[Alex Elkins]

Hi Rafael,

[Rafael Amador] “”Media Start” in the Browser, the clips will be ordered by TC.”

This will insert the clips in the correct order, but it doesn’t leave any gaps between the clips relevant to the time of day they were recorded, which is what I’m after.

Do you know whether FCP is able to do this automatically? It’s looking increasingly like the manual process I’m using is the only option.

Thanks,
Alex

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Ben,

It sounds like this was shot in DVCAM mode and you’re capturing it as normal Mini DV. Is the camera reading it as DVCAM?

Best,
Alex Elkins

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Kyle,

Are you working on a Mac or PC? If on a Mac it may be that the FCP editor can work with the same files you are. If not, Animation codec is high quality and compatible cross-platform, but the FCP editor would then have to convert to a better editing format.

All the best,
Alex

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Richard,

If you export from FCP/Compressor as an h.264 mov you can simply change the extension of the encoded file to .flv – this will allow the file to be opened using any kind of Flash player.

This is what I tend to do for web videos as exporting using Compressor is much faster than Adobe Media Encoder when you have QMaster set up.

All the best,
Alex Elkins

[Alex Elkins]

[tony antonio] “can I import it or convert it? or will I even have great data after the conversion”

You can convert PAL to NTSC using Compressor. It works excellently as long as you turn on Frame Controls and set Frame Rate Conversion to Best.
I’ve done it a few times at it’s been fine. It takes a long time though, so it’s a toss up between doing it slowly for free, or paying for it to be done quickly.

If it’s not shot yet, just hire a camera that shoots in NTSC. Just one example I’ve experienced is that a lot of people are shooting music videos using EX3s. Those are switchable between PAL and NTSC.

Good luck,
Alex

[Alex Elkins]

[Michael Petty] “I am assuming the easiest way to get the footage off the DVD is use MPEG Streamclip or other similar tool…True?”

Correct. I would use Streamclip and render it out as ProRes, uncompressed sound, Frame Size: Unscaled

This will give you the 4×3 letterboxed video, which I would then take into Compressor and do one of two things:

1. Upscale to ProRes HD, cropping the letterbox effect as appropriate under the Geometry tab. The advantage of this method is that you’ll be working entirely in HD, which will save on rendering time downscaling the XDCAM material.
I’ve done exactly this before, upscaling 4×3 material from a DVD to HD, and honestly the results have been excellent. Just be sure to set all of your resizing controls (Frame Controls tab) to best quality.

2. Convert to 16×9 by cropping under the Geometry tab, as above, but don’t upscale to HD.
The advantage here is you’re not trying to add resolution that wasn’t there to start with, but the disadvantage is that your XDCAM stuff will take longer to render. This might be preferable though if you’re only using small bits of the XDCAM.
A caveat here is that if you can cut all of your XDCAM material on a separate timeline, you could render this from FCP as HD, then downcovert in Compressor to SD to match the converted video from the DVD. Compressor will do a better job of downconverting than FCP.

Personally I’d use Method 1, but the results either way will be similar because you’re only delivering to web/iPod in the end. Method 1 could impress the client by being able to wow them with the line “I converted the old stuff to HD”. People seem to like that.

Let me know if you need more details, although I imagine many of the answers should all be archived in the Compression Techniques forum.

All the best,
Alex Elkins

[Alex Elkins]

[Alan Okey] “Personally, I dislike the look of anything with a temporal resolution greater than 30p for dramatic material – it just looks too “live” to my eye. 24p and even 30p provide just enough of a detached, romanticized quality of motion to psychologically separate the viewer from the material, in my opinion.”

This sums it up perfectly. It depends on the content but particularly for anyone trying to achieve the ‘film look’, 60p will be a big disappointment. It’s just too crisp and really doesn’t look nice for much other than sports – just my opinion. Others may feel the total opposite, and I can see Walter’s point of 60p translating to 60i nicely makes sense. I’m just not into the aesthetics of it.

All the best,
Alex

[Alex Elkins]

Thanks for the response, Dino.

Unfortunately saving a copy of the project under a different name didn’t work.
The thing is, I can open the project and edit away quite happily. Bizarrely the only detrimental effect I’ve noticed is that I’m not able to use the ‘Make Freeze Frame’ command. There are worse things I can think of not being able to do in an edit, but I’m just concerned that the problem may run deep into corruption of files that eventually could cause bigger issues.

Thanks for taking the time,
Alex Elkins

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Shane,

[Shane O’Brien] “just showing them edited versions rather than having the client come to the edit suite? How was that worked? I’d be curious to hear about anyone else’s experience.”

In my opinion, if you’re only showing them edited versions then it makes no sense for you to go out of your way to sit next to them as they watch it. Just send them a Quicktime file and talk on the phone/email with any comments from them.
Doing that gives the client more of a chance to review what they’re looking at, ultimately enabling you to provide a better finished product, which is what it all comes down to.

All the best,
Alex Elkins

[Alex Elkins]

Hi Shane,

[Shane Ross] “Via the Sony Software you can only import as XDCAM EX, but with the FCP plugin you can import it as ProRes”

Can you definitely transcode XDCam to ProRes via L&T? I’m not seeing any options at all for XDCAM transcoding – only REDCODE, AVCHD and P2 AVC-Intra. As far as I know I’ve got the most recent plugin from Sony. Am I missing something? I hate that I can’t transcode XDCAM via L&T but maybe I can.

Thanks,
Alex Elkins