Mark Maness
Forum Replies Created
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[JP Owens] “I am getting down to the short srokes here conforming an HDV project (having captured it FireWire native froman HVR-M25U), re-connecting it to an offline FCP edit — and I wouldn’t say it was a simple cuts-only project — far from it — motion changes, stacked opacity dissolves, text supers… and you’re saying I should not be able to do this? “
Oh, no…. not at all, JP. I am talking about the fact that HDV has to go through a very lengthy conforming process before you output to tape. Most of use here don’t have that kind of time. And… have you tried to go back to an old project and recapture the HDV footage? Did it work for you?
[JP Owens] “The overall data rate of HDV is attractive, and doesn’t require a fast RAID — what it DOES require is a honking fast processor to synthesize all those predictive frames, so that it looks like you were shooting 60i rather than 2p. Yes, that is what you are shooting. The rest are made up out of difference frames — and the format is particularly vulnerable to falling completely apart if anything fast happens in your frame — a flashbulb, a flag waving, somebody waves a hand in front of the lens — just watch what happens there!”
This is what I was talking about as to the native HDV video itself, but there is always work around to this… Tim was asking about the data rates for DVCProHD. It can run just fine on a firwire drive. Data rates around 15 mb/s so any firewire drive will handle this with ease. Now, you can go to http://www.digitalhaven.com ans download a data rate calculator that will help determine your drive sizes.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
I think you misunderstood me. If you have this converter, you don’t have to go through ANY conforming process. Just edit and output like normal.
Are you converting BetaSP to HDV?
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
[zeech26] “Wayne, can you expand on this? Do you mean “uneditable” because it would be very difficult to stack clips upon on another and the render time would be out of control, or do you mean uneditable because it is impossible to log and capture the HDV footage like you would with regular say SD footage? I was just checking out my cart at B&H for the sony HVR V1U and the sony HVRM15U deck, and you got me all freaked out.
Please explain more!”Sorry, if I freaked you out… but here’s the thing about HDV. HDV in its native format is a transport stream, meaning, its used for carrying data from one source to another. The rest of the video world is an elementary edit stream, meaning, the data stream is used for video and audio, therefore, it is an easily editible format. HDV is for data only. HDV is in the Long GOP MPEG format. For every frame of video, there is one full frame of video and fourteen frames of interpolated video between these full frames. When you edit, you probably will not land on one of these frames, therefore, recapturing footage may mean that you video will not sync up properly or it may everytime. Its a hit or miss game. This is the reason why FCP has to recaculate the frame or conform the video when you export to video tape.
Please listen carefully… There is nothing wrong with HDV if you are going to edit simple programs or sequences. BUT for the rest of us who use HDV in a professional setting, we always capture our footage through a video capture card such as the AJA Kona 3 into a codec that is edit friendly. That could be anything. Most of us like to use DVCProHD. You might decide that you want to capture 8-bit Uncompressed, that’s fine, too.
Your choices for a camera and a deck are great… I’m just trying to educate you on the workflow inside of FCP. So, if you do decide to use a capture card, you’ll need to purchase a converter box for the analog video like the AJA HD10AVA unless you purchase the AJA Kona LH series, which can handle this.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
To further Shane’s post…
To connect the M25U to the Kona 3, you’ll need to purchase an AJA HD10AVA converter box. This will give you the option to convert your analog component video and analog audio to HD-SDI. This is what you need to connect to the Kona 3. It works very well. I use this every week and have done so since the converter came out on the market. Then, you use your firewire for machine control only. We capture everything using the DVCProHD 108060i codec for editing purposes.
HDV is not an editable format. Sony engineers will tell you this BUT it seems that Sony marketing has left this out of their ad campaigns. Well…. if you are only planning to edit one stream of video with no effects and simple titles… HDV will do just fine. BUT just wait until you have to conform your sequence when you want to send your timeline to tape… You’ll pull your hair out.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Hey Joe..
I have to suspect a memory issue. I had this same issue with my system at the start and found that FCP on a Mac Pro needs to have the memory configured in a specific way in order to get the proper performance. Check out the Apple doc on this issue:
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304492
Give this a look!
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
I’m starting to agree with this notion…
I’m seeing lots of “squirrelyness” since this update. I’m getting decreased performance as well as odd crashes.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
[zeech26] “any ideas of when FCP will support this camera?”
I would have to say right after NAB. That seems to be a magic date for Sony and updates to FCP.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
[Ryan925.] “I have updated FCP to the latest version and still can’t batch capture.”
Two things to try…
1. Trash your preferences using FCP Attic or something like it.
2. It sounds like the problem with Quicktime that Apple is aware of… Go to this site and do what it says. https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301852
Give this a try.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
[paulos] “using an AJA Kona LH will that allow me the downconverted HD signal to my SD monitor?”
Yeah…. That will work just fine. But, let me ask you a question. Why don’t you look into purchasing an HD monitor. Panasonic makes the BT-LH1700 for around $3000 and the BT-LH2600 for around $5000. If you’re going to upgrade you cameras, you might as well upgrade your monitoring setup. It will make all the difference in the world. I understand budget constraints but this is one where you shouldn’t say “I’ll do it later”, this could bite you in the butt.
HD color space is different from SD color space._______________________________
Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
I would check with Blackmagic about this.
BUT you didn’t tell us what video array was. Is it a fiber channel RAID or External RAID drives? This makes a HUGE difference. The conflict could be with your drive interface card. ATTO cards have trouble with the Mac Pro and new drivers have been written to solve this (well, sort of…). You need to make sure that you RAID controller is up to date with the Mac Pro.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com