[John Pale]

First find out your broadcasters specs. 720p is rather rare…you will probably be required to do 1080i50.

If you want a quality job, master to tape in NTSC and have it converted on an Alchemist (or other high quality hardware standards converter) to whatever PAL format is required. This cost money, but is real time and will give the best results. Any software conversion will be inferior and may get your master rejected by the broadcaster.

If you are on a small budget, have no choice and need to do this in Compressor, you will want to export as a Quicktime movie from FCP (same as source..or Pro Res 422 or HQ). Take that into Compressor, set up for whatever your PAL delivery requirements are. You must turn on the Frame Controls and then set the resize to Better or Best (if resizing to 1080…leave it at fast if staying 720p). Set the Rate Conversion to Better or Best. Best does not always yield the best results, as the Optical Flow algorithm can be fooled by some types of footage. Do tests. And pray.

You can also purchase the Standards Conversion plugin from Nattress.com. Its much faster than Compressor, but a little tricky to use. Only 99 bucks. It works within FCP, usually does a good job, but its no Alchemist.

[John Pale]

Maybe they mean media captured as Avid MXF rather than QuickTime .mov?

[John Pale]

Take a look at the book Avid Agility by Steven Cohen. I’ve been an Avid user since 1996 and I learned stuff from it.

It hasn’t been updated for v6 yet, but most of it still applies.

[John Pale]

These are the sizes supported for real time playback (copy/pasted from the FCP7 Pro Formats Guide)

• 2048×1024
• 2048×1080(AppleProRes4444only)
• 2048×1152
• 2048×1556(AppleProRes4444only)

https://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/professionalformatsandworkflows/Final%20Cut%20Pro%207%20Professional%20Formats%20and%20Workflows%20(en).pdf

[John Pale]

It’s either your non-standard frame size or your render files are on a drive that can’t keep up. I think it’s the non standard size… FCP does not like them much.

[John Pale]

I used to have a G5 Dual 2.0. You will probably (but not definitely) have difficulty playing ProRes footage without dropping frames. Only the Quad Core PPC machines really handled it well, though some other configurations might work too. I had a very fast RAID that could play uncompressed HD but not ProRes..so it was definitely processor bottleneck.
You will definitely not be able to capture it with that machine.
If you have playback problems you may have consider using the DVCPRO HD codec instead. Not ideal, but ProRes is optimized for an Intel processor. Even a Mac Mini will handle it better than a Dual 2.0 G5.

[John Pale]

Try posting about it in the RAID forum. Love to hear what Zelin says about it.

[John Pale]

[Renee Baltsen] “I have the MVI_filename.Mov files as well as the MVI_THM files. Still not reading.”

You need more than the files. You need to have the files in the exact folder structure they were on the card.

[John Pale]

You can’t do it directly. The format used by the iPad is not a valid editing format in FCP (well, it sort of is in FCPX). What Easy Setup did you use in FCP for your ripped file? That is the format your movie now is (I’m guessing you got a red line over your timeline and had to render).

You said you don’t want to upgrade to a version of FCP that existed after the iPad was introduced either, so here is the best you can do.

Export a Quicktime Movie (not Quicktime Conversion). This is the same as your timeline settings, whatever they may be. This can be a reference movie (uncheck self contained), or self contained.

You said you have FCP 5, so I don’t think you will have the iPad preset in your version of Compressor…so download the free program called Handbrake.
Open your reference movie in Handbrake and select the iPad 2 export preset.

Do your export. Done…without spending any money, engaging caps lock or using multiple exclamation points.

[John Pale]

Just so people are clear…Universal Mastering is a great feature but it is not a built in Alchemist. You need to work in a 24p sequence, then you can master to anything. If you generally work in an interlaced format, it won’t really help you much.