[Gary Askham]

This is definitely a strange issue. When troubleshooting FCP problems it usually comes down to one of 4 things.

1 – Hardware
2 – Software
3 – Project
4 – Media

The trick is being able to isolate which one of these is causing the problem. However your explanation is telling us that the “Project” is carrying the problem which is effecting the “Software”.

How about if you create a new project and you copy your bins into it? Or even better, create a new project, create a new sequence and copy and paste your timeline into it.

Now close the old project and don’t go back to it. Obviously this might not be practical if you have a complex project with lots of bins and lots of sequences. I’m just trying to get you to a point where you’re no longer accessing your old project which seems to be causing the problems.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

As you haven’t followed any kind of approved workflow your clips probably have no timecode reference or reel name. There is no way it will relink properly.

It’s a good job it’s only a short project.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

I’d say the biggest problem in doing it for real would be the lighting. It’s hard enough to light a green screen on it’s own but you’re suggesting lighting a green screen and then everything that’s behind it.

I like Sachin’s suggestion. Film all the elements separately and then put them together afterwards. You might not even have to make it look realistic – lo-fi can be pretty cool and effective. Highlight the bad compositing as if the band are cut out of paper, put them on different z-planes maybe using After Effects’ false 3D feature.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

I think we covered this a few days ago on the COW. If Premiere fits your workflow better than FCP than it makes sense to use Premiere. If you are working alone and dealing with AVCHD then it makes sense.

As David mentions the GPU acceleration is only supported on a small number of NVidia cards. You might find that you have to buy a new card = added expense.

I work in a facility which is 50/50 FCP and Avid – for the jobs that suit Avid we use Avid. For the jobs that suit FCP we use FCP. So far we haven’t seen the need to incorporate Premiere into any of our workflows… although we do use After Effects, Photoshop and Encore. Adobe does have it’s uses.

Premiere is still not accepted in film and television – there just isn’t the user base. We are talking about massive institutions which have spent lots of time and money on developing workflows and best practices. In fact we still have problems convincing some clients to use Final Cut Pro.

I personally don’t think that things like the Mercury Engine are the way forward – it just encourages sloppiness. Plan and shoot your project properly. Do your research. Use professional cameras with proper recording systems, take time to log and ingest your material. Sure, being able to edit on set with footage straight from the camera is fun and mixing frame rates and frame sizes in the same sequence can be good in some situations… but it just isn’t… professional.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

I guess it all depends what you are going to use it for.

I’ve successfully used a Nikon D90 (the first and worst of the DSLR cameras) for filming promo stuff that has gone up on YouTube which has now been viewed by thousands of people. That was shooting 30fps and I even matched it with DVCPro HD material shot at 25fps (not that I’m recommending repeating that).

But there is no way I’d even think about using it for broadcast work.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

If your budget really can’t be stretched then I would recommend the Lumix G2 from Panasonic. 20fps is not a usable video format.

But really – you get what you pay for. You’re not going to get Canon 5DMkII-like images from a camera that costs a fraction of the price. And you must remember that the 5D costs the fraction of the price of pro gear.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

That’s a JVC pro camera that shoots XDCAM EX which is supported in Final Cut Pro not a Canon stills camera that shoots h.264 QuickTimes.

If you think you should know everything about FCP after working with it for a year then you are a little disillusioned. I have been working with it professioanlly for 8 years (since FCP 3) and I still learn something new every day.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

If you prefer the performance of your brand new PC with modern software to a slightly dated Mac with older software you should stick to your PC. No-one will stop you. You also didn’t mention which graphics card you were using in each system – this can make a big difference.

I would say though that 13 hours sounds a little strange, even on a Quad-core Mac. Compressor can be set up to better use multicore systems – but it isn’t set up like this as standard. I am also curious as to what you were converting your footage to? Were you doing any resizing? Which ProRes codec did you choose? I personally use the EOS E1 L&T plugin in FCP as it adds timecode support – something Compressor doesn’t do.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

Firewire 800 should be just enough for ProRes HQ. It’s pretty borderline though… and it won’t be a pleasant editing experience.

I think an additional problem though is the EX3 media. The Sony EX3 records to XDCAM EX. Have you transcoded this media to match your ProRes 422 HQ media or is it still XDCAM? XDCAM is a long-GOP format and can be a bit sticky – especially on slower drives.

(And you would have been fine transcoding your Canon 7D media to non-HQ ProRes or even ProRes (LT). ProRes (HQ) is overkill – especially if you knew you were going to be working on a low performance drive)

The G-RAID would have been a better option. They have two drive mechanisms RAIDed together (hence the name) and are designed and marketed for exactly this kind of editing.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London

[Gary Askham]

If your project is to show to your friends and family then do what you want.

If you’re working to any kind of professional level than do it properly. Hire another camera. You can get a Z1 for £80 a day. If your budget doesn’t stretch to this than you don’t deserve to be filming the interview.

Compressor isn’t a standards convertor. You can spend an age messing around with settings until you get something that approaches decent quality and then spend another age actually converting the footage. But it will never be as good as if you shot it with the correct equipment.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London