[Jesus Ali]

Hello Tom Jose,

This Thread seems to have found that problems arise when working with very large Still Images (bitmap files from Photoshop, jpegs) or with 10-Bit footage in 8-Bit timelines.

Your post doesn’t mention either of these being a problem. If you do have either of them in your project, see the solutions discussed in these posts.

* * *

Otherwise, my first question, based on the info you provided, is you are EXPORTING to H.264.
But what Format is the Footage in when you Import (Log & Capture, Log and Transfer, or just drag from the finder) it INTO Final Cut?

What type of camera created the footage? Are you Capturing from Tape or working with Files made on the Camera? What Extension do the files have? Are you Transcoding them into a different format to work with?

What format is your Final Cut Timeline? Did you start with a Final Cut Pro Easy Setup? Which one?
So far as I know, your Timeline CANNOT be H.264. If you drag H.264 footage onto a Timeline, you will need to constantly Render ALL of it.

Which version of FCP are you using? Final Cut Pro 7 in Final Cut Studio 2009 (3.0) has an easy Export Preset for Blu-Ray. You should try that.
What kind of computer are you on? How much RAM does it have? Where are your video files stored? How much free space is on your Boot Drive and on your Export Drive? Exporting 40Mb/s HD video eats up GBs of storage.

* * *

Other solutions:
“Export with QuickTime Conversion” looks at EVERY FRAME of video and converts it to the Export format. One frame at a time. In the case of H.264, it does this TWICE, the first pass analyzing the movement and motion of each batch of frames.

So, it can be a boon to simply Export in the Format of your Timeline.
With Standard Definition DV this was easy; you shot in DV, Captured in DV, edited in DV, and then exported into DV. Since the format never changed, FCP could just stitch together the source video clips. It only had to process and create video where you applied filters or otherwise altered the pixels.

But to Export to H.264, all footage must be reformatted, so it takes a long time, with A LOT of Processing.

Unfortunately, HD footage isn’t captured in the DV format. So exporting is not so quick and easy.

Apple’s solution is the ProRes422 format.
If you shot on HDV tape, you can Capture your tape into the ProRes422 format. ProRes is like DV, where the Frames are not mixed together with MPEG compression, so it is very responsive in your Timeline. It also Processes faster than H.264 on Export.

But here’s the thing, you may ALL READY be working in ProRes. Press COMMAND + 0 and check which Format your Timeline is in. If it’s HD, it may be ProRes.

This means, that if you have a “Needs Render” Bar for the footage to play back in real time, that Rendering is actually FCP CONVERTING your footage from it’s original format into the Timeline Format (whatever that is set to be).

So, if you are Rendering your entire Timeline for Realtime Playback before you do your Final Export, you may already have converted your footage to ProRes.

I suggest you do your final Export to the Format and dimensions listed in the COMMAND + 0 Sequence Settings panel. That will let FCP simply use the Rendered Footage (it made for Real Time Playback) without needing to make new render files and should require little additional processing. Less than 1 hour, probably. 😉

ProRes will require about 90GB/hour of footage, so you’ll need that much space available. 180/GBs actually, because it make 1 copy for the Render files and then another of all the footage stitched together in 1 video file.

The point of Exporting into ProRes, is that it requires less memory intensive Processing and should be less prone to crashing.

After you have a successful Export of your entire project you can then Convert the ProRes HD video file into H.264 for Blu-Ray. You can do this with the program Compressor, included in Final Cut Studio. Again, you’ll want Final Cut Studio 2009 (3.0) for the Direct Preset, but I think a Blu-Ray Preset may have been included in a Pro Apps Update for Final Cut Studio 2.0.

Another great alternative is Roxio Toast Titanium 9, 10 or higher.
You can use Toast to burn a Blu-Ray to a BD-R disc or even to a standard 4.5GB DVD-R disc (this format is called BD-5 and will play in most players)! Toast will convert you ProRes422 file directly into the best format for a Blu-Ray disc. It does this conversion VERY quickly on a 2008 Octocore Mac.

Another benefit of the lastest Final Cut Studio, is that it is MUCH more Multi-Processor aware. As is MacOS 10.6, Snow Leopard. If you can use both of these, you should get pretty smooth results. However, the tips I presented here worked with Final Cut Studio 2 on 10.5 with short 5-10 minute Blu-Ray projects.

Good Luck, let us know if any of this helped!

[Jesus Ali]

Not to revive an old argument, but in Paul’s 2nd Post I also had an “Aha!” Moment and came to the same conclusion he did. And I don’t think that Ken understands that “Aha” moment the way Paul and I do.

But then I started thinking some more and I am questioning the Aha-ness of Paul’s conclusion.

Isn’t 23.98 actually Drop-Frame?
Straight on 24 would be NOT Drop-Frame. But isn’t 23.98 meant to match television rates of 29.97 (i.e. Drop Frame) counting?

So, since 2:3:3:2 actually results in footage that 23.98, aren’t we actually capturing Drop-Frame?

And even if the computer “reads” the 60i tape, isn’t it actually capturing 29.97 (drop-frame) footage?

So now, I understand even LESS why the warning comes up! So far, ignoring it has not given me any problems.

Thanks guys!

[Jesus Ali]

If you were working on the Mac and Final Cut Pro, you could Transcode the HDV footage into Apple Intermediate Codec or (preferably) into Apple ProRes 422, or even ProRes 422 HQ (10-bit).

Yes, you don’t re-introduce quality that was lost in the HDV compression, but you have a better color space (4:2:2 in PR vs. 4:1:0 in HDV) in which to process special effects, transitions and color correction.

Working in a compressed color space is like multiplying a grid of long decimal numbers but only being able to use Whole numbers as their result. Fidelity and Granularity is lost.

I don’t know anything about the Elements NLE, but I heard that Sony Vegas has a format that’s similar to ProRes and can be transcoded to on Ingest (capturing to computer from tape).

Maybe it is called, “Cineform” ?

If your NLE can transcode to DVC PRO HD on ingest that would be a better format than HDV, but still more compressed than Animation (Lossless).

Also, are you working in the HV30’s 24P or 30P mode? I’ve read on the Cow that After Effects may be able to remove the Pull Down from this footage after it is captured as 29.97. Working in Progressive is really great. You can set your AE Comp to 23.976 fps and save rendering 6 frames every second and the results and effects look spectacular.

Okay. Good luck.

[Jesus Ali]

Hey Simon, I think it will work. I don’t have the files here right now, but thanks for the tip.

I actually tried to use an Adjustment Layer before I asked for help here, but I am such a noob, that I didn’t realize how to set the Effect for the Adjustment Layer and thus, couldn’t get it to do anything!

Just now I tested your advice with a Solid and an Adjustment Layer with a Mask and I it looks like it will help!

Thanks again, Simon and Dave!

[Jesus Ali]

Right now I am working on a project where I’ve got 4 tracks of ProResHQ (1080P 23.976) in FCP 6.0.5 on a dualcore 2.0ghz 17″ MacBook Pro. Each track of ProRes looks to have around a 17mb/s data rate. But I am not doing anything with Overlays and my 4 video tracks are cut pretty tight so there isn’t much overlap.

I have the footage stored on and am working from a Lacie Big Disk 1TB connected to the MBP over Firewire. But my MBP only has a 6-pin, 400mbs FW port. I am using a 6- to 9-pin cord to connect to the Lacie’s FW 800 port, but the drive is stuck using the lowest common FW speed, so it’s only coming in at 400mbs.

The Lacie Big Disk is actually a RAID 0 with two 512GB drives.

This configuration can play back the 4 tracks and a stereo AIFF stream in Safe RT without an IoHD connected. Every now and then I’ll do something that causes me to drop frames, but saving, closing and reopening the FCP file has been fixing that problem.

Multiangle clips are quite processor and disk intensive. The IoHD will take off a lot of the Processor load, but simultaneously playing 5 ProRes HQ’s is going to tax the drive(s) most of all.

If you do a test to nail down a reliable Offline to Pickup workflow before starting the entire project, it might help you decide if it’s worth investigating an additional drive to support the ProRes. If the Offline works smoothly enough just go that way.

Good luck.

[Jesus Ali]

That’s a great tip that never occurred to me! Thank you, Will!

I’ve been using the custom Easy Setups to capture the HDV tape directly into ProRes HQ, but I have been curious about whether or not I could see the difference going straight to 10-bit.

Thanks again! Jesus.

[Jesus Ali]

Just to confirm, I was dumb/ confused/ mislead before I started working on this. 🙁
But NOW I know some stuff for certain. …er, pretty much.

With the 1st Generation Canon XL-H1, if you record 1080 to HDV tape and choose the 3rd position for frame rate, you will record 24F.
This footage is like an HDV version of “24p Advanced (2:3:3:2)” on the DV NTSC format Canon XL2.
This format is also, called “Native 24P” on the HV40 and newer Sony cameras.

Final Cut Pro can capture this format, without issue, if you use the proper Easy Setup: “HDV 1080p24 Firewire Basic.”

* * *

This format is HDV and as such has a 4:2:0 color space and is 1440 x 1080.

But if you have FCP 6.0.2 or newer, you have the ability to capture HDV footage DIRECTLY into ProRes 422 and even ProRes 422 (HQ) [10-bit].

A man named Andrew Balis figured it out and even produced some FCP Easy Setups that you can download:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/capture_hdv_prores_fw_balis.html

* * *

I recently learned that this is also the format of 24fps that Canon has added to the HV40.

This was super confusing to me, because everyone has been touting that the HV20 and HV30 can all do 24fps, but that you have to remove the pulldown afterward.

I am really surprised Canon didn’t simply include the 24F HDV “native” format from the start.

The HV10 can read 24F from the XL-H1, and even calls it “HDV 24F” on screen during playback. But for some reason it cannot record INTO that format.

* * *

I have also confirmed that the 1st Generation Canon XL-H1 cannot feed its 24F mode into an AJA IoHD.

From what I’ve heard, the special footage flags are not sent out over the HD-SDI.

[Jesus Ali]

Check BHPhoto.com, click Camcorders, then on the left column you can click on Canon and narrow down your search to CANON and Flash Memory. I recommend against Hard Drive cameras. If the drive dies, the camera’s dead. Flash memory is better.

In Standard Def there is the FS100 and now the FS200, those are even at Walmart.

I think the more advanced, but still SD are the FS11 and FS21, I don’t know anything about those…

The HF S10, HF11 and HF21 can each record to TWO Flash memory cards. I guess this is good if you want to buy small size cards… but an 8GB or 16GB card holds HOURS and HOURS of the highest quality footage these cameras can make.

The single card versions are the HF S100 and the HF200.

B&H Descriptions can fill you in on the majority of the details.

FYI, you will need a FAST and recent Intel Mac to effectively decode these advanced AVC MPEG-4 codecs. G5’s won’t cut it, because the footage is compressed so tightly.

Good luck,

jesus

[Jesus Ali]

Ugh. I feel so close!

I just did a test.

I set the IoHD to take the XL-H1’s 1080i 29.97 HD-SDI and make it 23.98 psf, and I made the 23.98 psf Easy Setups available to FCP and I chose Pro Res and captured in FCP.

The resulting file is a strange hybrid of Progressive and Interlaced frames!

FCP captured a file that it sees as 23.976 fps 1920 x 1080 Pro Res, but as I nudge through the file I can see that it has interlaced frames in the follow pattern:

PiPPiPiPPiPiPPiPiPPiPiPPiPiPPi

One Progressive, then One Interlaced, then Two Progressives, then One Interlaced, and it repeats that pattern consistently.

I tried to see if I could deduce a pulldown pattern from it, if the idea is that each Interlaced frame is the 3rd frame and the P before was the first two frames, it could work like this:


PiPPiPiPPiPiPPiPiPPiPiPPiPiPPi
_32 3 32 3 32 3 32 3 32 3 32 3


But that doesn’t match anything I’ve ever seen.

Any thoughts on the weird pulldown?
Could changing anything in the AJA ControlPanel under CODEC 24-30fps Conversion help?

I also recorded some tests to HDV tape.
I will try capturing them over firewire tomorrow.

[Jesus Ali]

So acccording to here:
https://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-xl-h-series-hdv-camcorders/76271-fcp-24-f-support-arrives.html

Which came from here:
https://www.hdforindies.com/archivedarticles/2006_09_01_archived_article.html#115930486607586122

Native FCP 24F Presets have been around since September 2006[?!] FCP 5.1.2? Hrmpf!
Well, now I don’t know why I’ve had trouble with this in the past…

Adobe offers no date on when they released their updates to add 24F and 30F Presets for Premiere:
https://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3408

https://www.usa.canon.com/app/html/XLH1/frame_rates_formats.shtml

Sorry to have bothered people if indeed this is a non-problem. Well, now that I expect it to work, I’ll test some footage and hopefully see gorgeous Progressive footage over Firewire!

Next I’ll try to find the AJA IoHD 24F ProRes 422 workflow!

Thanks,

Jesus