[Andy Mees]

I’ve not tried this, but if you use CalibratedQ’s MXF Import component then it would seem you should be able to work directly in FCP with the same MXF media you import and use in the Avid edit. Grab the demo’s and test out the workflow … post back and let us know if it works, pro’s and con’s etc. (I note the CalibratedQ state on their site that their native MXF import component is not really suitable for long form XDCAM editing so you may wish to take that into consideration)

[Andy Mees]

Sure, 1 Degree North in TTDI could do it for you … are you local to Kuala Lumpur?

[Andy Mees]

You can’t. They are embedded in the preferences file and the only way to rid your self of unwanted Easy Setups is to trash the Prefs (which gets rid of all of them) and then recreate the ones you do want. (Call it what you will, but its a bug by any other name).

[Andy Mees]

In essence no, FCP is a post production tool not a live production one .. but it can be done
https://www.livecut.at/livecut-multicamerarecording/livecut_.html

Other solutions might include Softron’s MovieRecorder to simultaneously capture the ISO feeds and the line cut feed for a quick turnaround (as it lets you access the captured footage whilst it is still being ingested). Or you might want to look at Big Mug Software’s Capture Magic as a similar multiple simultaneous ingest option (although that one doesn’t let you access the material until the ingest is complete).

[Andy Mees]

by all accounts, Toast 9 will convert your AVCHD files to any codec on your system (not just AIC as per Voltaic) and it will do it much much faster than Voltaic’s painfully sow 12x realtime speeds

[Andy Mees]

iLink out only works in SP mode (HDV)

[Andy Mees]

open Compressor, press Cmd-3 to open the Settings window, select the Apple > Formats > Audio > AIFF 48:16 preset and then press the Save Selection as Droplet button (thats the middle of the three buttons in the upper left area of the Settings window pane … save it to the Desktop or somewhere equally accessible

now all you have to do is drag and drop your source files onto the droplet and they’ll be converted

[Andy Mees]

there are a few factors to consider Charles

if performance is what you are striving for then “striping” the two drives together in a RAID 0 configuration would be a worthwhile option to consider. the 2 drives appear as a single mounted volume with double their individual capacity and near double the throughput … but if either drive died for whatever reason then you would lose all your data

if data security is your prime concern then you could stripe the two drives together as a RAID 1 (mirrored) pair. in this case the 2 drives would appear as a single mounted volume with the capacity of only a single one of the drives and with slightly impaired performance (as compared to a single drive) … but behind the scenes both drives would hold identical data sets so that should 1 drive fail for whatever reason then all your data would still be safe and transparently accessible from the second drive

however, judging from your post I’m not sure that either of these options is actually what you’re after. rather it sounds like you just want to make best use of your additional storage capacity in the simplest fashion

in that case you have two options:

you can specify the second drive as a second scratch disc for capture AND renders … this allows FCP to decide which drive to use based on the space available, and it will try to spread your data evenly across the two drives. this is beneficial as it means your discs performance will deteriorate as one drive fills to capacity whilst the other remains empty

or you can specify one drive as the capture scratch and the second for renders, as you suggested yourself. given that you are working in HDV then the chances are you routinely generate a lot of large render files, so splitting those renders off to a second dedicated drive is a good and valid idea … and yes, there is some performance advantage to maintaing separate render and capture scratch discs

regarding storing your project files on the renders drive, well that is fine, but the most important thing is to ensure that you do NEVER locate the Autosave Vault on the same drive as your store your working project files. remember: you can always recapture / rerender media, but if you lose your project file and your autosave copies of the same then you are going to have to start your edit from scratch

hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

>if it’s dark gray, dark green or green it will play at full quality without additional render

of course, a render status bar in bright green denotes preview quality playback rather than full quality playback, so if its bright green then it will require rendering (for full quality export to file or tape)

[Andy Mees]

Noah, it would seem somewhat likely that the poster is referring to the issue of too much data for the EX’s GOP format to handle ie “breaking” the codec, as is often evidenced with HDV cameras. Paul, most agree that the higher and variable data rate offered by the XDCAM HD and EX camera’s makes the codec very much more difficult to break. You should test drive one and see for yourself.