[Colin Mcquillan]

Definitely taking a daily gander at this forum is a good start. Also read the monthly mag that the COW produces.

Beyond what you will find here, perhaps a subscription to lynda.com would do you some good. Whenever you come across something you don’t quite fully understand I bet you’ll find a tutorial there that will lead you to a better understanding, not only in software specific queries, but also in fundamentals of… editing, post-production…..

Shane Ross has a great DVD available here on project organization.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

[Jack Tunnicliffe] “Could there be something I’m missing or is this the world of HDV editing in FCP on a MacBook Pro?”

Could be. I’m usually on my tower, but am from time to time when on the road editing HDV, DVCam, ProRes and XDCam EX footage in hotel rooms on my macbook pro without issue.

I do however use external storage for all my footage. I never edit off the internal laptop hardrive.

Is you footage on the internal drive, and is that drive spinning at 5400rpm by chance?

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

[Sean ONeil] “Everyone keeps saying this. I don’t get it. I ordered one with 3GB from the Apple Store.”

The single chip (quad core) has a min. 3gb option, the 2 chip (Octo core) come with a min. of 6gigs

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

I am far more excited about this GFX card than I am about the marginal gains of the new towers. Very glad I can toss one in my 3.2 Octo box! (Will wait a bit though, for all the wrinkles to get ironed out.)

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Definitely. Makes it harder to scrap 6gigs to replace with 3rd party than the base 2gigs they used to come with.
3rd party is still much cheaper if filing the box or going up to 16 gigs (8X2gig modules.)

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

I use dual 23″ ACD’s in my studio, but occasionally work on a system that has a single 30″ ACD. I prefer the dual set-up hands down. I like having the second display to keep all my bins on, and perhaps a web browser up, and what-ever else I may need open. I find on-screen organization better on dualies. In the end, it comes down to personal preference.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

[Ryan Krickow] “. Have you worked post sound on any projects that recorded BWFs? “
Yes. All material was recorded at the same rate though (29.97) so match frame and droping into the timeline was easy enough. My worry for you, and may not be the case, but second for second, your material will match, but what about frame by frame? 01:03:12:21 in 29.97 wont be the exact same frame as 01:03:12:21 in 23.98. When you use BWF2XML to convert your 29.97fps BWF’s it should give you the option to change the TC to 23.98fps. You might want to do this to keep everything matched up once in FCP. Again, test first to make sure it all plays nice together!

[Ryan Krickow] ” I’m leaning toward merging the mono mixed track with the picture during editing and then dropping the additional tracks in (as you described) at the end so they would keep their name. Does that make sense to you? “

Makes sense, and will keep your timeline cleaner while editing the picture. I haven’t done this with “merged” clips, so do a test before you go full at it.

How many audio tracks are you dealing with? I’m working with about 20 audio tracks and 6 layers of video, so adding and organizing the ISO audio at the end is the best workflow for me. If I were only dealing with up to say 4 audio tracks, I would attack it differently. Really depends on what it is I’m editing. Straight forward cuts and dissolves I may link the tracks to the associated video clip and just mute the tracks I don’t want to hear.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Sorry for the delayed response. Ran into a busy patch.

[Ryan Krickow] “ou don’t think losing the name of the audio tracks when merging is a problem for post sound?”

I’d expect you will loose the metadata attached to the audio files if you merge. How important is the metadata?

[Ryan Krickow] “One question here is whether to work with the 4KB Quicktime.mov links created by BWF2XML or batch export Quicktime.mov files from FCP for editing.”

I always prefer working with actual media, than a reference to the media. I find I run into less software gremlins this way. I would batch the QT’s.

[Ryan Krickow] “the camera is running 23.98fps jam synced to the audio recorder running 29.97fps so the timecode should be usable.”

is the TC, video, and audio a perfect match if you convert the BWF’s in BWF2XML to 23.98 to match the videos frame rate? If so, and you need to maintain the metadata attached to the bwf’s, you don’t necessarily need to merge. Use the match frame method of the clip, but instead of dropping that video clips associated audio, copy the TC from the viewer, load the bwf that matches the clip, and paste that TC into the viewer. set you in point, now F10 it into place. make sense? less confusing that this sounds I’m sure.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

I see where the confusion lies. Im my case, all my media is on tape attached to video, from a 6 camera shoot with a production mobile.
In this case, the ISO reels I’m referring to are the isolated feeds from each camera. and the ISO audio tracks are spread amongst the ISO video decks.

You are dealing with a single camera shoot. How is the audio being captured and how is it being delivered to you? How I would go about this depends on whether or not it has picture synced TC attached to it.
Merging pre-edit then using the match frame method I described earlier sounds like a good option, but I worry about how the Media Manager handles this, as well as round tripping to other programs if needed.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Ah,, I think I see what you are dealing with now. The audio you are working with, it was brought into the project on its own? not with any video/timecode attached? If this is the case, syncing and merging before editing would be the way to go with the method I mentioned.. might be to late for that.

I am working with video and audio captured from 6 ISO Digibeta VTR’s, all running synchronous timecode.

Are you working with different takes, or different angles?

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.