[Michael Kammes]

The industry standard for broadcast speed changes is a hardware product called Time Tailor by Prime Image. Used quite often to fit syndicated shows into time slots where the station wants to show more commercials that what the TRT of the show allots for. It’s very expensive, and it’s only recommended to stay beneath a 10% speed change. 33% is an astronomical amount to alter without anyone visually seeing.

There is no plugin to fool a media player in reporting back a false time….just the aforementioned time code window burn “alteration” listed above.

FWIW, If I tried to falsify the TRT on a spot….I’d never get re-hired by that client again.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

HI Adam:

First and foremost, don’t EVER try and edit off of a CD or DVD disc. Data does not come off the disc fast enough to be of any use in an NLE…plus, if that disc is ejected, your media goes offline. ALWAYS edit off a hard drive, preferably a firewire or eSata (or better) array.

In short, a RAID is a collection of hard drives that are striped together to create a larger “drive”. This allows data to be written and read faster than off of a single disk. eSATA is a way a drive connects to a computer, like firewire or USB, although eSATA is faster.

Again, in short: FCP has 2 edit modes, Safe RT (Real Time) and Unlimited RT (Real Time). See that little round pill button on top of the timeline window on the far left hand side? Click that for a drop down. Unlimited RT makes FCP try and play back the media – by sacrificing visual quality and/or frame rate. Safe RT will playback your time at the highest resolution and frame rate possible. (This is overly simplified, but for what you’re trying to do, it makes sense)

IMHO, I strongly suggest you spend some time in the FCP Basics forum, as well as research elsewhere online and keep learning about FCP, as many of your concerns should be things every editor should know very early in their career. Ken Stone, Lynda, etc are all great resources.

Good Luck!

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

I do the red laser burn of AVCHD quite often. have you seen the Ken Stone tutorial?

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/burn_br_mac_superdrive_stone.html

Bottom paragraph has a succinct summary of info.

Apples built in DVD drive is NOT a BD player. It’s Red Laser only. Apple does not sell or support a BD drive, although you can certainly install a 3rd party unit. You could try and get a Pioneer (or comparable) BD burner, and use a 3rd party piece of software (like Toast) to burn a true BD disc.

If I recall correctly, baseline for most houses is 2 hours of MPEG2 on a 4.7GB BD (typically 20-30Mb/s), and h.264 is approximately 2x that. (h.264 offers a 50% space savings compared to h.264 with the same apparent visual quality)

Data rate varies wildly with who ever the “Compressionist” (*you*) is. I normally hover around 25Mb/s.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

Is the media sitting on an internal drive or an external drive?

You should have it on an external firewire drive at minimum – no USB. Get a RAID if you can, and an eSATA or better solution. An internal drive may not have enough throughput or speed (depending on your hard drive) to play the media back.

You can always know your playback quality down as a get-me-by.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

The Canon XF105 generates a MPEG2 in an MXF wrapper. Media Composer 5.5 has an MXF AMA Plugin which apparently understands this codec.

Camera codec spec:

Compression: MPEG-2 Long GOP
Color Space: 4:2:2 (at 50Mbps recording)
File Format: MXF
Recording Modes:
50Mbps (CBR) 4:2:2, 1920×1080, (60i/30p/24p), 1280×720 (60p/30p/24p)
35Mbps (VBR) 4:2:0, 1920×1080 (60i/30p/24p), 1280×720 (60p/30p/24p)
25Mbps (CBR) 4:2:0, 1440×1080 (60i/30p/24p)

PDF link (page 3) to Avid AMA MXF Guide: https://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=367189&Hilite=plug-in

Canon XF: MPEG-2 HD 50 and 35 mbits: 1920×1080, 1280 x 720
Canon XF: MPEG-2 HD 25 mbits: 1440 x 1080

Thus, it appears Avid supports the codec natively with the MXF AMA plugin…no need for metafuze.

…then again, if you DON’T have 5.5, and you have an older version of Metafuze, I don’t know. Luckily, Metafuze is free! That being said, no where in any literature I’ve found does it list MXF media as being acceptable for INPUT into Metafuze. Listed for input: DPX, R3D, TIF, JPG, AVI and QuickTime files.

One trick COULD be to use a 3rd party plugin (like Calibrated Software) which allows QT to see MXF files. Since QT sees MXF, and Metafuze sees QT…that may work…but that seems kluge at best.

Good Luck!

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

Are you sure the media and files that are being created are a RESULT of creating the AAF…or a result of the editing (pre-export) process?

As you probably know, Avid looks for available media drives on startup, and creates the Avid MediaFiles folders on those drives. If your Media Creation settings aren’t set properly, during the course of editing, Avid may be spraying your media (renders, imports, titles, etc)across multiple drives.

I would also re-examine the AAF export settings. Remember, there are multiple tabs in the export window; 1 for video, one for audio. You could possiblly be exporting an AAF that is *linking* to existing media rather that to a consolidated “new” folder of media.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

Poor form. Please no spam. Videoguys already has ads all over the site.

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

Avid qualifies video cards for a reason – they do extensive testing on them to ensure performance and reliability. So, I would think that if you have ouptut issues, well, there’s a reason for that – you’re going off book. Avid has not endorsed it, so any oddness you experience, well, that’s on you, unfortunately.

You may want to check this link out, perhaps the discussion will help, someone has done it AND used mixed resolutions.

https://community.avid.com/forums/p/80464/449201.aspx

Out of curiousity, what Video card(s) are you using to get 4 GUI outputs? Or, are you using 2 cards?

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

Are there any audio (or video) effects or filters being used, or missing from the original project?

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

Look into the TriCaster by Newtek. Inexpensive SD models to high end HD. Key from any live source (HD or SD) with the ability to replace with any other live source, stills, gfx, pre-recorded (DDR), etc.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .