XDCam HD workflow

[Mark Maness]

Well, I’m a current FCP user that uses XDCAM and my experiences have been wonderful. The software that Apple mentions about is the software supplied by Sony that allows for direct connection of the XDCAM machine and your Mac. This software is not available to the public as of this time, but is supposed to be available at the end of June (according to Sony). It’s not necessary to operate but when it becomes available, it will speed the workflow tremendously. This software also has the assumption that the shooter shoots the footage in takes which would be a different clip of data. This isn’t always so…

Oh well, new technologies need new training…

At the current time, I have my machine hooked SDI thru an AJA Kona 2 capture card, capturing footage using the IMX50 codec. There is also a piece of software from Flip4Mac that uses the network connection of the machine to transfer clips via a network. Personally, I find it much easier to capture the old way of logging my footage and capturing only what I need.

XDCAM is absolutely awesome! I love the way that I can lay commercials to a disc and not have to worry if I am overwriting anything!

If you have any questions regarding XDCAM, feel free to contact me!

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions

[Nick Lammers]

Hi Wayne. After searching thru some older posts I thought you might respond. Thanks for the input. I too looked at the Flip4Mac product, but I would definitely try the demo before I bought it. I was curious if you have any experience with the HD flavor. I’d love to fire some questions to you directly. Can you provide your email address? If you don’t want to post it, here’s mine: nlammers@mediamillinc.com

Nick Lammers
Media Mill, Inc.
St. Louis, MO

Media 100i XS 8.2.2
Dual 1Ghz G4

[David Slater]

I am using the XDCAM HD up here
I go HDSDI from the record deck though my Kona LHe card into DVCPRO HD codec
if you want to edit nativly you need to shoot with the SP mode NOT the HQ mode as that is all Apple and Sony are supporting when they release the ingest program

we had shot in the HQ mode (you will notice a difference) so even if the native solutions where out now it wouldn’t have mattered

DAVE at Movies Rock in Toronto

[Andy Mees]

At the present time Apple have not released full support for all the Sony XDCAM HD codecs
currently supported is the SP codec, thats the 25 Mbps codec, essentially HDV which can be edited natively on an HDV timeline
the LP codec (18 Mbps) and the HQ codec (35 Mbps) are not yet available, but Apple announced their (near) future support at NAB
the low-res proxy files are also not supported for native timeline editing, although I’m hopeful that this will also be coming (eventually)

Sony’s XDCAM Transfer tool is still in beta but is already very good at what it does … you can browse all the low-res proxy clips, mark ins and outs within those clips and then import only those marked sections – its quick and easy to use, with a very clean mac-like interface. It also delivers FAM (File Access Mode) support so that your disc mounts and is browsable on the desktop.

hope it helps

[Dan Riley]

Andy,

What do the proxy files look like?
When Sony & Apple get the appropriate software done and those
files are available to dump into a Macbook Pro (for instance)
for an offline, would you do it?
I don’t want to go back to low rez 1990s style AVID looking
offline editing again. I presently capture my digibeta footage SDI
using the DVCPRO codec for offline and it works great.
Then uprez to 10 bit uncompressed.

I’m looking very seriously at recommending our HD upgrade path
includes shooting with the XDCAM HD 350 camera and deck,
so I’m following everyone’s comments.
I’ve already read a review in the Cow magazine that really
loved the picture quality versus the Varicam.
This is a big deal to us. We have many shooters who like
that camera, but I want a disk based transfer system going forward.

Dan

[Andy Mees]

the issue here is whether you need to follow the “offline” workflow at all

the way AVID do it is to allow you to edit with the low res and then conform to the high res only what is needed (the typical upres solution)
what Apple proposes is that you edit natively with the full res media – which obviously looks great

… but this is an issue of which workflow you want to adopt. personally I want the opportunity of doing either.

editing XDCAM HD on the new 17″ MacBook Pro’s will give us about 5 or 6 streams of full res in real time – pretty healthy – but that comes at the price of time lost in data transfer … if I want to pull in 30 minutes of rushes at full HD resolution (to cut, lets say, a 4 minute package), then thats going to take me around 15 minutes to import (2x realtime), but if I work with the low res proxies it will take me zero additional time to pull in the 30 minutes of rushes at low-res (actually it will take 3 or 4 minutes to transfer but this happens automatically when you use the XDCAM Transfer tool). then, when I’ve cut the package, it will only take 2 minutes to import the full res HD for upres’ing

as to your original question, the proxy files are MPEG-4 video with 8ch A-Law 2:1 8kHz audio … if you send me your email details i’d be glad to send you a sample (my email address is in my profile)

[Bobby Mosaedi]

also…the flip4mac plugin only works with XDCAM SD material right now.

[Mark Maness]

Not true anymore… Flip4Mac has come out with a new version specifically for the the XDCAM family called XDCAM Component v2. It will work with all forms of XDCAM footage. You can preview any clip before importing and name that clip before importing.

The only problem that I still have with this program is that it imports all 8 channels of audio even if you have only recorded two channels. There’s no way to select the audio channels you want.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Andy Mees]

hi Wayne

not sure if this is useful info to you but afaik the flip4mac component always imports the full clip whereas the sony plugin allows you to import all or just specifically marked/logged sections of the media … also the sony plugin allows you choose how much of the audio to import ( in channel pairs ) as opposed to all 8 channels regardless.

other than that the maiin difference technically is that flip4mac requires and uses ethernet transfer whereas sony’s plugin uses firewire

… oh yeah, flip4mac is import only and sony’s plugin is both import and export

cheerts
Andy

[Mark Maness]

Very True! I agree with you completely, Andy. The Flip4Mac plugin still has a very long way to go to be really useful unless you are in a large post house with one PDW-1500 machine in a tape room. But even then, you really need to ability to make clips and import those markers only.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com