[Ben Holmes]

Put it this way – prices on those current 12-cores will plummet if new ones are announced, so you’ll lose if you don’t wait. Even if you plan to keep using FCP7, you’ll see gains on newer machines – it’s amazing how well the Quad-core i7 iMacs run with both this and AE.

Also – you might want to consider that new machines = new OS – you’ll need to transition to Lion if you haven’t already – but buying an EOL 12-core would avoid it.

Opinion piece follows:

CUDA on CS5.5 is a unicorn feature – always sought after, but rarely delivering real benefit in most existing FCP workflows (it accelerates only some effects and transitions and some playback), and PPro is a poor-man’s FCP still in most cases. That’s my opinion anyway. So don’t worry about cards yet. Maybe CS6 will see some real-world advantages. Me? I’m staying with FCP7 until I either have a compelling reason to change, or FCPX steps up – it’s rather fun! That’s if AVID doesn’t pull me back to 1999 before then…

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Two options off the top of my head – put one layer on top of the other, and simply crop the top layer left or right to reveal the layer underneath.

Or use the garbage matte tool to cut out the person you want to add in, and place it on top of the other layer.

If you find this beyond your knowledge, I’d suggest approaching an editor.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

You said your sequence was set to DV right? This is 4×3 – unless you check the anamorphic tag ON AN EMPTY SEQUENCE before bringing your HD footage in.

But again – this is a bad way of working. Shoot HD, edit HD – then export as whatever you want.

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[Ben Holmes]

AVCHD is the codec. It’s HD. FCP usually transcodes this on import (there are options in the log and transfer window) to something else.

HD is widescreen – hence the widescreen edit.

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[Ben Holmes]

No question – the 10 bit output makes the F3 better from an acquisition perspective. Another major failing in the 300 is the lack of 1080 over cranking….

However – I look forward to the kind of video that can be produced by a Canon EF mount C300 – the combination of low light performance, minimal skew and log-type video is very attractive. If you’ve not seen this informative (and amusing) test of it, have a look:

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Canon EOS C300 = Awesome from Jonathan Yi on Vimeo.

I have more faith in a 2.0 version of this camera (cheaper, better video out) than anything else looming.

Of course, it says a lot that these days people see an Alexa as expensive when it’s half the cost an HDCAM kit used to be. All these 35mm cameras offer something we would have killed for 5 years ago….

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[Ben Holmes]

I love the fact that people can’t even be bothered to cut frames any more. How is downloading and using a filter (that would never do exactly what you wanted) quicker than just using the razor blade to cut frames out?

OTOH, I did use the blink filter in FCP for this effect a few times – but it was never exactly what I wanted…

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[Ben Holmes]

PS – the ecpresscard interface will never support TB – it’s much slower as a PCIe interface. I seriously doubt Apple or Intel would ever licence TB for this use.

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[Ben Holmes]

If you are using HD1080 material there is NO reason to use ProResHQ over standard ProRes – this has been covered extensively and scientifically here before. Not that anyone listens… Yes – it’s 10-bit.

Using standard ProRes will help when working with FW drives – but if you want multi cam performance, you’re asking too much of it – upgrade to a newer MBP or iMac with thunderbolt – plenty of suckers on eBay who don’t care about it…

And the MXO2? Great product.

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[Ben Holmes]

[Rafael Amador] “Those MXF are exactly the same stuff (MPG2-50Mbps/422) that records the Canon XF-100 (US$ 3.300)”

I take your point Rafael, but I’d add a couple in return:

1) For those moving up from the 5D this is a good quality 422 record option.
2) In the spirit of ‘crap in crap out’ the recordings look better than the XF100 because the souce is better – the debayered sensor output is a lot better than the XF100 and the log curves option helps even more.
3) The 8-bit from the video ports makes the advantages of an external recorder (even a nano) basically pointless – you would only bother to add so much hassle to what is meant to be a lightweight rig for 10-bit IMHO.

I think we can all agree Canon made a mistake with the 8-bit recording and output, and the camera is priced double what it should be, but the codec issues are overblown – bear in mind I’ve actually seen footage from it. We live in a world of H264 7D/T3i footage now, and compared to that, this is 35mm. It holds up perfectly well with most 10-bit footage, if well shot – I had the chance to compare it to Alexa footage, so I think I can say that with some certainty it ain’t bad.

Now – get the price down to $7,000….

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[Ben Holmes]

This will be easy to achieve if she never crosses behind or in front of him – you can just mask and merge the shots (like a half frame wipe).

If she does (a much more compelling effect) then you will need to shoot his scenes with a green screen pop-up behind him, so you can key around him, and if she goes in front, she will need those shots to be green-screened. This is the easiest way – short of rotoscoping.

I’d recommend After Effects for this, or the very expensive Keylight plugin for FCP – FCP’s key blows.

If you shoot the shot so that you have some leeway (or if you’re producing an SD master from HD footage) you can improve the effect by adding zooms or pans in the shot in FCP, but use this sparingly so it doesn’t look artificial – the video you linked to has a zoom in it at the top done exactly like this.

Ben

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