[Eric Monroe]

how does that Kool-aid taste friend?

[Eric Monroe]

I must disagree with one thing that you said Nelson, that FCP X is okay for wedding videographers/and youtube bloggers.

As a professional in the Wedding industry, having no multi-cam support pretty much cripples the ability to produce wedding films in a timely or professional fashion. Any “GOOD” wedding videographer in the business this day-n-age is using multiple HD sources to capture “the moment”. So……should we put our 4+ HD camera sources on the timeline and edit them the old fashion way?!?!?! I am sure that will go over well with the professional wedding & event videographers out there. I know that some people may look at someone filming/editing weddings as low-level and not the same level as someone in Hollywood, however it IS what some of us rely on full-time for a living. Last year I filmed/edited over 50 weddings and events, all shot using 4 HD cameras and cut using FCP 7’s multi-clip editor. As a business owner I provide for my family and serve a fairly large client base. No multi-camera ability makes FCP X TOTALLY USELESS for someone like me.

Oh and btw Stevie J……NOBODY WANTS TO WATCH THEIR WEDDING ON iTUNES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Blu-ray is a must for my business….(seems Hollywood likes it too) ;o)

(I have been producing cinematic wedding films professionally for quite a few years now….not because I cant get a job doing anything else in the world of video, (been there done that) but because I am truly enjoying filming weddings, and working for myself.)

Looks like the world of editing is gonna change alright…Wedding/Event/indie on Adobe…..and big production houses (that still use EDL, XML, OMF etc. in their everyday workflow) will be on Avid…….Goodbye MacinTOYS

As someone else already said……this is iMovie Pro….not FCP. (they proved that with importing of iMovie projects and not FCP 7 backwards compatibility.

Whatta joke.

FCP – RIP 2011

[Eric Monroe]

Carl, if you want to convert to a more edit-friendly format use Prores LT. It has way smaller file sizes while still maintaining image quality.

I have a 13″ macbook pro and ran into the same issues. I got 2 Hitachi G-Raid drives (1 for media, 1 for scratches) ran the media drive off of the FW800 port and the scratches off of a usb port. In FCP I could multicam edit 4 cameras of Prores LT footage each approx 1 hour in duration with no problems. Premiere was jumpy using the same footage on the same drives.

I was always a PC/Adobe editor. I wanted to learn the MAC/FCP side of things, so I switched for a while. Although now I love Macs, I am not pleased with FCP’s lack of integration with AE & Photoshop. So I looked into a “fire-breathing” (as Tim Kolb called it) :o) Mac Pro that would run Premiere Pro and the rest of the creative suite. I looked at a 6-core Mac Pro with 16 gb ram etc. Roughly $5700. I decided that was too much money and built a new PC with a 3.2ghz AMD Phenom 2 6-core, 16gb ram, etc. I cut long form multicamera shoots everyday that range from 1.5-2 hours in duration….3-4 cameras of native AVCHD 1920×1080 60p footage with zero issues. No lag whatsoever. Life is grand. :o) glad to be back in the creative suite.

Cheers!

[Eric Monroe]

In my humble opinion, it totally depends on the type of work you do. If you edit short-form or long-form video, multicam, HD or SD. What format are you editing in? If its AVCHD you will need to lean toward more power…….just too many variables to say.

I run a:

3.2ghz AMD Phenom 2 6-core proc.
Asus Crosshair IV Formula board
16 GB 1333mhz RAM
GTX260
Velociraptor 10k system drive
4 – Hitachi G-raid external Raid-0 enclosures connected via eSata for media, scratches, export, proj files etc.

I can cut four 1-1 1/2 hour long clips of AVCHD footage natively in the multicam window on full quality, full frame-rate. With ZERO stutter or lag.

All depends on what you wanna do/spend

Cheers

[Eric Monroe]

**Just tried connecting the camera to the PC directly and CS5 media browser when Viewing as: AVCHD sees files 99-154

Connected to the Mac, CS5 media browser when Viewing as: AVCHD sees files 99-154

Connected to the SAME Mac opened FCP’s Log and Transfer window and it sees everything. Files 1-154 with thumbnails.

AM I MISSING SOMETHING?!?

[Eric Monroe]

AVCHD multicam blues.

Mike,

I shoot long-form (2+ hours in duration) Live stage productions using 3-4 AVCHD cams. It has been a nightmare trying to figure out a good workflow. I am almost there however.

First….the machine specs. I had a PC with an Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad, 8 gb ram, 10k C-drive etc. etc. Early on I figured it would have to have enough power, its a quad core right?? WRONG…..stuttered all day with AVCHD footage. I found out quickly you can have all the RAM you want, and it wont matter, it is 100% processor.

So I left the Adobe Creative Suite went over to my new Mac mini, and started using Final Cut Pro. Transcode the AVCHD footage to Prores LT, bring to the timeline, multicam edit, export to Quicktime movie….go into encore. Not bad, did 21 shows this summer with that workflow. Problem was my Mac mini was taking WAY TOO long to transcode initially, and even longer to export my FCP timeline (12-15 hours.) Cutting the footage in the multi-clip editor was smooth as could be. I made through those shows and decided that if I am gonna stay in business I gotta get a better/quicker workflow.

Looked at a new 6-core Mac Pro, 16 gb RAM (something that would handle AVCHD natively with CS5)….would have been the end of my problems. And also the end of my savings account, coming in at $5700. So a buddy of mine replaced his board processor and RAM a few weeks ago in his PC. He got a 2.8ghz AMD phenom 2 6-core processor, 4 gb RAM (1333mhz memory) and an ASUS board. cost him somewhere in the neighborhood of $600. I took my external raid-0 enclosures up there to test out native AVCHD footage, and WHALLAH!!!! cut 3 cameras 35-45min duration each in the multicam window like butter.

So,a few days ago I ordered a 3.2ghz AMD phenom 2 black edition 6-core processor, ASUS crosshair board, 16 gb of 1333mhz RAM, and stuck it into my PC this afternoon. I am able to cut 4 cameras 1 hour 15+ minutes of AVCHD footage at FULL playback quality in the multicam window….and it doesn’t even flinch….in fact I pulled up the task manager to see where my processor was at, and it was hanging around 35-40%. So as far as machine goes I got that part of the workflow narrowed down. A Q6600 just ain’t gonna cut it. As far as transcoding to something it will handle, I have heard that Cineform Neoscene works well, but I tried the free download and didnt have much luck personally. (my parts cost me about 850 bucks….compare that to $5700+ for the Mac…..I could build 5 of these PC’s and still have money left.)

I also stuck a blu-ray burner in my machine as part of the upgrade, so as far as the authoring to blu-ray….I would also like to know the answers to that. ANYONE?

[Eric Monroe]

Mark,

once you are finished editing your video on the timeline, do the following.

go to “File” drop that down, choose “Export” (a flyout menu will come from there) choose “media”

the Export setting window will pop open

go to the “format” tab and drop it down, choose MPEG2-DVD

next one down is “preset” choose “NTSC Progressive Widescreen High Quality”

(I assume since you are down-converting HD it will be SD widescreen)

Next go to “output name” name it what you want and pick a location to save the file.

Next go down to the “video” tab (beside filters, multiplexer etc.) Scroll through the “video” tab and make sure that the Field order is set to progressive, and the pixel aspect ratio is set to widescreen 16:9

from there you can either export the file directly, or you could choose “queue” and send it into Media Encoder.

Once into Encore, you will need to go to the project panel and right click and import as “timeline” when the window pops open choose both the .m2v (hold control key and also choose) the .wav file this way on import Encore will bring the audio and video in together on one timeline.

Hope that helps ya! :o)

Eric

[Eric Monroe]

Marielle,

Nobody ever posted an answer/solution to my original message. I ended up switching over to Final Cut Pro and capturing everything there. I then went to new Panasonic HD cameras that are tapeless, so I never did figure it out. At least that I can remember anyhow.

Is your software updated? Did you try switching the device control settings in the capture window? to generic device maybe?

Also in the capture window, check the capture settings to make sure that it is set to DV if that is what you are capturing from. If you are trying to capture DV and it is set to HDV it will definitely mess things up a bit.

Let me know if any of those things work for ya.

Cheers

Eric

I will try to help ya if I can.

[Eric Monroe]

Hey Brian,

I tried the free download of Cineform, and didn’t have much luck with it. Although admittedly it was right in the beginning of my AVCHD “adventures” so maybe I wasn’t doing something correctly.

I ordered my AMD 6-core proc, ASUS Crossfire board (with Sata 6 & USB 3) and 16 GB of 1333 mghz RAM, so this way I can jump straight into editing AVCHD natively and bypass the transcoding.

Thanks for your input though, maybe I will check out neoscene again though, just for the simple fact of “knowing”

Cheers

[Eric Monroe]

Hi Adam,

i just went through this same thing recently….I have a custom built Core-2 Quad PC with 8 gig of ram, GTX260 1 gig graph card, 2 raid-0 arrays for running scratches and media files separately,windows 7 64-bit and also a brand new Mac-mini core 2 with 8 gig of ram….both machines run SD footage FANTASTIC! with minimal crashes or lock-ups. Moving to HD has been another cup of tea.

Through tons of tests with my machines and others, I have found that on my systems personally, my bottleneck has been processor. I brought up the cpu/memory monitor in win7 on my pc and was using only 7% of the 8 gigs of ram memory, but processor was pegged at 100% and it still wasn’t enough. As Jon said, many different things can bottleneck a system, I was frustrated at first when I found out that my 2.4 Quad would not do the trick. My friend’s new 6-core AMD phenom 2 however has plenty of power, and edits AVCHD natively without a prob at all…..on only 4 gig of ram and a 5-year old 8800 graph card. (my old one, that i beat up on for 3 years, still keep tickin…gotta love that)

HD is just a “bear” I have learned the hard way through frustration and testing that you just gotta have power to play with HD.

Hope this helps.

Eric