Transition Rendering & Drop Frame issues

[David Battistella]

Annimation and None are 4:4:4 codecs that will only play back with a very fast drive array.

If you want to edit in these formats you have to understand that they are not RT enabled (as the uncompressed codecs or DVCPRO codecs are).

So to answer the question in the most basic way, you are using codecs and a color system that is not optimized for use in FCP. You will always have to render a dissolve when editing in annimation or none. In fact, you would not even be able to edit in this color space in and AVID.

Neat, huh?

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[David Battistella]

On the second part of your post.

FCP requires that you edit in ONE codec only. Every other codec introduced will require rendering to the codec that the sequence is in.

The only time you could get away with multiple resolutions is if you were to use different levels of photo J-peg compression anywhere from 1000-to 10000K, similar to AVID’s 20:1 or 2:1 but youcan not put 2:1 together with 1:1

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Quinimine]

Thanks for this very quick reply David…much appreciated. For future reference (so i can tell the company who are sending me content) what format can i work with where the transitions will be enabled to work in Real Time.

cheers
-q

[David Battistella]

Much of this depends on your set up. You can work with 10 bit uncompressed SD material on a SATA raid, or you can try to push that much data on a G-RAID firewire 800 Drive, but if you are woking off firewire, I would ask for the material in DVCPRO50 format.

There are many variables depending on your configuration but it is definitely an external drive solution.

Remember the single largest factor for RT in FCP is drive speed. The faster the drives the more RT you will have. The processor, the ram, etc factor, but none as much as the speed of your hard drive system. You want a fast FCP system, by the fastest drives you can find.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Quinimine]

Thanks again David. In the meantime should i work safe playback setting? Will this help the drop frames issue?

[David Battistella]

I need you to post your system details, without this information, posting answers to these questions is futile.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Quinimine]

Ok David i’ll get that to you asap. tHanks again

[Quinimine]

Hi David;
I have a follow up question to this thread. My company purchased Procoder and i’m now taking video we get from our partners (that is in either Animation, none, or Avid Meridien codec) and using the procoder wizard to convert it to DVCPRO50. I’m wondering if converting has any affect when working with these files in FCP, or does it still come down to how this footage was originally output. Reason i’m asking is i’m still getting some drop frames error messages coming up.

Also i noticed someone posted a question about getting the right set up and Mac to run FCP efficiently. This will be very useful info for me as well as luckily we are submitting our budget for ’07 so any hints on what we should try to get would be most helpful

Cheers
Q

[David Battistella]

Please tell me that you are using an external drive to capture and playback media and NOT the boot drive, that the software and the OS are running on.

An external drive tends to eliminate many drop frame issues.
NEVER store media and the application on the same drive.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Quinimine]

Well yes and no. After begging and pleading we’ve finally got an external drive (office budgets…what can i cay)Also we don’t capture anything here, our client delivers hi-res QT uncompressed on DVD (several sometime). I usually drag these to the desktop and set up a folder on the iMac and store the content there. I’m guessing this is something i shouldn’t be doing judging by your post. Luckily I can start using the drive we got last week. Usually what i have been doing is once i’ve exported a finished edit i usually have to delete the source file off the OS.

Thanks for this heads up, i’ll make sure never to store media on the drive.

tx
Q