[Ben Holmes]

If you want a fast, simple and cheap solution for transcoding DSLR footage to ProRes for use in FCP, I would recommend Magic Bullet’s Grinder. I think it’s $50, and uses all 8 cores on a Mac Pro to transcode 8 files at once. Drag and drop batch simple.

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[Ben Holmes]

Don’t want to rain on your parade, but – seems about right to me. “Well lit room” is a very subjective term, and it looks like yours is lit by no more than a couple of tungsten bulbs, right? That’s actually pretty low light, darker than being under a streetlight most probably.

You’ve got an F2.8 lens on your camera, which will probably require an ISO of around 1600 to be acceptable – much as you’re seeing, and pretty noisy with all that H.264 compression. This is analogous to a fair bit of ‘gain’ in your video camera, but the 550D doesn’t do such a good job of noise reduction.

Using Canon’s own (dirt cheap) F1.8 50mm prime lens in a room with 3x60w light sources, I need to use ISO800 to get a decent exposure.

You can’t use a cheap lens and get great results with something like the 550D – as excellent as it is. All the example videos you see on Vimeo are either shot with expensive, fast lenses, or focus on a light source, like a candle. A lit room, with areas of light and dark, is quite different…

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[Ben Holmes]

There is a good whitepaper (with workflow guides) included with the RED FCS Installer. Given your hardware limitations, I’d recommend transcoding to ProRes to edit, then using Clipfinder to re-conform to REDCode so you can CC in Color – although the performance may be poor on the iMac.

A popular alternative is to use REDCine to do a one-light CC, then transcode to ProRes4444, and use these to edit and then in Color for CC. With a decent sized, RAIDed FW800 drive, you should be OK, just don’t expect multi-stream playback. Also, playback may skip frames if the array is too full. Do some test yourself to see if this can work for you, as it avoids multiple transcodes.

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[Ben Holmes]

Have you viewed the footage from FCP on an external monitor? The Canvas is not the most reliable means of judging quality. It looks like you have footage playing using RT in FCP, and it’s dropped the resolution to give smooth playback, or you have the RT quality set to ‘low’. Alternatively, do you have any render bars in the timeline? Is the sequence set up for 16:9 as well?

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[Ben Holmes]

OMF gives a multitrack file that can be used for audio post. Also export a lower resolution video file they can use as reference – ask your audio facility what format they prefer.

Don’t worry about the ‘per hour’ cost of audio post – if they’re any good, they can achieve more in an hour than you will in a day, and make it sound far better. In my experience, Audio post is a most underappreciated skill, and adds far more to any production than it ever costs.

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[Ben Holmes]

Keylight every time. It’s not cheap, but it’s amazingly good. It’s also bundled into AE if you have access to that. I think there’s a trial for FCP/Motion.

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[Ben Holmes]

If you are clearly selling your FCS2 software as an upgrade package, I don’t see an issue – you just have to make clear to any purchaser that they need a copy of FCS1 to use this update, with their own serial.

This assumes: 1) The price of the FCS3 upgrade is the same whether or not you upgrade from FCS1 or 2 and that 2) When FCS4 is announced (along with affordable space-flight for all) Apple don’t decide to deprecate FCS1 owners by charging tiered pricing for updates, as other vendors (Adobe) do – although I guess owning the FCS3 update should insulate you from this.

Just be grateful you don’t have to jump through online authentication like Adobe users, where updates are frequently more trouble than they’re worth….

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[Ben Holmes]

FCP needs to render the sequence when you output it – so if you are outputting the sequence in the same codec you are rendering in, you would see little timesaving via either method.

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[Ben Holmes]

Having researched this myself a couple of months ago, the Neo3D solution requires a Kona card for proper support – even the Decklink 3D card did not have the proper drivers. Not sure if that has changed yet, but I would contact Cineform before proceeding, by all accounts they have a much better relationship with AJA than other vendors.

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[Ben Holmes]

The Keyer in FCP is terrible. If you have access to After Effects CS4/5, then Keylight will probably make mincemeat of the key, even if you shot DV.

If you don’t have this, or a better keyer plugin in FCP, use the keyer in Motion, but add a matte around it first, so you’re only dealing with the areas near the subject, not the corners of the frame.

Don’t think you’re going mad – I’ve never achieved an acceptable key in FCP, even with HDCam footage.

Ben

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