[Alex Elkins]

Thanks for the response Chris.

“…you could open the graphic in quicktime pro I suppose and export it as pro res to keep everything real time.”
I tried this but unfortunately it made no difference. Good idea though.

“As long as the final product is rendered out fully and looks good on a studio monitor it shouldn’t really be an issue.”
It isn’t an issue as such, but it looks to me like a minor flaw to an excellent format. When working with uncompressed 8 bit I don’t need to render the graphic overlay as my system will support its playback and ETT without doing so. Thus saving space by capturing Pro Res loses its appeal as I then have to render the entire programme because the graphic bug is used throughout, which adds significantly to the amount of media – original rushes plus render files. Then on top of that there’s the time waiting for things to render, which is no good when there are deadlines!

I’m guessing that perhaps a faster processor might be a way to avoid this?

[Alex Elkins]

Thanks Jim, that site looks great. Much appreciated.

[Alex Elkins]

Problem sorted. It was an easy fix, so if anyone in the future has this problem here’s the answer – just re-install the latest driver from the AJA website.

[Alex Elkins]

Thanks Herb, that’s answered a big headache of a question!

You say both of your systems handle HD editing equally well; what about things like render time, encoding etc – are you finding there’s much in it between the two systems?

It sounds like for me at the moment it’s definitely an issue with slow storage but we will be upgrading the Mac at some point. What sort of spec would people be after for a top-notch machine? I’ve got an idea, but it really goes as far as picking the most expensive stuff we can afford! I’m sure other people know a lot more of the ins and outs of creating a great edit system.

[Alex Elkins]

That’s actually what we’re currently resigned to doing – outputting as DVCPro HD. I honestly can’t see a difference in picture quality, although I’m sure that technically there is one.

Originally what we’ve been doing is capturing at DV res, then media-managing and re-connecting uncompressed HD. Only problem is, as I say, there are dropped frames during capture and then ETT. There are obviously fewer problems with DVCPro HD, but it’d be nice to have a system that will do what I tell it to do in the first place!

[Alex Elkins]

Seems I’m not the only one having trouble with it then.

I’ve actually noticed (but not tested yet) that if you right click the clips there is an option to ‘Export Proxy Movies to Folder’ and it appears you can do this with more than one clip selected.
My assumption would be that doing this would save the lower resolution preview versions you see in the transfer software (whatever that resolution may be).
Probably worth a try when I’ve got time – I’ll post an answer when I’ve checked.

[Alex Elkins]

Thanks a lot Simon, that’ll save me some time.