[David Hunter]

Thank you, Gentlemen.

Shane, I actually bought one of your books two years ago and it was very helpful as I was just getting introduced to FCP. I brought it with me from Mexico to Austria but it is still boxed up! I am just now reading your STOCK ANSWERS…which are great.

The reason I am diving back into FCP is because video is now again a business and I have some better gear to handle the back end of shooting video. The first thing I had to do in this past year is to dive into the issue of online video specs and compression and Content Delivery Networks and .flv’s, blah blah, Flash Servers and all that jazz.

Where you “after market” authors come in real handy is explaining various PROCESSES instead of “then there is this tool and that tool”.

I am confused now about codecs in the editing process.

Shooting with DVCPRO HD 50 in the Panasonic AG-HVX200A when I choose 1080i/50i as the highest resolution and frame rate (as set for European cameras) I record it on P2 cards. I log and transfer the .mxf files and FCP creates .mov files with this codec.

I figure I should be editing my sequence in this codec since it is the encoded codec of my footage.

Technically shouldn’t this DVCPRO HD 4:2:2 codec be even higher quality (more original information) than converting it to any ProRes native Apple codec since any conversion is an algorithmic interpolation or corruption of the first data, in a strictly technical sense?

If I keep the sequence at DVCPRO HD for the whole process until it is time to take it into the final delivery medium such as online video, or broadcast NTSC or PAL interlaced, or progressive HDTV…etc isn’t this the time at the end to convert it to one of the ProRes codecs or H.264, etc?

[David Hunter]

It used to be in the days of analog offline that you could not see many of the effects and transitions you were intending until you took them online. So, offline was really rough and didn’t tell you or show you everything you really wanted to see until you really had to spend money at online rates.

I have heard of offline editing BUT my question to you experts is regarding Final Cut 7 and Motion 4 and the various effects plugins that work for the HD Final Cut Studio released in October 2009.

According to Ken Stone’s article on OFFLINE editing written in 2002 about Final Cut 3 there are a number of things that are going to be significantly changed in Offline RT mode…important things which I asked about in my original questions…according to an article written in 2002, 7 years ago, MOTION effects will have to be re-created when the Offline goes Online. That is a huge consideration. Considering the number of times I use Motion in this sequence maybe it is just a waste of time to even consider going offline if round-tripping back and forth in Motion in Offline mode is going to have to be duplicated and then some when I go Online HD.

Also, Ken’s article says this: “The proportions of the graphics will change slightly. This is due to the fact that the Offline RT Sequence is a Square Pixel Sequence, and your final Sequence will be Non-Square Pixels.” He says this is about 10% distortion…which is even greater in HD 1080. So, the entire OFFLINE sequence is square pixels…this makes a big difference in judging title kerning, etc.

So, I can go on quoting things from his ancient article…but, I come back to asking pretty much what I asked the first time–

Here in 2010 with Final Cut Pro 7 and Motion 4 IS IT POSSIBLE TO REALLY AND TRULY EDIT an HD project in lower res footage (but NOT in Square pixels when the Online HD is in Non-Square pixels), go back and forth in Motion and then go back and apply the same actions and Motion title sequences to the higher resolution clips and have it render out exactly the same project just in the intended HD format?

The whole point of my question originally was if I could save time with shorter renders yet still get exactly the same spacing, on-screen proportions for graphics placement and title rendering while working with lower resolution. Technically this is NOT offline!

OFFLINE used to mean a limited viewing environment where you also MARK effects to take place and MARK transitions that you intended to happen with the time durations etc. You could do wipes, dissolves, cuts–the standard stuff, and get an idea of the timing but Online where you still had more work to do that went beyond simple “tweaking”.

Tell me please–anyone who KNOWS, who works exactly as I am discussing– what are the real life issues in 2010 with Final Cut HD ? Can I expect to set up a session that works like an ONLINE session with all effects and Motion templates and titling and plug-ins rendering in the fastest possible time in 1080 progressive but lower res and codec —THEN simply “plugging in” the higher resolution footage and higher quality codec in a new sequence that uses the same .fcp file to re-render at the higher quality?

Thanks!

[David Hunter]

-coool….unfortunately my manual is in German

[David Hunter]

I have a Macbook Pro top-of-the line as of a year ago. I also used a Firewire 400 connector for my external Maxtor when editing on the road. The same external drive was more reliable as far as mounting on an office IMac. The coming and going of Mac’s firewire ports has been an issue that is very Googlable. I found the same maddening issue. I think somehow it is an internal voltage issue.

And when the Macbook Pro decides not to see through its Firewire 400 for a while there is no amount of trickery that will work. I was going nuts searching all the forums for people’s insights beyond the usual change cables, re-start, blah blah, disk utility…blah blah…

This is STILL an issue that Apple has never owned up to.

I moved on to the MacPro but I know there are times when I will have to haul out the MacbookPro again…it IS an internal hardware issue by all evidence.

[David Hunter]

YES, BUT…the announcement says DRIVE

Panasonic is developing a new 1 slot P2 drive which works on Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and planning to launch it in the spring of 2010.

It doesn’t sound like Panasonic is simply developing the Express Slot adapter solution like the Duel Adapter. The term “drive” I think means a continuation of what they already do…a HARD DRIVE that, I presume, connects through an adapter to the Express Card slot the way the Duel Adapter did.

But, it sounds like they are going for the most expensive “solution”. In other words, it sounds as if, I say again, it “sounds like” they are not going to make the simple download to the Macbook Pro workflow as we did with the Duel Adapter.

[David Hunter]

Barry Green mentioned this device as a possible solution to transferring P2 card media.

https://www.cameratown.com/reviews/nexto_extreme/

Does anybody know if it handles the P2 card?

If so it is only a few hundred dollars for fast transfer of .mxf files to its own 16 Gb hard drive directly from the inserted card. Then you can use the SATA cable to connect to your Mac.

The Sonnet solution is going to be 3 times the Nexto Extreme in cost. The Nexto eXtreme 160GB sells for $209.99 from MPC (through Amazon), the 320GB version for just $269.99

I have only seen the Nexto online. Does anybody know if this is a solution to transferring P2 Panasonic HVX files onto a Macbook Pro that was ” upgraded” to Snow Leopard (invalidating the use of Duel Adapter)?

[David Hunter]

Sorry, Walter, I did a search on DVCPro HD trying to find an answer to my question regarding support for p50 recorded material in Final Cut, why it doesn’t offer a sequence setting of p50, yet offers p60 and p25.

I found your post listed:
Re: DVCPRO HD conversions
by walter biscardi on Feb 11, 2009 at 7:58:49 am

and your READ MY BLOG link was highly visible so I mistakenly looked there for a continuation of the DVCPRO HD conversions, thinking you had posted a tutorial or support article on your own site. My mistake.

[David Hunter]

oh, okay, so I see now that you don’t have a specific post about DVCPRO HD conversions, my mistake.

[David Hunter]

Walter, where in your blog? Search terms dvcpro, conversions, don’t produce a link at your blog.

[David Hunter]

Thanks, Rafael! It looks fine so far!