Quicktime from Final Cut

[Steve Cohen]

[Michael Hancock] “At this point, I’d say either replace the older Avids with FCP and hope your editors can struggle through, or replace the FCP systems with new Avids.”

As I stated earlier, I already suggested replacing the Avid with FCP mainly because it is less expensive then the Avid, but it was shot down.

Currently there are 2 separate buildings, but the plan is to abandon this building and move our studios and Final Cuts to the other facility by the end of the year. (Yeah I know what date it is now).

They currently record to Beta SP and then digitize the footage into the Avid. We currently record to D9 and digitize to the Final Cut.

The cameras that will be going in the new facility are 2 Sony BVP-900 and 1 Sony BVP-950 running to the studio via Triax and going into a Panasonic AV-HS400 switcher via SDI and out of the switcher to 3 JVC D9 decks (1 Line cut and 2 ISO’s).

What we want to do is go semi tapeless and send the line cut to our SAN via Final Cut and a BlackMagic MultiBridge Extreme and then we would ISO the 3 cameras to the JVC D9’s as backup.

As you know the problem is incorporating the Avids into the situation so we can eliminate the digitizing step for both of us.

That is it in a nutshell, anything you can suggest is greatly appreciated.

Anymore questions, just ask.

Thanks again;

Steve Cohen
Senior Editor
O2 Media Inc.

[Steve Cohen]

Sorry I forgot to mention that everything is being digitized at 8Bit Uncompressed for the Final Cut and 1-1 for the Avid’s

Steve Cohen
Senior Editor
O2 Media Inc.

[John Pale]

[Steve Cohen] “What we want to do is go semi tapeless and send the line cut to our SAN via Final Cut and a BlackMagic MultiBridge Extreme and then we would ISO the 3 cameras to the JVC D9’s as backup.

As you know the problem is incorporating the Avids into the situation so we can eliminate the digitizing step for both of us.

That is it in a nutshell, anything you can suggest is greatly appreciated. “

Honestly, you are screwed. Any advantage you gain “by eliminating the digitizing step” will be lost when you have to import this stuff into your Avid. There is no media that FCP can digitize that can be played without a lengthy import/transcode on an older Avid (there are a few formats on newer Avids that can be done more easily…though not the ones you are working with). In addition to the import time (which will likely be longer than digitizing from tape), you will need double the disk space as Avid will create new OMF media from your Quicktimes on your SAN.

You need to do whatever it takes to convince your bosses to change their mind on this or you are looking at an enormous problem, that hopefully you will not be blamed for. Sorry. FCP and Avid are not interchangable systems. Avid is not a Quicktime based editing system.

[Steve Cohen]

[John Pale] “Sorry. FCP and Avid are not interchangable systems. Avid is not a Quicktime based editing system.”

John;

Thanks for the advice. I totally agree with you, but get them to see that is easier said then done as you probably know.

I will give it my best shot thought. I’m going to try and setup a demo to show them the import process and let them see for themselves the amount of time it takes, hopefully that will be the clincher.

Thanks again;

Steve Cohen
Senior Editor
O2 Media Inc.