[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

That’s the JH3 (not the GH). You cannot capture HD over Firewire using this deck, the Firewire is for downconverted SD (in the form of DV25) only. If you want to do that, i.e. cut an offline version and later online at a facility equipped for that, that is a very sensible approach. You don’t need to have the downconversions done separately, the JH3 does that conversion for you directly from the HDCam tapes. In fact, that’s what the JH3 was designed for – to be a feeder deck for offline editorial from HDCam original.

Why would you want to convert to ProRes for a standard def offline?

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

Filezilla is one of the best FTP clients ever. Auto resume, multiple upload streams, many other great features. However, to do FTP on a Mac doesn’t require anything beyond the operating system. In the Finder, just pull down “Go->Connect to Server” (or type command-K). Type in the UNC of the server (“ftp://ftp.server.com”). It will then ask for user name and password, and if successful, the FTP site will open up as another Finder window. The only hitch in doing this is that there isn’t any easy way to select Active mode for file transfers with servers that require it (some Windows servers are set up that way). Since OS X is basically a Unix system, you can, of course, also just open a Terminal window and use command line FTP.

And, just FYI: the above methods also work in Windows. Just type in an FTP address in any window and away you go.

But, as I said, Filezilla is awesome..

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

The first thing you should probably do is forget about it looking like film. It won’t. It doesn’t matter if you shoot in 1080, 720, or anything else. The HVX200 is a video camera. If you really want something to look like film, shoot on film. If you can’t do that, accept that lighting, composition, and camera control and movement are going to do more for your project’s “look” than anything in the video camera. Instead of obsessing over what HD video format to use, concentrate on getting a director of photography who can give you proper lighting and composition, and equip him or her with grip and electric equipment that will allow that.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

The even easier way to do this is to cut in an HDV timeline, but set up the rendering options to use ProRes. When you’re ready to do a final render, change the timeline to be a Prores timeline. You won’t have to re-render any of the effects you’ve already rendered.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

Did you look at the numerical sequence as I suggested? Have you confirmed that the numbers really do represent drop frame, and not just non-drop numbers with a flag that says it’s drop frame? If the sequence is intact without the skipped frame numbers, everything is fine (as long as you make your sequence non-drop – FCP stupidly defaults to drop frame for new sequences at 29.97).

There is one other way you can fix this yourself even if the numeric sequence is wrong. For each clip, go into the Browser and find the original master clip. Open it in the Viewer, keeping it selected in the Browser. Assuming you brought all of these clips in starting at an even time code second (you’ll need to check the time code on the first frame) – but even if you didn’t – go to Modify/Time Code. Change either the first frame or the “current frame” (i.e., the one you’re parked on in the Viewer – make it an even second) to Non-Drop Frame by changing the pulldown in the Modify Timecode dialog. That should do it. Quicktime files do not have continuous tracks for time code – they only stamp the first frame, and all the subsequent frames are calculated based on the first frame and the type of timecode. So by keeping the time code the same, but changing the Drop Frame flag, you accomplish what you’re setting out to do. The EDL you generate should be fine for online once it’s converted to 24 frames, which as I previously mentioned, you can either do yourself (it’s one step in Cinema Tools) or have the online facility do (many of them just run it through either Cinema Tools or the Avid EDL manager). Based on what you’re saying you did (i.e., the tapes are non-drop but you identified them as drop frame when you digitized) this should work. Make sure to uncheck Drop Frame for all of sequences as well.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

You guys are getting off on all kinds of tangents here. Your problem is of your own creation, and has nothing to do with how this was shot, transferred, or anything else.

The problem is that you captured and edited this as drop frame. Are the DVCam tapes themselves drop frame, or did you just play them in that way? Assuming that they’re non-drop frame (that would be the norm for anything downconverted from 23.98 HDCam originals), you basically need to recapture them as non-drop and manually match your edit. If all you did was put a drop frame flag on them, you shouldn’t have a problem with the actual time codes themselves, just the fact that you ID’d it as drop frame when, in fact, it isn’t. In that case, generate an EDL and change the line that says “FCM: Drop Frame” to Non Drop Frame. The post facility can then convert this to a 24 frame list (or you can, using Cinema Tools). The way to check this is to jog some of the clips through a time code that is an even minute that is not a 10th minute – minutes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 will be fine. As you jog past the minute marker, if the material is truly drop frame, the time code numbers will go from frame 29 to frame 02, skipping 00 and 01. If this is not the case – and every frame number is actually there in the sequence – your counting sequence is non-drop frame, regardless of what you called it. If the numbers are skipped as I just described, you actually have drop frame time code, and you need to go back and get new sources (or just redigitize what you have) that are non-drop frame.

All of the stuff previously mentioned as significant – like “A” frame cadence – is unimportant if the downconversions from the HDCam tapes were done at a professional facility. All professional downconverters work the same way, setting cadence so that all time codes ending in 0 or 5 are “A” frames – provided you use non-drop frame time code. If the tapes you have are actually drop frame, you need to go back to whomever provided them and have new ones made that are non-drop. Editing in standard definition for 24 frame projects is done every day by many, many editors, although a lot of them create a 23.98 project and convert the sources to that format prior to cutting – the best way to handle such a project. But Final Cut doesn’t make this easy (Avid does, BTW), so beginning editors tend to leave it at 29.97 – which if handled properly is fine, even if it’s not ideal.

It is a professional editor’s responsibility to know about things like drop frame and non-drop frame time code. If you’re taking on projects that involve this, you can’t go around complaining that “it should have been shot on HDV.” It was shot on film, it was transferred to 24p video, downconversions were made – a totally common and normal post path so far – and you accepted the job. Any problems that resulted further down the line are your responsibility. I understand your frustration, but that’s the truth.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

That actually sounds somewhat reasonable. Whether the difference is negligable or not really depends on how good your colorist (the one prior to going into a DI theater) is, and whether your monitor calibration is accurate.

It also depends on how long you have to turn this around, and what your level of responsibility is for the final product.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

No, I really can’t. A theater environment, set up properly for film color correction, cannot be done correctly using “cheap” equipment. A “low budget solution” is not practical if you are doing professional film work, especially if you are planning to deliver files that can be used for digital cinema. Some equipment is cheaper than other equipment, and you don’t necessarily have to use a full 3 chip digital cinema projector, but you really need to know what you’re doing regarding color calibration, film preview lookup tables, and proper light levels, as well as proper environment.

You still get what you pay for. Professionalism still has value. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

Personally, I think you’re looking for the wrong place to try and save money. You’ve already said that you’re shooting 35mm film, you’re scanning in 2K, and obviously you’re recording out on some kind of film recorder, most likely a laser recorder (or are you just delivering HD video? You haven’t really said…..). Monitoring on an HD monitor is OK, but if you’re working from film scans, you really should be grading this on a large screen in a theater environment with proper color calibration for film output – because if you don’t, you’re just not getting an accurate preview of what the resulting print is going to be. If you want to conform the picture yourself, fine. But color correction – if it’s done properly for digital intermedate work – should be done in a proper environment with accurate viewing conditions for the delivery target. If you were doing a no-budget production with a $3000 camera, I could see the attraction of do it yourself finishing. But if you shot what you say you shot, this wasn’t a no-budget production, and post production shouldn’t be treated as such.

But that’s just the way I see it….

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

The feasibility of the idea largely hinges on what you’re planning to monitor this on, how you plan to calibrate the color workflow, and whether you have a qualified colorist, editor, and producer around who know what needs to be delivered, in what format, and to whom.