Studio 2 HDV workflow

[Dave Jenkins]

If you edit HDV or XDCAM HD in a pro res timeline it won’t playback in real time. It would be easier (less rendering) to edit in HDV and render to Apple’s pro res codec which is a choice in the render controls, sequence settings.

[Jerry Hofmann]

I love it… HDV is “delicate”… LOL….. THAT has to be the height of political correctness LOL… I love ya man!

That said, editing HDV in Pro res makes total sense. However…. the only delivery format would be to a DVD in the end without a way to send it out via a capture card or Io HD and turn it to a recordable format.

Or recompress it BACK to HDV to record to an HDV tape… that might be OK, not tried it. I’ve got to give this all a looking at in a real environment… I’ve two large HDV projects coming in, and want to find the definitive workflow balanced with render times… if you get my meaning..

And wouldn’t transcoding in software be the same as capturing native HDV and putting it in a Pro Res sequence? I mean, you’re gonna have to render it there eventually… it’s sort of like RT effects… you have to render them to lay them out to tape unless they are ‘Full”…

Maybe there’s something I’m missing (wouldn’t be the first time) but seems to me that if the delivery isn’t a DVD, you’re best off transcoding (cause you end up doing that anyway)… On slower CPU’s I’ll bet that RT mixed timelines can get to that red render state sooner, right? like layering 4 layers of true pro res clips is going to stay in a preview mode longer than four layers of native HDV in that same Pro Res sequence, am I right? Gotta get me an HDV playback device and get started on these projects so I can ‘experiment”…

Jerry

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[Graeme Nattress]

Yes it wil play back in real time and you get RT effects also. That’s the new super-timeline feature in FCP6 for you. All old rules have now changed.

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Graeme Nattress]

If you do HDV transcode to ProRes for editing, you’ve lost a little quality for that render, but you’ve added no effects. If you put native HDV in your timeline (and these days, we tend to colour correct every shot, so every shot has an effect on it) you only get that one render to ProRes right as you render.

Are you mastering back to HDV – you’re in for a hard time no matter what. Mastering to HDV is painful in the extreme and not really recommended. It might be easier from a native timeline, or might be easier from a ProRes one – never tried so don’t know. I don’t intend to ever master to HDV myself.

I don’t know if you get slower RT performance on the new mixed timeline or not. I’d doubt it though.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Dave Jenkins]

Graeme, maybe I’m missing something but I am in my bay working in FCP 6 and when I add HDV or XDCAM HD footage into the pro res timeline it has a bright green line above which means preview rt.

[Graeme Nattress]

Dark green full RT here….

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Dave Mac]

Dave and Graeme,

Neither of you specifically mentioned what type of sequence codec is being used (i.e., native HDV sequence or native ProRes sequence).

In FCP 6, you can have a native HDV sequence with HDV or XDCAM footage and render using the “native” codec (say the sequence is an HDV sequence, or the first clip placed was HDV).

Or, you can have the XDCAM HD and HDV footage in the same sequence, but choose to render everything in that particular sequence using the ProRes codec (see Render Control tab of Sequence Settings).

Or, you could have a ProRes sequence and drop in HDV or XDCAM HD (or any other type) clips.

Of course, this doesn’t address the difference in render bar colors. It could be due, in part, to what I have described already, or may also be influenced by the ability of a particular system for performing RT processing.

—

As an aside, the FCP 6 docs suggest that rendering HDV or XDCAM HD clips in an HDV sequence (either HDV was the first clip added, or sequence was defined as HDV) is faster when the render control is set to ProRes, rather than HDV.

I wonder if the green bar changes color just based on the render control choice in this case… I’ll have to wait until tomorrow sometime to test this myself (when my upgrade arrives)… 😉

Best regards,

Dave

[Dave Jenkins]

G5 Dual 2 Gig, 4 Gigs of ram. Is this computer not fast enough?

[Dave Mac]

Dave,

Of course, it’s always better to have the fastest machine possible… 🙂

You should be okay… like Graeme said earlier, we all use transitions and do color correction on nearly everything, so things will need to be rendered at least at the end of the edit…

I believe that rendering in the sense of FCP’s real-time (RT) functionality is due primarily to the speed of your CPU(s), amount of available RAM, and, increasingly, the performance of your graphics/display card (disk I/O is probably secondary when considering render times or performance).

I’ll report back once I’ve done some testing (unless someone else does so first)… but, it may be more efficient to: (1) set rendering to use ProRes for HDV “native” sequences, or (2) place HDV and XDCAM HD clips in ProRes sequences… rather than having HDV or XDCAM HD clips in “native” HDV sequences (and rendering with the HDV codec or sequence’s codec). At least, this is what is implied by statements in the FCP 6 documentation.

Best regards,

Dave

[Nick Meyers]

“Dark green full RT here….”

don’t trust that “Full” render.
FCP thinks it;s better than it is with that sometimes (i might even say FCP is a bit “full” of itself!.. if i didn’t have better taste!)

actually render some of it, and see if there is an improvement.

nick