New Workflow AVCHD for FCP7

[Russell Lasson]

With FCP7, I’d look at transferring your footage to ProRes Proxy for editing, then when you’re done, just transfer the footage used from your original AVCHD files to any higher end ProRes. Should be something like Batch Transfer. Should save you quite a bit of space.

ProRes HQ is close to 30MB/sec while ProRes Proxy is just 2-4MB/sec! That will really reduce your file sizes for editing. Any Batch Transferring should be a breeze!

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net

[Martti Ekstrand]

I would rather see adding AVCHD native editing for selection and rough cuts. Then transcode that to better codec for final edit, colour correction and post effects. Less waste of harddisk space and more importantly my time.

check out my shorts: https://vimeo.com/marttiekstrand

[Matt Goodfield]

You say that ProRes(HQ) is 30mb a second .

Then why when I transcode the clip in the Log and Transfer window to ProRes the clip becomes over 500mb for a 1 minute clip ?

[Russell Lasson]

Looks like you skipped over the part where I suggested converting it to ProRes Proxy. If your files are 24P then it’s only 4 MB/sec. That’s only 16GB/hour.

Yes, it’s bigger than editing native AVCHD files, but it’s much better than the previous alternatives of ProRes or AIC. Plus, these files will be much more edit friendly than if FCP could edit AVCHD natively.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net

[Matt Goodfield]

Sorry I did miss that part

When you suggest converting to ProRes Proxy , How am I supposed to do this ?

At the moment I connect my camera to my iMac by a USB Cable then I open the Log and Transfer windows and it gives me the option to convert to AIC or ProRes 422

In FCP 7 will it allow me to convert to ProRes Proxy by using the Log and transfer windows ?

Thanks A Lot Guys

[Bjoern Adamski]

Some recording formats are just not suitable for direct editing, they were optimized purely for the recording situation to deal with the available bandwidth. AVCHD is one of those, converting it is required.

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MXF4mac
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[Matt Goodfield]

Thanks

But in terms of AVCHD what can I do in FCP7 that I cant do in FCP6??

[Martti Ekstrand]

Well the proxy addition is nice but that can be one very long conversion session for me before even starting to edit the AVCHD footage as I can have upwards of 40-20:1 ratios. I don’t worry about harddisk space but time can be of essence. AVCHD shouldn’t be that hard to edit with if tapping into modern video cards GPU power. After all my little battery powered $1500 Lumix GH1 camera can encode 50 fps AVCHD in real-time to SDHC cards but my $5000 MacPro can’t decode it well enough for basic editing from a RAID? That’s a policy decision, not a technical issue. Plus this way seem to lock me into ProRes which is not my preferred codec or have Apple added more codecs to chose from in Log & Transfer now?

check out my shorts: https://vimeo.com/marttiekstrand

[Tom Wolsky]

This is incorrect. H.264 is a highly complex codec and very difficult to decode in realtime. Much more difficult to decode than to encode. It would significantly reduce realtime capabilities for multiple tracks of video. This is a technical issue not a policy issue.

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”

[Walter Biscardi]

[Martti Ekstrand] ” That’s a policy decision, not a technical issue. Plus this way seem to lock me into ProRes which is not my preferred codec or have Apple added more codecs to chose from in Log & Transfer now? “

As Tom noted, this is incorrect. Policy has nothing to do with a codec that was designed for delivery, not editing.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
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Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
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