[Mark Maness]

Bob,

I have to agree wholly with Gary and Walter. There is no difference in 720 or 1080 when talking about down-conversion. Now, I will say that we are using the AJA Kona 3 cards in our systems. I can’t vouch for BlackMagic.

As an aside to your original quandary, have you considered the Sony XDCAM EX camera? It can shoot just about any HD mode, 720 and 1080. And if you have the latest update to FCP, it has the support needed for the new camera.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

Yes.

And just for frame of reference next time… When you refer to 59.94, that is drop frame. If it were non-drop, it would be 60.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

If you’re running a Mac Pro system, 6 gig of memory will cause you many many headaches. It is an issue with the Intel chips, not directly Apple. Apple did write a paper on a solution that definitely works.

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304492

This is an absolute must. I went thru these same issues when we got our Mac Pro last year. Trust me… I saw the same wierdness that everyone is talking about. But let me also add that memory SHOULD be from the same manufacturer. Apple doesn’t say this but I found this to cause problems, too.

Spread the word around to anyone. Maybe we can stomp out the fires.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

Good point! Memory can be your issue.

On a Mac Pro, you need to have memory sizes of 4 gig, 8 gig, or 16 gig. On a Mac Pro Octocore system, I’ve heard that you need it to be 8 gig for a minimum using FCP.

My system is a Mac Pro Quad 3.0 and it went bonkers until I upgraded it to 8 gig. It came configured with 7 gig. I had no RT support in FCP until I went to 8 gig.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

Let me say first that shared storage is a wonderful thing…. BUT, if you have a very limited budget, this will surely kill it.

There are several good options to choose from. EditShare, Apple’s X-RAID, Facilis TerraBlock, and ProMax now has a semi-shared storage system. But you’ll have to expect the prices to start at about $15,000 and go upwards of $50,000 and more.

We use the Facilis TerraBlock which is a rock solid, very stable shared storage system that is on the affordable side of shared storage. About 6 TB will run you around $20,000 for the basic system. We have three Macs connected and one network server connected and total cost including installation was about $32,000.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

This depends on several things.

How large is your project file? How many hours of footage is logged and captured? Is your media and and other files associated with this project in a central organized location?

Any these can add to this type of issue.

Usually, its best to pair down any unused footage and consolidate as best as possible. You can have many projects to reach final output. This isn’t unusual at all.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

Are these drives used for editing?

Western Digital offers some drives in these setups that you could use.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

Even easier…

Look at Digital Heaven for a plugin called DH Subtitle. It cost all of twenty dollars and does all of your figuring for you. There are many option to choose from.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

Like I said earlier, what works for one may not work fro another. But that being said, working with FCP, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

We work with corporate logos for show opens and closes, and I found that using DVCProHD, there was some artifacting around the logos. Before ProRes, I was outputting my show opens and closes using the Animation codec. Now, I use ProRes HQ. And my opens and closes look extremely clean.

But like I said, what works for one may not for the other.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[Mark Maness]

[JeremyG] “It’s not bad. This is why I said we could argue the quality of DVCPro HD. I don’t use it. We shoot with it, but I prefer to work in 10bit as MOST of our projects have graphics. Is it totally necessary? No. Do people complain about our work and it’s quality? Never, so I keep working in 10bit. “

All very true… This discussion is like talking about political viewpoints. No one is wrong. We just have our ways of doing things.

Our work has very little graphics, so its unnecessary for us to do 10-bit. But I will say that when I need it, I do use ProRes HQ.

My comment about DVCProHD comes from all of the people bashing its quality. If you shoot in DVCProHD (and many many people do) and capture in a better quality codec, its still not going to be any better UNLESS you are doing lots of graphics.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey