Mark Raudonis
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Our friends in Cupertino do read these and other internet forums . Where do you think the ideas for all those new features come from? 🙂
Mark
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Pete,
We’re experiencing the same thing. Can you post more details of what you’re seeing? Are you using multiclips? Thanks.
mark
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Guy,
DRW may feel otherwise, but I think DV WOULD be a good choice. In my opinion, the frame rate thing is NOT an issue. Aspect ratio IS an issue. When doing the transfer, you have two choices, letterbox or anamorphic squeeze. Either one will cause some issues with GRFX positioning so that your on-line grfx are NOT just an automatic uprez. You’re going to have to do some tweeking on position, size etc. If it’s not a grfx heavy show, then no problem. If it IS grfx heavy you have to consider something that is 16 X 9 native, like DVC ProHD or pro res as your “off-line” codec. Yes, the hardware I was referring to was the AJA box and apparently, at least a very late model G5.
Right now, we’re SD, but we’ve done both. HD at the time was HDCAM. Today, I’d use either DVCPRO HD (Which is very FCP friendly) or apple Pro res, but I haven’t worked with Pro Res yet, so I can’t vouch for it.
Build in the time in the “up res” process to check your up rez against a QT of the off-line cut. Digitize with one second handles for potential slippage. We have so many different decks, sources etc. that it’s easier for us to hand fix our masters than to try to trouble shoot hundreds of deck/computer combinations.
Good luck.
mark
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Jeff,
We’ve just noticed this “reconnect one at a time” issue just recently as we’ve upgraded to FCP 6. Under certain circumstances, even though we have “reconnect all files in similar path” checked, it just doesn’t work. We’ve found that this is somehow project related. Meaning, if you create a new project with that media it seems to work OK. Very strange.
Mark
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[Editguy69] “we are very comfortable working with the DNXHD codecs in Avid and are kind of being forced into FCP land against our will”
Boo hoo hooo!
Relax “guy”, it will all be just fine. We’ve been using the classic off-line to on-line approach for over three years now on hundreds of hours of network shows. The workflow is very similar, but the tools are much different.
If you’re starting in HD, you have several choices for your off-line format depending on how much storage you can afford. We have chosen to use Apple’s “Off-line RT” format which is comparable to Avid’s 30-1 resolution… in other words, it looks like crap. On the other hand, it has extremely low bandwidth and since we’re networking almost a hundred edit systems, bandwidth starts to enter into the equation. We also have thousands of hours of original footage, so even at that data rate, storage is an issue (50 terrabytes and counting). Our situation is unique and most people just won’t touch Off-line RT. Plain old DV is a better choice. In your case, that’s what I’d recommend.
As for final output, Pro Res hasn’t been out very long, so there’s not a whole lot of feedback about it. Just know that you’re going to need some specific hardware to make it work. As for render times, you need to plan on it. Do a test and see what you’re up against.
Finally, if all your prior experience is with an Avid workflow, give yourself enough time to learn, test, and be comfortable with the pecularities of FCP. It’s not the same, and your Avid centric expectations are only going to cause frustration and anger on your part.
Good luck.
mark
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See my post about compressor above…. 30 + systems and churning. When it works, it’s awesome. We have experienced some random hangs that we don’t quite understand. On the other hand, if it only takes you 6 minutes to do what took hours previously, then you can just try it again and chances are, it will work.
Mark
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Dan,
Thanks for the reference, but I’m experiencing the exact same problems and it seems to relate to FCP 6. We have a sequence started in 5.12, then media managed. Results are perfect. Take that same sequence, bring it into 6.0 and suddenly, a major percentage of the clips are not “Shedding” the unused media. No change to MM settings. Something is definitely going on here.
mark
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Mike,
We’ve been experimenting with the new compressor for the past week. I can tell you that we’ve had some SPECTACULAR results and quite a few “crash and burns”. We’re harnessing over 30 G-5’s and it’s reducing our rendering from hours to literally just a few minutes.
For us, this is a HUGE improvement. Unfortunately, we’re experiencing a fair amount of random “hangs” where a small portion of the render just doesn’t connect. However, when it does work, it’s so fast it’ll make your head spin.
I would suggest that you keep trying with different configurations and settings and see what your resutls are. NEVER, and I mean NEVER count on this “speed bump” to make a deadline. The minute you do that it WILL fail.
Another huge improvement is the ability of DVD SP to add a timecode burn in the process of burning a DVD. For us, our review and approval DVDs have to have timecode. Previously, that meant creating a specific QT just for the timecode burn in. For an hour show, that meant almost another hour. Now, we’re able to combine this into one step, AND render BOTH the DVD and an h.264 for our web based review and approval simultaneously. For us, if we can shake out the bugs in this version of Compressor, we will experience a tremendous leap forward in workflow productivity.
Mark
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Apple has the Compressor manual on their site. It has a very detailed, step by step explanation of how to set up compressor for a cluster.
Mark
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Tip o’ the hat to promax.
We bought most of our equipment from them years ago.
mark