Alan Okey
5
COW Coins
2
DaVinci Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Capture card: AJA Kona LHi
Preview monitor: Flanders Scientific (FSI) LM-1760W
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[Matt Lester] “So from here I…
1) Open FCP
2) Click Log and Transfer
3) Add Volume (top left corner)
4) Choose the correct folder
5) Click Automatic TransferAnd then the files will be editable in FCP. Is that the gist of it?”
That’s the gist of it. Both Log & Transfer and XDCAM Transfer rewrap the contents of the BPAV folders into Quicktime .mov files that FCP can edit.
Different NLEs deal with XDCAM footage in different ways, that’s why it’s important to always save the original BPAV folder from recording sessions. Unfortunately far too many people don’t do this out of ignorance, and they are essentially throwing away their masters. Consider yourself lucky that you have the original complete BPAV folders.
[Matt Lester] “And do I choose the whole BPAV folder, or just the mp4 itself?”
Choose the BPAV folder.
If you have problems with Log & Transfer, try XDCAM Transfer instead. I have had occasions where BPAV folders that could be imported properly by XDCAM Transfer that didn’t open correctly in Log & Transfer.
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The proper way to work with XDCAM footage in FCP is to import footage using either Log and Transfer (within FCP) or XDCAM Transfer (standalone software available as a free download form Sony). It’s necessary for you to have the original BPAV folder from the camera in order to use this workflow.
Final Cut Pro cannot natively edit the mp4 contents of BPAV folders – the files must be rewrapped into Quicktime movies. This is what Log and Transfer and XDCAM Transfer do.
Were you provided with the complete BPAV folders from the shoot? If not, others will recommend that you look into Clipwrap.
I’d also recommend posting on the Cow’s XDCAM forum for additional help.
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Ask your friend to run Software Update. Although you’re both using the same major version of FCP, there may be a point release that your friend hasn’t installed yet.
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I’m not ware of any hacks for this, but I’d be quite interested in it as well. I can’t stand FCP’s bright interface. Ideally, I would love to see the color scheme of FCP’s GUI resemble that of Smoke or Combustion. I’m a firm believer that the interface should disappear and not distract from the task at hand.
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[Mark Petereit] “OK, so lets say I find some great deals on a couple of G5’s. I had no intention of installing Final Cut on the older systems, since BlackMagic’s Media Express software can capture to ProRes. I would just use them as capture devices/file servers.”
That might depend on which model of G5. ProRes capture is extremely CPU-intensive. If I recall correctly, it was only supported on the last high-end model quad G5, so you may be limited in which model you can consider.
I can’t answer your question about multicam editing three different 720p ProRes angles from three different machines via gigE, but it sounds like it has the potential to be a performance bottleneck.
You will experience much smoother editing performance if you put three dedicated hard drives in your Mac Pro editing system (leaving the fourth drive as a dedicated OS and applications drive), create a RAID-0 (striped) volume using Disk Utility, then put all of your footage on the RAID volume and edit the project with all files stored locally.
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[Mark Petereit] “We have an old G4 Mac Pro sitting in a closet.”
No, you don’t. You have a Power Mac G4. The Mac Pro has Intel CPUs, whereas Power Mac G4 and G5 models have PowerPC CPUs. FCP 7 won’t run on non-Intel machines. Yes, some people have hacked it to run on the G5, but it won’t run as well or support ProRes capture. As for the G4, just forget it.
[Mark Petereit] “What if bought another old G4 Mac Pro and added BlackMagic capture and GigE cards to each?”
The Power Mac G4 only has PCI slots. Even the oldest generation of Blackmagic capture hardware requires at least PCI-X slots, which weren’t introduced until the Power Mac G5 was released. The latest generation of capture cards use PCI Express, which was only featured on the very last model of Power Mac G5. All Mac Pros have PCI Express slots.
You’d be much better off saving your money for a used Mac Pro – the first models can be found for a little over $1000 these days, and they are infinitely more capable and expandable than the Power Mac G4 or G5.
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Be very careful about depending on hard drives for archiving purposes, especially if you leave them sitting on a shelf and not accessed regularly.
Details here:
https://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_hard_disk_warning.html
“Magnetic signals recorded on a hard disk are designed to be refreshed periodically. If your hard disks stay on, this happens automatically. However, if you store your projects to a removable hard drive, then store that hard drive on a shelf, unattached to a computer, those magnetic signals will fade over time… essentially, evaporating.”
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[Joseph Owens] “Looking forward to the day when Apple finally figures out that 2:2:2:4 is unacceptable at any time anywhere and what 2:3 really means.”
This might be my favorite quote of the year.
Of course, I could say the same of many clients and even some post “professionals,” not just Apple. I’ve actually seen 2:2:2:4 pulldown recently in some of the pre-movie advertising that’s displayed in movie theaters these days. If you think that 2:2:2:4 looks bad on your preview monitor, imagine it on a panning shot projected on a cinema-sized screen… It’s the visual equivalent of riding in a car with someone who keeps hitting the brake pedal every half a second.
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[Chris Guevarra] “I’m still having trouble with Media Manager (I’ve put up previous posts about this problem) adding handles to my media when copying it to new drives and I would like to see if shortening, or cutting off, the copied media down to the original media’s “MEDIA END” point would help relieve this problem.
“What codec is your media? If it’s a long-GOP codec like XDCAM or HDV, then you most likely won’t be able to shorten clips with single-frame accuracy.