[Craig Seeman]

Just anecdotal but it seems that if you’re on OS 10.4.11 and have QT 7.4.x, QT might be the issue. In other words with OS 10.4.11 and FCP 6.0.2, QT 7.3.1 is good but QT 7.4.x results in no video for some.

In other words
10.4.11, QT 7.3.1, FCP 6.0.2 – Good
10.4.11 QT 7.4.x, FCP 6.0.2 or 3 – No Good
BTW in order to get FCP 6.0.3 you seem to need QT 7.4.5

I’m not sure if there’s a no video issue on 10.5.2. I’m not sure how absolute the above is but it’s something I’ve observed when people have posted the issue and provided their system info.

It’s ALWAYS a good idea to post system info (all software versions as well as CPU) for troubleshooting.

[Craig Seeman]

.SMI are the links to spanned clips. If you have spanned clips, importing the .SMI imports the clips . . . if they are available. When importing .SMI you should have all the BPAV (inside parent folders) Added to Transfer Tool first. Otherwise you can go to the individual partial clips and mark in/out to import. The .SMI links to the actual .MP4. Basically if you import the .MP4 you’ve got your video. The only difference is that the clips aren’t joined. That’s not really a big deal since you can edit them together as needed anyway.

[Craig Seeman]

Be aware that if you’re archiving the MOV then currently on Macs with FCP 6.0.2 and up can play those files. That means the masters aren’t very portable.

Archive the BPAV folders and you’ll be able to repurpose or distribute the source more easily if such should ever be needed.

Of course the downside is that if you need to “reconstitute” an offline project you’d need to convert back to MOV and make sure the file names match the project files to re-link.

I think the reconstitution of a project taken offline is one of the biggest issues I haven’t seen addressed anywhere. I’ve seen quite a few workflow suggestions but none of them take into account how to reconstitute. I’ve seen some workflow suggestion that can easily dig one into a deep hole (such as logging and importing subclips where they won’t match the archived BPAV masters).

[Craig Seeman]

I thought it critical to point out that +R DVD DL rated at 8.5GB actually holds 7.95GB. This means if you use the Split feature to Split a 16GB SxS card in the Sony Clip Browser set to 8GB, the 8GB will be TOO BIG for the DL-DVD. You must manually set the size to 7.9 to assure your bigger split folder will fit on the disc.

In short 8GB does NOT fit on DVD DL. They hold 7.95 and you must set Sony Clip Browser to 7.9GB manually to assure a split 16GB card will fit.

[Craig Seeman]

If your client is going to DigiBeta they may be satisfied with a SD conversion on disc. You don’t mention whether your 16GB is HD or SD frame size. If HD, try doing the conversion to SD first (uncompressed). That should drop the file size down but it may not be smaller that 4GB (my math brain isn’t working yet today).

Another variant is to deliver an MPEG2 Program or Transport stream at a very high data rate burned to DVD but again the client has to tell you what they can handle. If you want to deliver HD try a data rate of around 40mbps. SD try around 25mbps. These will EASILY fit on a DVD and would be good enough for broadcast. You can certainly push the data rate much higher to fit 3 minutes on a 4GB (4.3GB) DVD.

Keep in mind that none of these formats are DVDs he could play from a “set top” box.

[Craig Seeman]

Why must it be compressed with a PC? You could use Episode Engine.
If there’s some kind of restriction on computer used you might try 8 or 10 bit Uncompressed .mov but unless you test you may find issues with that workflow. Depending on your workflow needs you might look at Rhozet Carbon which can handle quite a variety of input source.

If you’re going to end up using a Mac compression app to make it an AVI then . . . why not just compress it to the target on a Mac?

BTW one of the odd things about QuicktimePro is that while it does allow you to convert DVCPro50 to AVI it doesn’t have DVCPro100 (HD) to AVI otherwise that might have been a (clunky) workaround.

[Craig Seeman]

Can your client discern quality loss?
Is there a reason to mash the file to under 4GB and then go to DigiBeta?
The client would rather a mashed file on DVD than pay a few Euros for a DigiBeta dub sent to them?
Something’s missing here and I’m too polite to make the suggestion what that is.

16GB uncompressed to 4GB isn’t going to be an improvement over an HDV master.
The hard part about making a suggestion is that when a client insists on the above I’d be suspicious about whether they’d know how to handle anything you sent them.

Send HDV master from timeline but who knows if they can play the tape.
Send them the file on hard drive or, maybe 16GB USB flash memory stick (14.9GB max though).
Do they even have the ability to use an uncompressed file?
Why MUST it be on DVD? Something’s just plain not making sense with this request.

Your client has to tell you what they can handle. If they want the music video to fit on a DVD but plan using it as a master to make a DigiBeta, that might be too tough for them to answer.

[Craig Seeman]

[walter biscardi] “Go over to the AJA forum, he’s a forum leader over there.”

But wouldn’t that be a wildly off topic post? Of course my response to your post is wildly off topic. OK I’ll tell them “Walter sent me.”

[Craig Seeman]

[chloe allan] “I am creating property videos for real-estate agents to put on their websites for prospective buyers to watch, who knows what kind of set-up they will have. Theres no way to know. “

Yes there is. Real Estate Brokers certainly KNOW their market and so should you if these is your business. Even if you have to “intuit” the specs.

Are these $50,000 homes or $5,000,000 homes? Guess which budgets are likely to own newer computers with broadband internet connections. Is the area rural with limited broadband availability or urban where “everyone” has broadband?

THINK about the market. It’s your business. You’ll then have an approximate target. If this if for a client they may well have a target in mind.

YOU need to estimate your target and then WE can provide the technical solution.

[Craig Seeman]

Bob Zelin wrote an article in Cow Magazine on budget HD monitoring with color accuracy I believe. Sadly there’s no way I’ve found to search for it on the Cow short of going through all the Cow magazines. There’s also no particular forum I can find that one can post a question to Bob about the article or any updates.

Maybe we need a searchable Cow magazine and/or magazine specific forum . . . or maybe either is hidden somewhere.