Andrew Rendell
Forum Replies Created
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There’s always going to be a time issue with that duration of programme, but Compressor is much better in terms of how it uses the computer’s resources (e.g., multiple cores/processors) than FCP, so it’s faster to export from FCP in Current settings then use Compressor to make a version in an appropriate size/codec than it is to export from FCP using Quicktime conversion to make the size you want.
DVDs use a version of MPEG-2 and making them the “proper” way means having separate audio and video files and matching them up when you author the disc (Compressor has presets for that kind of thing), but I like the ease of making a .mov and using the iDVD MakeMovie from file thing.
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The simplest way of doing it is to import the recording into FCP, cut it with the timeline in the same codec setting as the source (make a new sequence then on the first edit you’ll probably get a message saying “For best performance….. Change sequence settings to match the clip setings” in which case click Yes).
When you’re done editing, export it as a quicktime in Current Settings. Then open iDVD and select “OneStep DVD from Movie…” in the File menu, and choose the file you’ve just made. That will make you a DVD that’ll just play the programme, no menu. It will take a very long time, so you’ll have plenty of time to read up on how to turn your HD quicktime into a SD one (DVDs are always SD) that can be burnt to DVD more efficiently.
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When I started using FCP after a few years of Avid, transferring over was fairly easy but the things that bugged me were the things that are almost but not quite the same, e.g., Avid’s Add Edit and FCP’s Blade tool (position cursor then click on the tool versus select tool then position cursor and click) and the slider for zooming on the timeline going in the other direction.
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Windows Media Player is a bit of a pain. It’s actually quite easy to add codecs so that it’ll play quicktimes, etc, and it’s also very common on this side of the pond for people to use VLC player instead. I usually send out Quicktimes (H264/AAC) and haven’t had anyone unable to play them for ages (a couple of years, probably). But if it’s necessary that you send files that can be read with any old version of Windows Media Player, then you haven’t really got a choice but to make WMVs.
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If Quicktime recognises the Blackmagic card you could record a wild audio track with that, then import it into FCP. Bit of a PITA though.
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If the tracks are a stereo pair, then that’s how FCP displays the pan, i.e., it’s showing the pan for only the left track and the right track is the other way. If you unlink the stereo pairing and look at the tracks as individual mono tracks you’ll see that the second track is panned to the right.
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Very hard to say. I had version 2.8 (if I recall correctly) running on a Dell laptop which wouldn’t be regarded as high spec today, but the issue for running Avid on a laptop isn’t so much the processor power as the display adapter, so it’s always been pretty limited over which laptops it’ll run on.
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+1 with regard to colorists.
OTOH, if you’ve got big changes of exposure and color balance between shots and your commissioner is a technical and imaginative imbecile (which is not as, er, unusual as one might hope) it can be useful to do a rough grade for viewings before you get to picture lock stage.
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Avid uses MXF for media files, but they’re not OP1a. There’s an explanation here:
https://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/mxf.pdf?featureID=997&marketID=1Also, someone explains how to export an OP1a MXF for XDCAM HD from Avid in this thread here:
https://community.avid.com/forums/t/77147.aspx -
Upper field first isn’t particularly unusual.
There are a couple of things in that spec that strike me as a bit odd, although there may be a degree of interpretation possible, e.g., dynamic range no greater than 7dB means that the sound has to be very heavily compressed, but it also begs the question of what method should be used to measure it.