Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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[Greg Ball] “I’ve edited a long version before but it was at 1080i30 and didn’t stutter. We were doing quick zooms and pans no problem. “
It must be the way that FCP handles progressive XDCAM footage then because my Mac Pro does the same thing. Just about all my deliverables are standard def. and at least the final product looks fine (no stuttering on pans).
– Don
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Hi Lawrence,
Sine you’re using FCP 6 you can take advantage of one of the program’s new set up features. Create any old sequence you want then drag one of your EX clips into it and release the mouse button. A dialogue will come up stating that: “The sequence setting don’t match the clip settings. Do you want to change the sequence settings to match?” Just say yes and you’re done. Afterwards, by all means go and check out the settings for your new sequence and see what they are.
FCP is pretty smart that way, nowadays.
– Don
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[Jason Taylor] “Is HDV considered a professional format?”
It all depends on who you talk to. Some would say no it isn’t but then there are programs like Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” that’s shot using the Sony Z1U (so I’ve been told). One thing you can always count on though, is that content is king and if you tell a story that is irresistible to a broadcast network you could probably shoot it on a cellphone and they’d take it.
There will be a difference in picture quality between the 2 cameras you’re considering even if you use the EX in HDV mode. By its very nature the EX will have more resolution because of there being more pixels on its imagers. Some would argue that the EX picture is closer to the Sony F900 than it is to the Z7U.
Do your homework and decide which cameras to buy depending on what content you’re shooting. What content you need depends on the market you’re targeting. And take both cameras you’re considering out for test drives because that’s the only way you’ll know for sure which ones will do the job for you. What Derek in the HDV forum suggested to you about testing is great advice.
Hope this helps.
– Don
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Looks like it’s still the same old driver that’s still available. Check it out:
https://www.sony.ca/promedia/drivers.htm
I’m sure that when the updated driver does become available they’ll make an announcement of some sort. Anyway, anything new in Sony software usually shows up on the Canadian site first. Don’t know why:
I understand that the conflict on the new Macbooks has to do with the new gesture software for the track pad. Any way to disable it in preferences?
– Don
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Perhaps the majority of that $4500.00 is for a few high quality, sticky-backed CineAlta logos. Such a deal.
– Don
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[Ryan Brown] “What is the best a top end Macbook Pro realistically be able to handle. One, Two streams…?”
Do you have the Macbook Pro now? You can test it out with a FW800 drive you have laying around before you take off for overseas. Put your EX footage on it and try editing 5 streams of video. It’s not going to happen unless you configure FCP to play everything back at a lower quality. See how many streams you can play back when you set your RT playback to “unlimited”. Then set the picture quality and frame rate to “dynamic”. Now you’re telling FCP you want it to play as many streams as it can get but at a much lower quality. There should be no problem for your Macbook Pro to process and play multiple streams. Set up this way you can more easily do your rough edits on the road. Now the speed of your external hard drive(s) is the only limiting factor in how many streams you can actually play back at once.
A 7200 RPM 2 drive eSATA array will play back a data stream of around 135 Mbits/sec. This is theoretically good enough to play back 5 streams of HDV@25Mbits/sec. So if you shot your EX footage using one of the SQ modes you could maybe play back 5 streams at once. It won’t work for HQ footage because of the higher data rate which is 35 Mbits/sec. VBR. That’s why I mentioned a 5 drive SATA RAID minimum requirement for editing on the road if you want to use 5 streams.
– Don
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[Ryan Brown] “I thought about getting some Quad Interface External drive. That way I could download the clips via the express slot and offload w/firewire. Then once the clips are all offloaded and I’m ready to edit I could then just switch to ESATA… “
Yes, that’s a great idea. But the fact remains that even when you switch from FW800 to SATA using the same external one or two drive array (like the G-RAID Mini) I still don’t think it would be fast enough to edit 5 streams of EX footage. I’d say a 5 drive SATA array would be minimum.
There are some nice drives at your link, though.
– Don
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Hi Navarro,
I’ve never had that error come up and I’ve been transferring EX footage the same way you are for 11 months now. Must be be some sort of file corruption on those few .mp4 files. No, I don’t know how to fix it, sorry. Perhaps someone else will help. I do know that Clip Browser v.2 will create a new BPAV folder for orphaned .mp4 files. Maybe you could try that out.
-Don
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[Ryan Brown] “Is my Macbook good enough to edit in either Premiere Pro CS4 or FCP6?”
Absolutely.
[Ryan Brown] “What’s a good solution to offload the SxS cards in the field? “
Probably Sony’s Clip Browser v.2 (with error checking enabled) to copy the BPAV folders directly to an external hard drive.
[Ryan Brown] “What’s a good external harddrive to edit multiple streams of high quality XDCam footage(example having 5 picture in picture video layers like in the TV show 24)?”
For firewire my recommendation would be a G-RAID Mini because it’s small, fairly fast, reliable and will use the FW BUS for power. But for 5 streams of native EX footage? You’ll probably need a SATA array for that. Which means you offload to a FW drive because you’ll be using the laptop’s express slot for the EX card transfers and you can’t use the SATA array at the same time. For laptops SATA drives need an adapter interface that uses the Express 34 slot.
Choose what’s right for you.
– Don
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Hi Greg,
Since you didn’t volunteer any info about your hardware I had to go on a minor search. You’re editing on a G5 with a CalDigit S2VR Duo SATA array, yes? That’s about all I could find. I don’t think it’s an EX thing or not having enough transfer speed between computer and the Cal Digit. 130 MB/s should be more than adequate. Are you using the CalDigit PCI-X SATA card as well? It could be a graphics card or processing speed issue that’s causing the playback stutter.
FWIW I also experience occasional motion stutter during editing as well, but there are a few contributing factors in my case:
– The timeline is unrendered because I’m usually editing native EX footage in an SD sequence with CC and other filters. I’m using FCP6.
– Using dual monitors for editing and perhaps a 30″ and a 23″ is too much screen real estate for the Radeon X1900XT graphics card.
– An internal 3 disk array for media playback is probably not the best setup but I can’t afford a Cal Digit HD One just yet.
– Don