff introduced me to QT PNG a while back and it works very well…
However, a PC will read ProRes as source material for an edit…you would render/export to something else as ProRes can only be written by FCP, but I’ve edited huge ProRes projects on an XP32 laptop…then exported to a master AVI or DVD or whatever…
The newest QT has the ProRes read codec in it I think…or it’s downloadable. Also, your friend can get MacDrive installed on his PC and read/write on any Mac formatted drive you give him/her. It’s not expensive.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
Thanks Tim,
I have tried capturing to a number of codecs using our AJA LHe, and they are all dropping frames except for the ProRes codec. I will try to get to a PC version of premiere to test out a captured clip.
Is macdrive good enough to edit directly off the drive? Or would it be better to edit off an NTFS formatted drive?
Bobby Mosaedi
Magic Video, Inc. -
I don’t think the Mac can WRITE to an NTFS-formatted drive without third-party tools installed.
There’s always a catch.
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James Orlowski
RYNO Production, Inc.
http://www.rynoproduction.com
800-860-7966 -
Yes, in my experience, the Mac’s “PC” disk formatting isn’t really cross platform enough to be truly useful.
I have no reason to believe you couldn’t edit from a Mac OS drive with Mac Drive…however, I’d think you’d want to transfer to a PC drive eventually for easiest portability with all the other PCs on the dark side…
🙂
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,
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