[Matt Lyon]

Is there a lot of compression on the image? The artifacts could be due to quantization (aka “jaggies”) around the edges. They may be not very visible to the naked eye in “normal” mode, but using the multiply setting might be bringing them out. Do you have access to an uncompressed version of the file you could test?

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Dan, have you tried giving both your drives the exact same names, and the exact same file structure? If done correctly, this should allow you to never have to reconnect media, because FCP will reference the exact same file paths on both systems.

Over the years, I’ve had similar problems to the ones you describe and I don’t know if there is a magic bullet. Keeping projects small and clean seems to help. I also use very conservative naming conventions (no spaces, symbols, slashes, etc) … but that isn’t practical for everyone. Also, rather then exchanging “full sized” projects, have you considered making a new project with just the relevant sequences? Keeping things as simple as possible will limit the amount of things that could possibly trip up FCP.

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

I’m pretty sure you can do it with Automatic Duck’s “Pro Export FCP” plugin. But it is $$$$.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

“that would be for offine editing and then conforming to online quality later, right? ”

Yeah, that’s the main reason … if all goes well, you’ll never need to reference the burn in timecode, but it is nice to have there “just in case.” There are other reasons it can be helpful: it’s a quick reference should someone want to go hunting for something on the dailies tapes; or sometimes the sound editors find it useful.

If you guys are shooting camera tests, I’d push to get those tapes so you can test your workflow. And definitely consider a final conform at uncompressed quality.

Good luck!

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Arnie, have you tried converting from 30P to 23.98 or 25P using “nearest frame” conversion instead of “highest quality” … this forces Compressor to simply throw away frames instead of trying to draw new ones. (I wouldn’t attempt this for interlaced material, BTW).

I used this technique for converting some 30P to 23.98 and was happier with the results (no ghosting) … but YMMV.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Gunnar, I agree with John … you need to talk to the post people, figure out your deliverables, then work backwards.

But the main question I have is: are you delivering the final, conformed, color corrected tape to the film-out facility, or are you delivering an offline edit, and having a post facility do the online conform? This will be a huge factor in your workflow.

Remember, it is still very common for features to be edited at “offline” data rates (or even in SD, for that matter), then re-conformed in uncompressed quality AFTER the picture is locked. Hard drives are relatively cheap these days, so it is much easier to work at online HD quality the whole way through these days BUT it is a fine balance of picture quality, editing speed and rendering time.

You need to do some math and figure out how much footage you’ll be dealing with and whether you can fit it all on your RAID array. This will affect your decision of frame size and codec. Remember to account for leaving a healthy amount of free space on the drive to prevent system slow down.

I would also suggest digitizing your rushes with burn in timecode … this will save you potentially lots of headaches during the conform.

Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

FCP can add pulldown during output to tape, but if you want to do it ‘software only,’ you’ll need to use Compressor. Search the forum and you’ll find several threads on how to do this.
Hope this helps,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Matt, I’d say follow David’s advice … and if you are interested, there’s lots of boring documentation about broadcast standards to read 🙂

https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3320.pdf

But as you know, computer monitors aren’t broadcast monitors, so you are just trying to get “as close as possible.” Gamma 2.2 and 6500 K is a good starting point. Reference luminance level is a whole other matter … I’m honestly not sure what “the best” setting is … the EBU doc seems to suggest 70-100 cd/m for grade one monitors.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but all monitors work in RGB space, regardless of whether you are doing CMYK print work or Y’CrCb broadcast video … it’s all a matter of output intent.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Hi Matt, there was actually a thread about this not so long ago:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1074971

As you mention, matching two monitors is best done with a colorimeter. I recently matched two monitors with an EyeOne calibration device, with good results. One calibrated, I would suggest locking the controls on your displays so they don’t get changed.

HTH,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Matt Lyon]

Hi Dhanil,

Hopefully it isn’t too late, but you should also check out the “Glue Tools” DPX plugin for FCP:

https://www.gluetools.com/products_dpx.html

I forgot about this the first time I responded to your post.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto