Aaron Stewart
Forum Replies Created
-
I don’t believe (and others can correct me if I’m off base here) that inherently there is any PICTURE difference between the 7D and the T2i. I’ve heard that the T2i overheats a little faster than the 7D. And the T2i has less features than the 7D in terms of photography.
I suppose why I was asking “What type of show it was” was to determine if there are other things in your show that would make having a 7d or t2i a problem. For example, for long documentary interviews, you’ll have to restart the recording of the interview over after every 12-ish minutes. Sure the audio on the Zoom or other comparable recorder will keep going, but both cameras will stop with the 12 min. record limit. So that would be a limitation. Another limitation would be the sound-sync in post. There are programs to make it easier, but that may be too much of a hassle in post-production.
Another thing to consider would be the cost of hard drive units on a continuing show. You can edit the H.264’s as they are, so they have to be converted, and thus, take up lots more space. If you are shooting all day, you’ll need to purchase extra batteries and extra CF cards to carry you through the day. Sure you can have only a handful of cards (I’ve got 8, 8GB cards) but again, you’ll have to stop production to transfer them to your computer (or have someone on hand to do it for you, but again, at extra cost). So all of that is added cost, and some of it *COULD* be avoided with slightly more expensive cameras.
So there are a few extra costs going into these cameras, that a lot of more professional video cameras have built in. For example, if you went the HDV route, you could record on tape (an hour or more at a time, right HDV people?), you could plug mics and booms straight into the camera (no extra syncing afterwards), and you COULD (although I don’t really recommend it), edit in HDV and save a bit of hard drive space. Tapes cost a bit less than CF cards, AND you’ve got a physical backup.
Just food for thought. These cameras can make beautiful images (even without IS lenses, you could get cheaper/older FD lenses with converters, or use an EF 50mm 1.8, it takes good video for $100) but if you don’t have those accessories it could just bog down the production and add cost then instead of up-front.
Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
-
I got that once, but I just restarted FCP and unmounted, ejected, then plugged my memory card back in, and it worked fine after that.
Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
Interesting… on mine it comes through as 25fps both in Quicktime (and subsequently in FCP) as well as Premiere Pro CS4. No problems at all, plays fine.
Have you tried force-interpreting the footage in Premiere? (Select clip, File > Interpret Footage) then change the framerate manually to 25fps? I would assume that would fix the problem, but you shouldn’t have to do that (obviously!)
I suspect that the root issue is that your version of Premiere is not interpreting the h.264’s well anymore… might be an issue with the updated firmware and the version of Premiere you are using. You may have to interpret footage until someone addresses the problem, but that is quite the problem! What version of Premiere are you running?
Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
If you don’t mind uploading a small file to MediaFire or similar file service I can download it and check it out… I’ve got CS4 as well as FCP. Sounds like Premiere is improperly recognizing the footage on import.
Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
What is interesting is that I started to write this post on what file sizes you SHOULD be getting for ProResLT, but then noticed that I wasn’t getting the file sizes that I should ideally be getting either (no wonder I just purchased 2x 2TB HDD’s). It seems that the ProResLT flavor takes a bit more space than most video space calculators say. It is SUPPOSED to be about 3 min and 15 sec. per GB. But in real-life, a 2 min 14 sec clip is around 1.8 GB. Quite a difference. But ProRes is VBR so it is no wonder that it is bigger.
First off, I noticed you were using ProRes422. You really don’t gain much by using that over ProRes422(LT). The LT is the newest version, and is still a 100mb/s codec (the 5Dmkii and 7d both shoot around 47 mb/s). So between the 10-bit, 100mb/s, and 4:2:2 color space conversion, you really are not losing any information by using LT. Just gaining more hard drive space. Of course, if you don’t have the newest flavor of Final Cut Pro, then LT isn’t an option, so you’ve got to stick with 422.
One thing you COULD try (although I really wouldn’t recommend it) is transferring the footage to something like XDCAM, and edit native XDCAM. Now, keep in mind, XDCAM is a compressed format (well, technically so is ProRes, but XDCAM is more compressed) and the XDCAM footage would be around the same size (I think… anyone want to chime in?) as the original H.264. So if you used an XDCAM 50mb/s setting you’d be at ABOUT the same quality (again you’ll lose something in the compression) but keep those smaller file sizes. Plus editing XDCAM is a pain in the ass, so… again, I wouldn’t recommend that route. And you are compressing the footage from Mpeg-4 to Mpeg-2… not the best. I suppose if you are going that route you could also try AVC-Intra or something like that. Again, you would be taking an already compressed format, and compressing it again. So you are going to lose information, at that point it is more worth it to simply invest in a bigger hard drive.
-Does this conversion enlarge the video file and the overall project
Yes it does. By a good bit. Overall project? You mean the FCP file? In that case, yes, but it won’t be a huge deal.
-Will this affect my render and exporting time?
If you convert to ProRes, your editing will be mostly real-time, exporting pretty fast (unless you have heavy effects)
-Will this affect the size of my final project?
Your final project (on export) will be in the ProRes format, so yes, that’ll be bigger than the h.264. The h.264 is NOT edit friendly, so you’ll have to go to another codec to edit with. FCP with H.264 files will crash all over the place, and generally be extremely sluggish and temperamental.Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
Sounds odd…. does it say that if you open Quicktime and look at the video info?
Sounds like a metadata field somewhere isn’t mapping correctly.
Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
Here is a tutorial. It is a pretty simple process. You convert the footage to ProRes (at 50fps), then using Cinema Tools you can batch conform the footage to 25fps (takes about 5 seconds per clip).
https://philipbloom.co.uk/tutorials/how-to-turn-50p-and-60p-into-slow-motion-with-cinema-tools/
Enjoy,
AaronAaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
Try transcoding to a different codec like DVCProHD. Time on the front end for conversion… saves time on the backend by being real-time when you edit and output.
Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com -
I’ve got my 7d on a monopod, with one strap around my neck to hold the monopod up, makes the camera rest about eye-level, then the strap from the camera tightened directly around my neck. Might look a bit funny, but hey, it gets the job done.
My ZoomH4n came with this little plastic handle, which I’ll also use on the 7d sometimes… that works pretty well. You could also check out cage systems, those might help. Looks good though! Love the shots of the people watching films in the theater.
Aaron R. Stewart
arstewart@gmail.com