OfflineRT HD workflow

[Shane Ross]

Old article, but still holds true:

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

Usual errors with offlining, like time code slipping a few frames, or not enough pre-roll to capture the footage (make sure you have plenty in the offline phase).

Why offline? Just curious. Because DVCPRO HD doesn’t require a lot of space, and space is cheap. I have edited three 2 hour specials (120 hours of foogage) and a TV Series (400 hours of footage) at full quality…no issues.

Shane

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

[Liam Lawyer]

Thanks for the info!

The issue for offline is space – we will have at least 5 1/2 hour shows with lots of footage each and at least 2 hour long SD shows as well on our shared storage.

I am hoping that we can manage the projects so we can get stuff off in a timely fashion, but some of the shows may need to stay on for a few months til they air. We may be consolidating instead if we can..

Thanks!

Liam Lawyer
-editor-

[Jeremy Garchow]

HOw much footage in total hours do you have?

What frame rate do you intend to capture?

[Chris Borjis]

I would definitely beef up capacity and just deal
with it as DVCPRO-HD. Offlining it first is just going to add unnecessary work.

[Liam Lawyer]

Each show is at least 10-12 hours of DVCPro HD 29.97 (59.94) footage. And then another 3-5 hours of HDV footage. Right now the episode I am working on has about 470 GB of material.

So at least 5 of those plus an sd project or 2 (and another 1hour HD show with TONS of footage) is getting our 15 TB of space packed up nice!

I think we are going to do some more aggresive media managing (ie moving off fine cuts to ext drives etc) possibly instead.

But want to keep my options open!

Thanks!

Liam Lawyer
-editor-

[Kevin Monahan]

Time to invest in a large data array. Don’t monkey around with offlineRT, it will greatly screw up a smooth workflow. Don’t cheap out, buy the equipment that suits your needs.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Chris Borjis]

I would also advise that you digitize the HDV as dvcpro-hd to keep
it all the same.

it’s a solid work flow that I have found to be 100% problem free.

[Mark Raudonis]

Liam,

I’m about the only one around here who STILL uses an off-line RT workflow. We do it because we HAVE to, not because I want to.

In our case, we simply have too many shows and too much media to go full rez on everything. Having said that, I try to get away from off-line rt whenever I can.

One of the biggest “gotchas” that hasn’t been mentioned is the difference in frame size between off-line RT and full rez. Offline is 320 X 240, not 720 X 486. There fore, any GRFX or “resizing” that’s done at off-line RT must be recreated in the on-line. On some of our shows, this is not a problem since they’re relative GRFX free. On others, nearly every frame is a GRFX element, and on those shows, we try to stay full rez all the time.

Only you can decide if the pain is worth the gain. If you do choose to go “Offline”, make sure that you build enough time and resources, i.e. assistant editors, into the budget to handle the uprez. It never will go completely smoothly, and a fair amount of “hand work” will be required. For example, we check EVERY shot against the off-line cut to make sure it’s accurate, in sync, etc. Don’t even get me started about media managing multiclip sequences…

Mark

[Liam Lawyer]

Stupid question – what is the easiest way to do this?

We don’t own an HDV Deck – just load from our cheap-o Canon Handcams. We are shooting 24p style (not actually 24p) so I think it limits what we can load from. Do you have any insight on another method?

Thanks much!

Liam

Liam Lawyer
-editor-

[Shane Ross]

Whoa…Liam…let’s put on the brakes here.

In your first post you said: “I am working on a DVCPro HD project and I am interested in using a offline to online process.”

NOW, you say: “We don’t own an HDV Deck – just load from our cheap-o Canon Handcams. ”

HDV is not DVCPRO HD. It is HDV. And it has exactly the same data rate as DV…about 13GB/hour. So are you sure you want to offline with this format? It really doesn’t take up that much space. Especially if you are only using CAMERAS to capture.

Shane

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