[Dan Riley]

Graeme is right about how to make your DV footage look better.
Also, titles look much better uncompressed.
Any key effects you do will look better uncompressed.
Shooting DVCAM and finishing uncompressed is not a bad
workflow. Of course as Jerry said, shooting Digibeta is
nice too. But you do what you can.

You need a video card and a fast drive array though.
This isn’t just about selecting a different codec.
It’s much more involved to edit and playout uncompressed.
It’s worth it in my opinion but there is some expense.
Go to Aurora, AJA or Blackmagic.
Dan

[Dan Riley]

The delete unused media may be a feature you like.
And if you do, that cool.
But it has nothing to do with uprez:
You have an offline show at DV.
You want a 10 bit uncompressed show.
You use the instructions in the link I posted.
Then if you want, go to your media drive and delete
the DV media.
Done.

I don’t mean to take lightly your MM experiences.
I’ve had them as well. MM is not good. AVID is best.
But after doing six uprezes since January I now see
what MM can do and what it can’t.
Stillframes are fine.
Color correction is fine.
Titles (title 3d) are fine, but problematic.
Extensive keyframe effects are trouble.

So my offlines are not the finished product anymore.
They are close, but then I do the uprez and finish
from there.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Dude you are so strange.
If FCP couldn’t work with projects where the media was offline
none of us could do an uprez. None of us could work on a
project today, delete the media to make room for new projects
then six months later reopen the old project because
the client want so change a shot or a super, and then
redigitize…oh I mean re-capture.

Below is a link that will help you. But you need to relax.
Media Manager is the worst part of FCP, I agree.
It’s far from AVID-like. But FCP keeps getting better
and better. Hopefully they will get to it soon.
The log and capture situation is also very comsumerish.
But I digress. The new Multicam is fantastic. I just did a
4 camera edit with it, where I used to use only AVID
Media Composer for multicam, and I couldn’t be happier.

I’ve used the below link info for all my uprezes. It’s for 4.1 and 4.5,
but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with 5.0.2, although
my first uprez with the new version isn’t until the end of this week.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_onlining_jordan.html

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Here’s what you do.
On the timeline, there are little buttons next to the lock buttons
that are called auto selects. Click all the buttons on all your tracks
so they are all see-through (off). Now click on the audio track
you want to match frame to.
The button will be dark (on). Then hit the match frame button
on the canvas, the last button on the right. The viewer
will show you the audio file.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I can’t get my DVX100 to work with FCP via firewire.
When I go to log and capture, FCP says the camera
is in “local” and won’t control it or give me timecode.
I get picture but have no control.
I checked the camera menu and it says VTR1 or VTR2.
I’ve tried both and neither works.
I can go to “non controllable” and use capture now
but then I don’t get timecode info.
Do you know how to make it work?

Thanks,
Dan

Oh, and for your problem…do you think it’s a drop frame,
non drop frame problem? Have you checked to see
if both source tapes are the same? Just a thought.

[Dan Riley]

I’ve had this happen to me too.
With some research I found that the projects that would not
open had multiple video layers, up to 8, and FCP5 didn’t want to
open those. Here’s what I did:
Open the project in FCP4.5.
Close all your sequences so when you close the project
none of your sequences are open. This means when you
open this project in FCP5, no sequences will be open.
Now open in FCP5. My guess is the project will open,
but if you open any sequences that have multiple
video layers, my bet is it will crash. Try this to see
what happens.
Now when you are in FCP4.5, you could turn off
the upper video layers in the offending sequences
so these will open in FCP5 too. But the moment
you click the green visual button, they will crash.
At least this is my experience.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

I have the Nattress filters and use them with SD uncompressed and
they are great. Can’t speak to the new HDV stuff, but using his
film filter on 30 frame BetaSP footage to make it look like 24p
is very very good.

dan

[Dan Riley]

Tony,
Well said.
I think you and me think more alike than different.

Regards,
Dan

[Dan Riley]

Tony,

I’ve fought all my professional life, over 35 years now, on having people
shoot and edit with the highest quality they can. When I say “average
person” was wasn’t talking about your mother in law. I was talking
about the average production person…people with good eyes.
First gen DVCPRO50 is damn good and you can’t shoot in
uncompressed 10 bit anyway, unless you lug around a Panasonic D5 deck
and run it in SD mode.

Sometimes I wish people would spend more time worrying about
the writing, the lighting, the audio and the video, learn how to use
a waveform monitor, and less time about what tape or format.
Lousy is as lousy does. Because when the time
comes and you have more resources you will shoot on the best
possible format, but that won’t change your lousy directing
or your lousy production habbits. Not you of course Tony.
I don’t even know you. I speak generally.

Off soapbox…on to make pictures today.
Dan

[Dan Riley]

You tell me.
Do a test and of both and look at the picture on your NTSC monitor.
You and/or your client are the ones to judge.
We can all have our opinion.
Technically speaking,
the 10 bit uncompressed has more picture information
than does DVCPRO50, but not by much.
Technically speaking,
by the time it’s edited, rendered to death,
dubbed and aired, if there is a person on this earth
who could tell me the difference by looking at the
air signal, I’d first off say they were lying, then
I’d say put money on it.

The real reason for using any codec other than uncompressed
anything is because of disk space. If you don’t have
loads of it, then DVCPRO50 will do you well.
But for goodness sake, this is only one dude’s opinion
among many.

Dan