[Craig Seeman]

[Chris Babbitt] “SD Interlaced (1080/60i). “
SD????
You can certainly shoot 1080i60 in HQ mode (XDCAM) but can also do that in SP mode (HDV compatible). I’m not sure why you’d shoot in HDV mode as you’re more likely to “break” the codec with that.

Given the above, I’m not sure what your FCP timeline codec was.
I don’t know what settings you used in Compressor either.
You don’t really explain exactly what you put in the DV timeline. If done correctly the graphics you’d re-render the graphics and they’d be at the correct size.

Also titling a thread “Another Issue” doesn’t really tell anyone enough info to get experienced people to read it.

[Craig Seeman]

.dv is the DV data itself. It’s actually what iMovie uses for example. When capturing DV into Final Cut Pro over firewire, for example, the audio and video is split. Not so with .dv.
Hope that isn’t to confusing explanation as to what’s happening.

What you’d need to do in MPEGStreamclip is set it to DV NTSC (or DV PAL) MOV file. On Windows you’d set it to an AVI extension.

In shot, set it to Export to Quicktime instead of DV. Set Compression to Apple DV/DVCPro NTSC. Set frame size to 720×480 DV-NTSC. You can set sound to Uncompressed Stereo Auto or you can change Auto to 48 kHz.

[Craig Seeman]

[Chris Babbitt] “The last time, I tried to transfer that clip by itself, but the import button was ghosted until I set in and out points on the clip. Of course, once I got it to work, I still did not have a single joined clip.”

Yes, that’s importing as a subclip. It works but they don’t join that way. As Noah mentions, copy to hard drive.

What I do is use Sony Clip Browser and copy to a parent folder on my hard drive.
ProjectA partent, ProjectACard1, ProjectACard2, ProjectACard3, ProjectsACard4.

Then in Sony Transfer Tool Add the the four card folders and Import All. At this point even if you import one card folder at a time, when you get to the folder that finishes the clip, it’ll import all the others.

I recently shot a 90 minute speech spanning across a 16GB and two 8GB cards. The whole thing was spanned clips on and between cards. After adding all the folders all I had to do was go to the last folder and import all and the whole thing was brought in to FCP as one long clip.

[Craig Seeman]

[Michael Slowe] ” I am shooting in SP mode because my Media 100 can’t support EX files.”

[Michael Slowe] “Why change from the Z1 to the EX1 you may ask. For the larger chips, less DOF, better low light, better focussing arrangements and (eventually) to shoot in HD. But my post route is a mess at present!”

Have you asked Boris if/when Media 100 will support EX codec?
I’m not sure why your workflow is so circuitous. Can’t the Media 100 take SP (HDV) from camera’s firewire . . . or just copy files via USB?

Ultimately time is money and if Media 100 can’t support the EX expeditiously it may be time to move on to another NLE.

[Craig Seeman]

Have you tried this? I don’t see any indication why HQ to SD out of SDI wouldn’t work. I’m going to be trying this soon. Going from HQ as well as “live” HQ to SDI through Telestream Pipeline (which is SD SDI only at the moment).

[Craig Seeman]

[david soriano] “I played with a iMac FCP system of a friend’s of mine. They look sweet, and they said they paid less that $4000. Damn! “

If you can swing that budget you might consider going that route now. With iMac you’d need to get an external drive for media and get a couple GB of memory. You could get a MacPro from around $2300 to $2800 but you’d want to add memory and a 2nd internal drive to that. Final Cut Studio will set you back another $1200 but that’s why I mention asking Adobe about a CS3 crossgrade.

[david soriano] “My current Velocity system is dual 3.0 xeons with 2G RAM.”
This might really be good enough. Sure you’d want faster but it certainly can work.

[david soriano] “This Velocity system is about 6 years old.”
My bet is that’s gonna be a weak link. I can’t believe a system that old can handle HDV or XDCAM adequately.

[david soriano] “So is it safe to assume that none of these cameras have analog outs that downconvert from HD to SD? “
I’m not sure why you’d want to go that route. If you’re not getting the best quality downconvert to SD why get HD? Personally I’d rather use HD source in an SD timeline and gain the ability to reposition shots.

[david soriano] “Maybe i should rip out the Velocity and just configure the system to run PPro, unless the two could run together. I have an internal SCSI projects/audio drive for Velocity and external SCSI video drives.”

6 year old Velocity and SCSI drives? I’d say rip and bury that as top priority. Why keep that beast going? You can buy 1TB eSata drives for a little over $200. Go to PPro or FCP.

If you are a professional on any level, time is money and if you have to spend time on workarounds on a system that can’t support the other technology you want to get.

[Craig Seeman]

You really need to think about what you’re doing and why to send yourself in the right direction.

Given the cameras you mention you need to decide tape vs tapeless and HDV vs XDCAM EX as well as interchangeable lens or not.

You need to think not only about your NLE software but can the CPU you have handle MPEG2 Long GOP and/or have the resources to convert it.

My own biases. I do NOT like the HDV codec at all. Tapeless can be better than tape in most situations. With EX3 announced you’ll have choice between fixed (EX1) or interchangeable (EX3) lens camera.

I’m a Mac person but I certainly can understand delaying the cost of Mac plus Final Cut Studio until next year if you’re going to spend your budget on a good camera and accessories this year.

Adobe is coming out (has come out) with an update for Premiere Pro CS3 to handle the XDCAM EX files directly.

Now we come to your current system. If you can get Premiere Pro to run on your system AND your system specs can handle MPEG2 Long GOP you’d be on your way.

That last part is toughest since you haven’t said why you can’t get PP CS3 to run nor anything about your CPU specs.

The EX downconverts to SD out of SDI or you can do it in software. The first requires SDI input to your system and the 2nd requires rendering. If you don’t already have SDI in and your CPU means a slow render then you really have to consider updating your system even to handle SD . . . in which case you’d also be able to handle HD.

Since you have CS3 and seem not to have the budget to go Mac yet, you might just get a capable Windows box. BTW you might ask Adobe if they have a crossgrade program since they do have Premier Pro CS3 for Mac. This way you can get a Mac instead and use PP CS3 which you already have.

[Craig Seeman]

Armato’s
Same price as B&H. Located in Queens NY. SPECTACULAR customer service. Allowed me to play with the camera for over 3 hours in the store. Will provide FREE loaner if your camera has to go in for repair for more than 48 hours. They’re a Sony Authorized Service Center too.

[Craig Seeman]

Try AbelCineTech in NYC
https://www.abelcine.com/store/home.php
They did say the rent SxS cards. I’m not sure about batteries but they may rent those too. They also sell of course.

[Craig Seeman]

And you can even edit in XDCAM EX native and it’ll spit that out firewire too (and spit is kinda accurate because that’s what it’ll look like).