[Jeff Meyer]

I’m not very fluent with multicam, but I’m thinking the throughput of two drives is what you’re looking needing more than the combination of two drives. For the sake of this singular project I think simply moving two camera angles to a second (non-system) drive will get it working. Obviously there are other reasons to go with RAID, but it is also a pain to have to clear off a drive. Food for thought.

You can copy/paste the clips – no need to recapture. Be sure to use Reconnect Media in Final Cut Pro. Do this by right-clicking on the media (Browser or Timeline) you want to point to the other drive. This is how you tell FInal Cut to look elsewhere for the media. If the media is no longer where it was Final Cut will bring up the Reconnect Media dialogue when you launch a project with offline media.

If your deliverable (where the footage is headed) is 1920×1080 and you have some 1920×1080 I think it would be wise to make the HDV 1920×1080. If you work in 1440 you’re scaling the DSLR footage down to edit, then back up to export. If you’re on a deadline work with the 1440. If you have time go back and make it all 1920×1080. If the higher bitrate of 1920 gives you playback problems on multicam you can always make ProRes Proxy copies, then after your multicam edit reconnect with the higher quality ProRes422 copies.

[Jeff Meyer]

I would reconnect media from the watermarked proxy footage to the purchased footage. You’ll have to adjust the SCALE because the resolution is different, and possibly the distort depending on what you came from and what you’ve got now. That said once you adjust the scale you should be set.

[Jeff Meyer]

What are your sequence settings?

[Jeff Meyer]

We’ve got a setup at work that’s a bit different, but perhaps it would be good to share.

I sit at a tower with 2x G-Speed RAID-5. There’s another tower with a G-Speed RAID-5 and the internal MacPro RAID-5. The media lives on these two towers, and they connect to each other. There are also 3x editors that tie in using MBPs, but they edit a few hours a week. Maybe 50 between all three of them.

As for accessing the drives, the computers are all connected over a gigabit network. Make sure you’re using CAT6 cables. From there it’s going into your Sharing settings on the “server” tower and turning on File Sharing, then adding the folders (drives) that you want to share. After that go to the Network settings and see what the computer’s IP address is. Write it down. Go to the “Clent” computer, select the Finder application, hit butterfly-K and type in afp://IP-ADDRESS-HERE. Put in the username/password for the computer, and you can mount the network volumes. Gigabit is about 12x faster than Firewire 800. If you’re on a hard wire network give it a try. You can mount volumes over a wireless network this way, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to edit over wifi.

[Jeff Meyer]

If the deliverable (Apple TV) is 30p why not edit 30p? LCD displays are meant for progressive anyway. I vote for progressive. Plus, if you want silky-smooth slow motion you can take the 60p originals, go into Cinema Tools and conform them down to 30p, and enjoy the results! With 60i slow-mo won’t be as smooth/dramatic as a Cinema Tools conform from a 60p file.

[Jeff Meyer]

Everything fully rendered?
Is it happening on export, or just on the timeline?

[Jeff Meyer]

Try downloading and installing the Final Cut plugin “PDZKP1 XDCAM Transfer Software Version 2.12” from this website: https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcamexsite/resource.downloads

[Jeff Meyer]

All of this Compressor work is assuming the footage was shot anamorphic. Here are a few options, please let us know which kind of footage you have:

1) Plain, 4×3 SD – this is footage that fills a “full screen” which is the more square shape of old TVs.
2) Letterboxed 4×3 SD – this footage fills a “full screen” but it has black bars on the top and the bottom so it’s widescreen video packaged inside a fullscreen video
3) Anamorphic SD – this is footage that is shot on the same space as SD, but it’s widescreen squished down to the fullscreen size, and needs to be stretched back out to be displayed properly. The Compressor route will work properly if this is the footage you were provided.

[Jeff Meyer]

Have you changed the Easy Setup from the Final Cut Pro menu to match the camera’s settings? I can’t tell you exactly what they will need to be as I’m not particularly familiar with the XHA1. I remember capturing from it once without much trouble, but it was a rental and I was using 60i.

Start with the Easy Setup. If it isn’t working one thing that’s important/helpful to know is if FCP is able to control playback on the camera? The more details you provide the more help you are able to receive.

[Jeff Meyer]

Only chance I’m guessing you’ve got is to make a custom preset with the File Format on QuickTime Export Components and see if MXF is an encoder type. Being long GOP and an export component I’m doubtful that it’ll separate it out among the clusters, but if MXF4mac makes a QT Export Component you can do it through Compressor.

Personally I would just edit with the sequence compressor in the XDCAM flavour you’re needing, then use the Sony XDCAM Browser export option to make the MXF. It’ll be pretty quick. If the .mxf file is one of multiple deliveries I would make a Compressor setting to export a QT movie in the XDCAM flavour, then drop that on a fresh sequence, update the settings to match the media, then use the XDCAM Browser export to get to MXF.