[Michael Sacci]

Does it have to run continuously?

[Michael Sacci]

or any other ingest product for that matter??????????

[Michael Sacci]

Read this only if you are making a SD DVD for screening.

[Darren Costello] “(H264, best quality, window size 1280×960)”
Never, I mean NEVER export video that is going to DVD to H.264 (unless you are talking about HD DVD or BluRay)

Export from FCP as Self Contained (Current Settings)
Bring into Compressor, make a m2v preset so that it is a CBR (constant bitrate) change the Bitrate to 7Mbps, this should take no more than 5 minutes to export. The quality will be the best.

Encode the audio to ac3 for better playback compatibility.

[Michael Sacci]

That is because it should be though of as 4:3 Letterbox, the pixels are .9 in your final video but you scale and distort the image to give you a 16:9 look on a 4:3 screen.

Compressor Settings
Encoder>Video Format>Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Geometry>Padding: 16X9 1.78:1

everything else is as you need it.

[Michael Sacci]

The Duel Adapter is $120US, that is all you need with a MacBook Pro.

If you capture via the HD SDI there is not connection to the footage on the P2 cards, so if something happens within the edit and you need to access this those files it will not be just a reconnect but it won’t be the end of the world either. But you are entering into a mixed format world, capturing some footage as ProRes and then if you are run and gunning it you will be only using P2 which will give you DVCProHD. So you will be dealing with transcoding or rending.

It seems like you really want to buy this IoHD, and it sounds like you have a great deal on it, if you want it get it, at that price you could probably eBay it later and lose no money, It is an extremely handy device that you can use for a lot of things but I would say if you buy it it doesn’t mean you should use it in place it doesn’t make sense, for this job it doesn’t make sense. So buy it, use it when it makes sense.

my 2 cents.

[Michael Sacci]

answered in FS forum.

[Michael Sacci]

If you don’t care about TC and recapture, set device control to Non-controllable and do a Capture Now. This will give you a solid clip.

If you have control over the production and this is what you always want to (or at least when you want to) make sure the cameras are set to TC Rec Run and not Free Run. As long as the cameramen are not shuttle back and tape reviewing the tape in the field you will get seamless TC.

[Michael Sacci]

Just read the price drop, this is great!

One thing I would like to see with apple and p2 is to be able to transfer P2-DVCProHD as ProRes that way you have a better workflow if you are fixing the different P2 formats.

1 Grand for 64GB cards, this is more like it!

[Michael Sacci]

once the clip is in the timeline you need to make the changes to that clip or make the changes to clip before you place it in a sequence.

[Michael Sacci]

you want to export a self contained movie with current settings. then take this into Compressor and make your m2v file and ac3 (for audio), take these files into DVDSP.

If you have a lot of graphing or filters on your seq. you can Export > Using COmpressor, seq does not have to be rendered before you do this. In compressor you make the m2v and ac3, this will always give you the best results, but this is always a slow way to encode and it locks up FCP and Compressor for the entire process.

If you search the DVDSP forum I have many post on getting the highest quality but this is the basic stuff.