[Marcus Van bavel]

For quicktimes you need raylight DECODER, not the
DVFilm Raylight product which is for MXF files only
https://dvfilm.com/raylight/decoder
for dvcpro50 decoder also requires the free matrox codecs installed
http://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/digisuite/downloads/softwares/codec

[Marcus Van bavel]

You can author P2 cards with Raylight and Leopard if you have the OS X 10.5.3 update.

[Marcus Van bavel]

Also assuming that you have proper lighting and no gain, but you’re still not happy with the noise, consider Raylight MXFX which is a footage preprocessor that can reduce noise and rotate the image as well (while fully preserving the P2 contents). The Mac version was recently released. The advantage of preprocessing over a noise-reduction plugin is you are not re-rendering the noise reduction every time you export a cut. See https://dvfilm.com/MXFX

[Marcus Van bavel]

With Raylight for Mac ( https://dvfilm.com/raylight/mac ) you can author a card with metadata from FCP. It’s very simple, with Raylight running in the background you export a DV/DVCPRO/DVCPROHD quicktime from FCP, when it finishes it is automatically converted to an MXF file and copied to the P2 card, with metadata that you either enter in or copy from a source clip. It’s much faster and easier than using firewire and does not require a camera to do it. 720/24PN material is copied without conversion to another format and will take up less space on the card.

[Marcus Van bavel]

I would suggest you use Raylight for Mac ( https://dvfilm.com/raylight/mac ) and then both Avid and FCP can work from the same source files — the MXF files.

You will also be able to keep and read the metadata from within your FCP project, something that Avid cannot even do. Shane needs to update his tutorial to point out there is a much better alternative that skips the log and transfer and retains metadata, and can also automatically organize and rename your clips based on the metadata.

[Marcus Van bavel]

Yes there is, Raylight Encoder, here is a link dvfilm.com/raylight/EncoderPro

[Marcus Van bavel]

Not clear on what you mean but the best source
of such information is DVFilm Support. It’s free so why not try there first?

[Marcus Van bavel]

Looking at your first example, the fringe is caused by the 4:2:2 chroma signal not being filtered properly. I don’t suppose you use Raylight? Raylight makes better keys because of the chroma filtering in the full raster format, you can use it with After Effects and other programs (in Windows). Raylight for Mac on the other hand will not help since it uses the Apple codec which does not filter chroma.

[Marcus Van bavel]

[Jesse G] “I want to rename clips within Final Cut.

“00165K.MXF.mov” is not very informative to the various editors who work together on these projects.

I appreciate the time saved creating QT wrappers, but this work flow feels a little clunky. Am I missing something?”

Yes, you have shoehorned Raylight into an ineffective workflow and that’s why it feels clunky. When movies are shot on film it is the camera crew that names each clip (“Scene 23, take 5” etc.) not the film editor. Somehow this got switched around and the forcing of this extra work upon the editor is being perpetuated by Apple.

Here is how it should be done:

1. The cameraman or assistant camera uses a Mac laptop computer and P2 CMS software (free from Panasonic) to backup the card onto hard drive and rename the clips, and fill in any metadata items such as ProgramName (e.g. “MyFeatureFilm”), UserClipName (e.g. “Scene 23 Take 5”), etc. and give a name to the P2 card, i.e. “MyShootDay1”. This job can be simplified if you upload some of these metadata items to the camera via an SD card so they are used by default, see https://www.dvxuser.com/jason/P2-Name-article

2. The backup drive or the P2 Cards are connected to the editor’s computer.

3. The editor scans with Raylight using the UserClipName, Volume Name, and Program Name options. The shots are automatically organized into a “MyFeatureFilm” folder in the Raylight folder. Inside the “MyFeatureFilm” folder there will be a “MyShootDay1” folder (the name of the P2 Card). This process only takes a few seconds.

4. Inside the “MyShootDay1” folder will be a number of .MXF.mov Raylight link files, beginning with “Scene23 Take 5 0001FG.MXF.mov” where 0001FG.MXF is the first clip that was shot on that day for example. If an external drive is used for editing, then the Raylight links should be copied to the drive and backed up along with the card images at some point in the editing process (for example at night after the first day of editing).

5. The link files are imported into FCP using File->Import, like regular quicktime files.

6. If the drive is moved to another computer, the links will still function as long as the structure of the drive is not changed and the volume name of the drive is not changed. Also the other computer does not need to have Raylight installed. The link files, once they are created, are completely handled by Quicktime without help from Raylight.

[Marcus Van bavel]

[Jesse G] “And what if I bring that project over to another station, where the MXF files live in a slightly different directory structure.
Can I relink as I would do with Quicktimes?? Even if the MXF clipnames have all been renamed?”

If you move the folder, you would have to open each link file, wait for quicktime to find the MXF file, then save it.

Or use Raylight to rescan the MXF files with the “Overwrite” option.

The MXF files cannot be renamed.