Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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For shooting in low light situations you may want to check out this article by Alister Chapman:
https://www.xdcam-user.com/2012/05/low-light-picture-profile-for-ex1ex3/
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
I can see why there would be interest in having available cycling data for SxS-1 but not for SxS Pro. Even if you cycled an SxS-1 card 5 times a day every day it would take over 5 years of use before the card became unusable.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Alexandre,
What type of cards are you recording with? SxS or SDHC with adapters? If you also provide information about the computer platform and editing software you’re using for your log and transfer operations you can be directed to a tutorial for your specific transferring/editing needs.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
I’m not sure if you’re supposed to use the camera to tell you this info or it’s computer software, but in any event the SxS Pro cards are good for 100,000 cycles and the SxS-1 cards are good for 10,000 cycles. If you are getting close to the end of the life of a pro card then your camera has probably turned to dust by now, anyway 😉
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
There are a whole lot of folks in the same boat as you and I, wondering if there’s going to be another Mac Pro on the horizon. Most think not, but others believe that if Apple is going to cease production they would have done it already.
At this year’s NAB there was nary a Mac Pro in sight. Anyone that was demonstrating anything at all that was Mac based were doing it on an iMac. For the benefit of all, I’m just about ready to buy the Mac Pro that’s still available. As soon as I do that you can be sure they’ll come out with something new. They always do 🙂
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
[Bob Cole] “1. Why should I even consider a 3rd party app for the transcode? “
It’s just an idea. Something like Episode would most likely do the job and is easy to set up with a custom preset e.g. more automated. With Episode you can create a watch folder, then whatever you drop into that folder will automatically be transcoded to the customized preset. But Episode costs money and you already have Compressor.
[Bob Cole] “2. What do you think of my new approach of just biting the bullet from the beginning and transcoding everything to ProRes? “
If your workstation is having trouble displaying and editing multiple tracks of Long GOP MPEG2 then you need more processing power. Editing XDCAM EX natively is very processor-intensive but easy on the data Transfer rates between the computer and the separate drive where the actual media resides. That’s why firewire drives are okay to use for this scenario.
Conversely, Pro Res doesn’t need nearly the same processing power but you do need higher transfer rates between hard drive and computer. Editing multiple streams of Pro Res probably requires an eSATA connection.
The solution for you at this time is to convert your EX footage to something that’s easier for your processors to handle. That’s what Pro Res is for. A lightweight but high quality “I” frame codec.
[Bob Cole] “3. Given that I will have to move from FCP7 to something else, most likely Premiere Pro or Avid, how would their handling of the XDCAM files influence your choice?”
Both PP and Avid MC handle native EXCAM EX just fine. When choosing a successor to FCP 7 how they handle XDCAM files will be the least of your worries. Remember that even with another NLE there’s still going to be the basic issue of processing power vs. Long GOP.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
It would be nice if log and transfer within FCP 7.0.3 would convert during ingest like it does with other formats such as AVCHD but it’s not set up for XDCAM EX files. So, if you don’t want to spend money for a 3rd party solution then you’re left with Compressor. It does a good job and does it faster than FCP will do it. You can also modify the preset so that it works relatively fast. The speed of conversion is totally dependent upon whether you’re doing a straight 1080p to 1080p convert or if you plan on downsizing to 720p or even 480p (standard def) at the same time. With a straight cross-convert you can turn off frame controls and that speeds up the process quite a bit.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Molly, try trashing the preference files for XDCAM Transfer and see if that solves it. You’ll need to do this at the FInder level. The path is:
Macintosh HD>Users>yourname>Library>Preferences>com.sony.bprl.xdcamtransfer.plist
Drag the XDCAM Transfer .plist out of there and on to your desktop. When you start XDCAM Transfer again it will use the default settings. Open the program’s preferences window and re-navigate again to your external drive so that it shows up in the Import settings text field.
good luck
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Ian,
Thanks for the correction. Cheers. It’s a mystery though, as to what those other files that are taking up so much space might be,– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
By default XDCAM Transfer will save your re-wrapped clips to the startup drive’s Documents folder because the program doesn’t know what you have attached to your computer. Tell XDCAM Transfer where you want your media to go by starting the program then go to Preferences in the XDCAM Transfer menu at the top of your screen. Open up Preferences, then choose the “Import” tab from the 3 choices at the top of the Preferences window. Under import location click on the “choose” button and navigate to your external drive. Your choice will be displayed in the text field to the left of the “choose” button. Now close the Preferences window and go for coffee.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com