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Workflow madness: HDV clips from premiere, offline editing in FCP, then online editing on Premiere. Possible?
Im trying something out.
I have this large project on standby while the producers wait for some deals to come through. Its a documentary series about Australia done with 2 HDV cameras, 12 one hour episodes.
We’ve been editing in HD in Premiere so far, but since i recently bought a Macbook Pro and find myself doing nothing at the office for a couple of hours every day, id love to take an offline-d chapter and do some basic editing on FCP. Then, using the “import fcp project” feature on Premiere CS5, i can just reconnect the clips to the original HDV files and finish editing there.
So i grabbed an episode’s worth of clips. 200 gigabytes of HDV 1080 mpeg’s. I left them converting on MPEG streamclip to Motion JPEG-A at 720×576. It took a couple of days, but it’s done. The offline clips are less than 30 gigabytes total! So far so good.
Once the clips were done, I imported them all into FCP. Trouble ensued:
1. No Timecode or Reel info. Nothing. Which is bad, since im going to need to reconnect all these files once i import the whole project in Premiere CS5. Manually typing in the Timecode could take a week (there’s 800 clips in this thing) – which i just might do if there’s no other way, or pay an intern to do – but i’d love a simpler workflow solution.
2. Almost all clips are a dozen or so frames longer than their original files. Im guessing Motion JPEG-a wasnt the best codec to choose.
This isn’t tragic, since i just need to do some very rough offline editing in FCP and then finish inside Premiere. But if premiere decides that it simply wont reconnect files that aren’t identical, im screwed.
I’ll try things out and post again once i bump into more trouble!
Questions:
1. Is there a way to convert all the 800 HDV clips to a lower res, lighter format that is compatible with FCP WITHOUT losing Timecode and Reel metadata?
2. Any other suggestions? Has anyone done this before? -
3 Replies
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[Patrick Bateman]
Don’t you have to return some videotapes?
😉
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MPEG STREAMCLIP won’t keep the original footage’s metadata. Not timecode…not reel number. You were hosed from the start. Plus, Motion JPEG-A really isn’t the best codec to choose. But that is moot…
I concur with Dave…keep it in one NLE. Get CS5…it works on your computer.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Dave, Shane,
I’ll try the XML thing but yeah, you’re probably right. Modifying timecode data by hand on 800 clips and risking the whole thing falling on it’s ass when i bring it over to AP just isnt worth it.
I’ll get the trial and see if i can crunch out a couple of pre-edits and save myself some time for when the show is back in production, and convince my producer to pay for the license.
If i have time, i’ll experiment with a very small edit and see how far i can stretch this theory, but nothing that will actually risk a whole episode worth of editing.
And Alan,
Netflix.
Thanks everybody!
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