[Dan Riley]

I just re-read the manual about consolidating and I was wondering,
what files did FCP miss? It looks like it should have worked
the way you describe. It should grab your files from different
scratch disks.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Media Manager is the one area of FCP which really isn’t “Pro” in my opinion.
Version 5.0.4 is better than 4.5, but it’s still flaky.
I don’t have advice for you, I just wanted you to know it’s very possible
MM won’t consolidate like you want.
I only use MM for uprez my offlines from DV to uncompressed and it works OK for that,
but there are still issues with still frames and any speed changed clips.
And no timelines with nested sequences in them.
This is one area AVID is much better.
We all hope the next version gets it right.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I may be wrong about this answer, but I believe the way render files work,
you can’t move them around like you are doing. Nobody I know does this.
When FCP makes a render file, it’s referencing to the original media
in the timeline and that media is in a certain place on a certain drive.
It then makes the render file and puts that file someplace else.
Now there is still a reference being made by FCP in the file itself,
that tells FCP that those two files need to be in exactly the same place
as they were when you rendered. Like I said I may be wrong,
but I never put render files on my firewire drive when I move project
files around. I just re render whatever timeline I’m working on
once everything is moved to the Powerbook or the G5.

As for your opacity trick, don’t do that. Just trash all render files that
deal with that project. Then render the timeline again.
This, by the way, can solve many problems with FCP playback,
I’ve found over the years.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

The 3W CC does not have a clipper to lop off the luminance and
chrominance at 100 or 110%. You can use the color corrector
to lower levels and chroma overall, yes, and you should do that
first, so you aren’t kicking the sh….t out of the top of the clipper.
But they don’t do the same thing. And if all you want to do is
lower the video level of a clip, you really should do that with the proc amp.
Lowering the “whites” in the 3WCC is not the same as lowering
the overall video level. It will change the shape of your gamma.

Bottom line is, you should always color correct (including levels)
every shot in your timeline BEFORE using the broadcast safe
filter as a final protection anyway.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I assume you have gone into the filter settings and set it for
very conservative (luma tops at 100%, chroma at 110%)
or extremely conservation (luma and chroma both to 100%) ?

The other settings are not useful for broadcasting.
Transmitters will clip any luminance at 100 and
chroma at 110 (sometimes, depending on the
proc amp settings). If you don’t do it on your end,
they will. But it looks better if you do it.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

There is no reason to go back in time and do the V1 V2 stuff anymore.
FCP’s multicam software works very well. It’s not AVID yet, but it’s
not bad.

Andrew,
What I think you should do is make multiclips for each song.
Put all nine cameras and the roving one in there too.
But only one multiclip per song. That should be what,
5 or 6 minutes each? Since making multiclips is fast and easy
in FCP, I’d just make new ones. It shouldn’t take more than
a half hour max, maybe less. Then you are good to go.
Then you’ll never have to open the big multiclip again.

One thing I don’t understand though is why your project is
so large and it takes 10 minutes to open.
I just finished a project that has over 40 hours of footage
and 100 multiclips and many sequences. This project
got larger as the weeks went on yes, but it never got over
135 MB and that opens in about 2 minutes.
How large is your project file size and why?
Sequences are the main determining factor of project size.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I have had zero trouble using MM for my uprez of my multicam shows.
As you go through the MM process, it will ask you
if you want to capture all the angles or just
the ones you used in your sequence.
My biggest problem with MM remains with still frames.
For some reason it just doesn’t like to capture those.
It’s a real pain because you have to go find them and replace them
manually. Besides that, the uprez process is no big deal.

Follow the instructions here and you will be fine. It’s for
FCP 4.5 but it works the same for 5.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_onlining_jordan.html

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Chris,

We are in agreement 🙂
I also like the idea of instantly available proxies I can browse
on a Macbook Pro. I could pick big chunks of scenes pretty
quickly, much faster I think than scanning tape. But since
I haven’t seen what the proxies look like or how Sony/Apple
will make it all work, I’m only guessing.

I think for my next studio or indoor location shoot
I will try some kind of hard drive system. What I will need to
build is a G5 with a Blackmagic or AJA card for inputing the
SDI from the Digibeta camera and a SATA card and a few
drives in a box. This is fine if it’s just one
camera, but for a multicam shoot this will be expensive
pretty fast because I don’t know of anyone who rents
G5s with AJA cards and extra drives. Would be a sweet
setup though.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I’ve found that sometimes you can lower the level of the
mids with the 3-way CC in FCP. This pulls the top down a bit
and stretches the middle andsometimes helps with overexposed
footage, if that’s what you are dealing with.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Andy,

I’m definitely going to try that situation when Sony/Apple
makes the software available. I would also like to see a cheap
DVD blue ray (XDCAM disk) drive though, that I could carry
around with my Macbook Pro or better yet, make a DVD drive
that actually goes IN the Macbook Pro. Why use the $15,000
deck if all you want to do is transfer data?

Dan