[Mschirad]

Thank you, I’m mailing with tech support right now. I appreciate your assistance.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

Thanks for the response,

I guess I was confused by the Boris web site’s compatibility matrix, showing 5.0 FXPlug support in FCP 5. The chart has compatibilty with Motion, but doesn’t specify the version.

https://www.borisfx.com/product/continuum/support.php

Is there a special procedure I should follow to get ahold of BCC 4.1? Will the serial number I received for BCC 5 FXPlug be vaild for BCC 4.1? Just to cross the “t”s and dot the “i”s, is there a particular uninstall process for BCC 5, or uninstall app available?

Mathew Schirado
http://www.wmaeug.net
groups.yahoo.com/groups/wmaeug

[Mschirad]

I checked the installed version, which I’m assuming is the first problem, being version 2.02 PowerPC. I’ll hopefully hear a 2nd try update tomorrow.

If the Kona LHe is the only PCI-Express card installed…do you still have to configure the Expansion Slot Utility?

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

ah, not from the CD. Will download newest versions. We’ll hopefully see good news with them. I will push calling AJA directly as well – I know their support is excellent.

Thanks so much

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

dvGarage.com is selling dvMatte Blast, and Conduit, their node-based conpositor in which you can build your own keyer. I’ll be showing both on Monday and Tuesday midday-ish of NAB 07 at the Apple Booth for FXPlug.

dvMatte Blast is super-fast, but there is a limit to how well you can key the tough stuff, mainly DV video with long blond hair in front of a greenscreen. It’s way better than Primatte RT, which is best used on uncompressed footage.

I think there are demo versions you can download to test.

Mathew Schirado
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

Though it’s been awhile since our HD project, I can say that you DO have to conform to Print to Video. On a Quad G5, our 70 minute show, after rendering all FCP effects, required well over 5 hours of “conforming” time before I could start playback out FireWire into a Miranda “HDV-to-HD-SDI” converter, which led to the HD-SDI inp ut on a Sony XDCam HD F70 deck. (We couldn’t get FAM mode to work exporting back to blue ray. Buggy.) If I had made just one edit to the timeline, it would screw up the MPEG GOP structure, and I’d have to wait another 5 hours to conform all over again.

Let me repeat that.

Make one additional edit. Re-Conform the timeline all over again.

Do you have a deadline? Better not.

I do not know if Sony’s 18 and 35 megabit recording modes exact a similar time penality or not. 25 megabit is HDV, which is now the bane of my existance, so I recommend you transcode Sony’s XDCam HD codec to DVCPro HD (or on Avid, maybe DNxHD) as soon as possible. Or have an AJA Kona LHe or Kona 3 for hardware-processing HDV codecs in real time, hopefully removing the “conforming” process from the mix.

It amazes me how little press coverage this conforming task gets. If you’re a news organization you should drop HDV like a plutonium rod. MPEG-2 can look nice, cheap acquisition, but it edits horribly.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

Reports out of IBC indicate that Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 will be released this month, supporting XDCam HD bit rates 18 and 35 mbit!!! Will be a free software update…

Also…

JVC 24p from GY-HD100 and higher cameras in HDV
Canon 24f support for XD H1, and maybe the two newer Canon cameras

One report said FXPlug is supported now. That will be huge.

[Mschirad]

I reiterated the necessity for having all the software updates to FCP Studio today, if you want to work with XDCam HD Transfer software. The PDF manual has specific information on how you should have your settings, especially for playout, mainly having dual mono on audio tracks. I captured outside of FCP when I had dupilicate clips show up in the bin, just setting the cache location in Transfer Preferences manually for each XDCam HD disk I inserted in the P70 deck. An Apple rep I spoke to didn’t have any info on a duplicate clip bug, so it’s important that anyone using the XDCam HD Transfer software give Apple and Sony feedback.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

Yes. I stopped trying to import directly into a FCP 5.1.1 bin. I set up a target folder on the media drive, and let Sony’s Transfer software dump the clips into that folder directly. After Transfer was done, I imported the folder into FCP manually, which wasn’t really any bother anyway.

Do I know why the duplicate clips show up? No. Do I know why when I tried to delete one of the duplicate clips BOTH clips disappeared? No. Do I think Sony’s Transfer software should say “Beta” on it? Yes.

And don’t get me started about sending sequences back to XDCam HD disks……

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

File transfers from Sony’s XDCam HD Transfer software can run in the background, so you can import clips and begin editing with them as they are written to your media drive folder. If importing clips for 40 minutes, you can continue editing on your project, adding new clips as they finish to your bins, and save all that time you would have been watching your Log & Capture window.

Unrelated to capturing, I read in the manual that variable frame rate recording on the cameras cut the vertical resolution by half, which makes it difficult for me to believe you’re recording in HD anymore.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net