[Andy Mees]

[Wayne Carey] “Andy, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you do episodic television shows, and if you do, how do you handle working with SD commercials with your XDCAM HD workflow?”

not regular episodic Wayne, news, current affairs and short form documentary stuff mostly. XDCAM HD is our primary aquisition format, some HDCAM some HDV. the field editing is done with FCP with archive back to XDCAM disc, but once it gets back in house all the editing happens on GVG’s HD edit systems, any footage from SD gets upconverted at ingest.

[Andy Mees]

for your workflow FAM is the way to go.

With FCP6’s multi format timeline you’ll have no problem mixing HDV and XDCAM HD on the same timeline. The ability to select ProRes422 as the render codec in HDV and XDCAM HD timelines eliminates the long render issues.

If you have the PDBK-104 option board for your F75 you can dub your BetaSP footage to XDCAM HD letting the deck do the upconvert.

when you’re done and dusted you can conform and export back the XDCAM disc (via firewire) or export as appropriate. if you have any 3rd party HD I/O card, or maybe a Matrox MXO box, you can easily record your timeline back to XDCAM HD via HD-SDI without waiting for the conform.

[Andy Mees]

are you kidding?? what, are we mind readers?
“I did x and it looks like y … but then i went back and looked again and now it looks like z … what did i do?”

[Andy Mees]

regarding A/VC:
make sure you set the deck to “remote” (switch on the front)
if you want firewire deck control then make sure you set the REMOTE I/F to i.LINK in the menu pages

regarding FAM:
when you plug in the deck to the Mac via firewire, do you see the message PC REMOTE on the deck’s LCD display? does the XDCAM disc mount on the desktop?

its not at all hard Tom, just as you remember! a bit of shut eye probably is all you need
theres a basic whitepaper on the correct workflow here:
https://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/markets/10014/docs/FCP_XDCAMHD_whitepaper.pdf

[Andy Mees]

there are many many asset management systems on the market
this might be a good solution for you;
https://www.frameline.tv/

or you might try something like CatDV Server
https://www.squarebox.co.uk/server.html

[Andy Mees]

given the pricepoint of Color i’d think that Color is already the Color for the rest of us 🙂

but yes, cost notwithstanding, this does seem very accessible.
imho the multiple presets paradigm is not to somehw a “bad thing” although i dare say some users might never stray beyiond them (probably the same users that download it from bittorent). rather than obfuscate the learning process presets allow quite the opposite. letting users analyse the composite parts that make up a color grade so as to better understand thise parts and how they work together to create a whole.

just my 2c

[Andy Mees]

thanks Walter
thats exactly what I was alluding to.
as to why he would post his grievance here, well our erstwhile poster has been touting this on any number of forums over the last week or so … if he hadn’t posted here I’d have been very surprised and a little unsettled! 🙂
cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

ha ha, having hung around these forums for years it seems that the only one talking about this (at the moment anyway) is your good self.

not suggesting that it shouldn’t happen mind. its an excellent request.

there are however LOTS of other requests that we’d all like to see addressed first. for example the implementation of a robust media database model, for tracking all project media by reel, timecode and metadata

… actually that would more than likely fix your little issue as a byproduct 🙂

could/would you modify your future posts of this issue to embrace the bigger picture?

[Andy Mees]

not at all … in fact by using FAM mode, rather than capturing via HD-SDI, you are maintaining the original clip data in all its pristine native glory.
you’d be hard pressed to spot the difference though, and capturing via HD-SDI and a suitable I/O card has the potential benefit of capturing to and working in a more edit friendly codec.

[Andy Mees]

avi is just a wrapper, and FCP/Apple are just fine with thise files.
the problem is one of communication. when transferring files between individual computers, let alone operating systems and NLE’s, you have to agree on a compatablie codec that is and/or can be installed on each of the target machines.
talk to your colleagues and find out what codec they are currently using, it may be that you only need to download and install it on your Mac. if it is not a cross platform codec, then discuss with them a suitable cross platform codec for your workflow.