Offline Clip Size

[Walter Biscardi]

Offline RT automatically cuts the frame size in half as part of it’s normal setup. You can change the frame size to go full screen, but it will be a very ugly picture. Better to just capture DV for offline work.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Alex] “I just want to get the file sizes down – not muck about with the clip size :(“

With DV, reducing the size is the only fast and practical way to do this.

[Alex] “Also would SATA drives offer a marked improvement over External Firewires?”

That depends on what you mean by “improvement”.

Assuming all things to be proper disk speed and in proper working order, internal drives (SATA in G5) will be “faster” and more dependable for video editing than external FW drives.
In fact, Apple does not officially “sanction” FW drives for FCP (although thousands of FCP edit systems use them every day.)

[Alex Bond]

Offline always looks naff – it’s just a quick way of cutting. What I can’t get my head round is that FCP seems only to allow you to do offline using it’s Photo Jpeg, and why should it affect the actual size of the clip – Media 100 lets me digitise (capture) at anything between 40 kps (offline) and 360 kps (online) depending on what my clients need to see at preview.

>Better to just capture DV for offline work.

You mean at full resolution?

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Alex] “it’s just a quick way of cutting. What I can’t get my head round is that FCP seems only to allow you to do offline using it’s Photo Jpeg,”

This whole FCP “offline” deal is so you can put up to a FULL feature film’s raw footage onto a laptop’s internal HD and cut whenever and wherever you are.
Its a convenience when you NEED it.

If you’re not on a plane or in a foreign country, and drive space is not at a premium (these days, it should not be a big issue) just capture at full DV size, make your cuts, and (if you want) use media manager to “throw away” all of the unneeded excess.

[Alex Bond]

I’ve never cut anything at online first – the media takes up too much space. Even with 2 terrabit drives we don’t online all our media for broadcast programming – when you’ve got a hundred rushes and 35 programmes to cut there isn’t really room.

Thanks for the info though, it answers my question.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Alex] “Even with 2 terrabit drives we don’t online all our media for broadcast programming – when you’ve got a hundred rushes and 35 programmes to cut there isn’t really room.”

Interesting…

DV takes up about 13GB per hour.

So 2 terabytes = 2,048 gigabyte (or 150+ hours of DV footage).

If your projects are larger than that (most users’ projects aren’t), “off-line” is a good alternative.

Another would be to buy more terabyte drives which could actually speed up the edit process due to being able to view and make better image decisions at the higher full-screen quality.