[Bill Bilowit]

Thanks for the input, or in this case, throughput.

[Bill Bilowit]

Which PCMCIA eSATA card do you have for your PowerBook G4? As far as I can tell there is one:

https://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1sm2/

And maybe this one, although I’m not sure it can be used with just any eSATA drive:

https://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/LYCeSATA-2CB.php

[Bill Bilowit]

Thanks, Shane, that’s enouraging… my G4 PowerBook is 1GHZ; yours?

[Bill Bilowit]

Try this if you didn’t after the install:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301852

[Bill Bilowit]

In our case, we’re using 8GB P2 cards. After importing to FCP/RAID, we back up the original MXF contents folder of each card to a dual-layer DVD, a neat fit. If you have 16GB cards, you’d need to wrangle files a bit to distribute to 2 DVD DLs.

A further step with some projects is, we back up the imported FCP Quicktime clips to a firewire drive (cheaper than insurance, cheaper than renting an HD deck). And an additional backup, if you’re on Final Cut, is to use Media Manager to copy the whole project, bins plus media, to a FW drive to store it. That can happen after capture but before the edit.

Everything costs something, each project has its own time/money equation. The above steps are less time-consuming and cheaper than HD deck rentals if you don’t own a deck. 720 clips are relatively small files in the world of HD media, oodles of hours fit on FW drives.

–“Also P2 is a compressed HD format so would backing-up to a full res HD tape even be suitable? Or is there another tape format that’s appropriate for backing up the P2’s HD DVCPRO 720p footage?”

You could always back up to DVCPRO 720 tape, but then lose metadata clip info.

[Bill Bilowit]

If you’ve updated Quicktime recently it could be this:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301852

[Bill Bilowit]

You could always dump the footage into a PC and switch on the automatic editor:

https://www.muvee.com/en/products/ap/ap6

[Bill Bilowit]

Okay, now I tried using Quicktime Conversion as an export, selecting DCVCPRO HD 720p60, and it successfully imports back in and into the timeline with no render necessary. Great, BUT– the image quality has suffered.

With the 720 preset, quality can only be “Medium”. If I choose “None” uinder compression and Quality slide to Best and Colors to Millions+, in addition to really long render, the new clip will NOT play in the timeline without a render, even though it is 960×720.

Within Quickitme Conversion export settings is also Frame Size, checking that reveals “Current Size” is 628×353, “Compressor Native” is 960×720. So what is the DVCPRO HD 720 frame size supposed to be in its correct incarnations?

Suddenly all is chaotic with this issue and stopping this job dead in its tracks. I have trashed prefs and used FCP Rescue and opened brand new projects using the original camera clips. It seems my Export capabilities are broken or corrupted now.
What could this be?

[Bill Bilowit]

Thanks for the suggestion… tried it, and same problem. Then I opened an old 720 project, that one in 29.97, and exported a segment of the timeline and brought it back in, and same problem– it comes back as 1280×720 needing a render for that timeline it came from.

I clearly don’t know as much as I need to about differences in capture vs. edit vs. playback formats, but I can’t figure out where the problem could be. Since this procedure worked for years and now it doesn’t, where could the goof-up be?

[Bill Bilowit]

Michael, you have a point or two there. Although the post house will be upwards of 1200 bucks for the transfer, clone back-up, stock, etc., for the rental I didn’t figure in the painful insurance fee.

We’re leaning towards the calmer, less risky solution of a post house, the screening day looms.