[Mschirad]

Word of warning…..

XDCam HD Transfer software from Sony does NOT reliably send finished programs back to Blue Ray disks.

I tried a 5 second timeline, and it worked.
A 13 second timeline, it worked.
A 3 minute timeline, error message.
A 4 minute timeline, it worked.
A 10 minute timeline, error message.
A 30 minute timeline, error message.
Of course, my 70 minute project, error message.

I kept trying to get the file transfer to blue ray to work, because our engineer said he compared the picture of a blue-ray transfer to a “Print-to-Video” transport stream run through a Miranda HDV-to-HDSDI FireWire transcoder…..and found the Miranda transcoded picture to be less sharp. (I never saw his comparison personally)

Editing in HDV is fine and dandy until you want to Print to Video. Render/Conform times are HUGE!!!! I tried a straight Print to Video for our 70 minute special, and after 5 & 1/2 hours, it started playing out, but the HDV transport stream dropped to black twice. (had to start all over). Not sure why the dropout happened. Everything was off of….unfortunately…..internal SATA drives on the Quad G5, but I really thought the data rate wouldn’t make a difference.

My solution was to export a QuickTime of the whole show (13.7 gig or so), import that into a new sequence, render, and print to video. It worked, but with (from what I hear) compromised picture quality. What I needed to do was export to Compressor, and wait 7 hours, to get the best encoded quality.

Kudos to the guy at Apple I spoke to on the phone; he really tried to help, but couldn’t in this instance.

Moral of this story: if you must do HDV, transcode it immediately into DVCProHD, or use an AJA Kona 3 or Kona LHe PCIExpress card that will do the HDV processing in real time. Conforming is the bane of my existence.

Short of a few FCP crashes, editing was great. Motion titles render slowly. Quad G5 was pretty rock solid. 4 gigs of RAM might have been a little low. Could have really used Digital Heaven’s AutoMotion.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

I’m using HDV 25 XDCam HD footage on a Quad G5, and I’m trying to export to HDCam HD disk our hour and 7 minute program. It’s telling me 11 hours of writing video to disk, which is something I’d expect for HDV conforming, but…..I thought I did a “conform” render yesterday already.

I started the export process overnight, but at some point it crashed FCP; no idea why. So I’ve started all over again.

I’m looking for ideas why an XDCam HD export might crash, and why it seems….seems as if it wants to conform/render the entire sequence from the beginning even though that render process has already happened.

And yes, I left the “re-render” option unchecked on the XDCam HD export dialog box.

Any insights would be helpful, since I’m on a deadline to finish tonight.

thanks

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.ent
616-970-4542
WZZM 13

[Mschirad]

Unfortunately I’m using HDV 25 XDCam HD footage on a Quad G5, and I’m trying to export to HDCam HD disk our hour and 7 minute program. It’s telling me 11 hours of writing video to disk, which is something I’d expect for HDV conforming, but…..I thought I did a “conform” render yesterday already.

I started the export process overnight, but at some point it crashed FCP; no idea why. So I’ve started all over again.

I’m looking for ideas why an XDCam HD export might crash, and why it seems….seems as if it wants to conform/render the entire sequence from the beginning even though that render process has already happened.

And yes, I left the “re-render” option unchecked on the XDCam HD export dialog box.

Soooooo, I’m under deadline and looking for perspective. Any to spare?

thanks,

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

I’ve tried to view the tutorial movie on Mac OS X 10.4.5 and 10.3.9, on dual 2Gig G5’s, and nothing comes up but white with no audio. Is there some kind of codec use that I could be missing?

Deaf and blind,

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

Andy,

I hope the export function of the Sony plug-in really does work. Our VP mentioned it not working for our Tampa station, and some communication failures between Apple and Sony. Maybe the issue’s been fixed since he heard about it. (sound of fingers crossing)

I’m afriad we’re gonna be stuck in HDV 25mbit with no DVCProHD conversion capabilities. I’d be shocked if there were a Kona 3 card in the FCP system when it arrives, in around 2 weeks.

The Sony 350 XDCam HD camera arrived yesterday, but no one’s been able to touch it. We’re waiting for a 2nd pricy Canon HD lens to be shipped.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

Our station just got in a Sony XDCam HD camera (the 350 model, I think) which we’re borrowing from corporate for producing an HD 1 hour show. The FCP edit system is slated to arrive beginning of July. As soon as I get info on the workflow, I’ll share it.

What I did hear is that the Sony beta software won’t send your finished sequence back to the deck/XDCam disk. You have to output via an HD-SDI output, or something like that. I heard of some Miranda converter being used, but I just don’t understand how….yet. You have to use 25 megabit for everything, unless you can capture uncompressed from the deck, which seems a waste of disk space.

I was told Avid has NO XDCam HD solution! Yet. Except for capturing HD like any other HD video deck, course….

Looks like there could be a lot of material shot in HDV that will be comp-ed into Shake, considering that price reduction….

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

I’ve heard that WXYZ in Detroit has a significant FCP setup, but no hard details. I’m extremely interested in any info on FCP newsrooms as well, expecially if the newsroom has an Avid Unity.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[Mschirad]

Thank you for responding, Noah.

Any reason not to use, say with our Avid Symphony or Media Composer 12.0, the Avid Meridian codecs at 2:1 (which is what we use mostly)? Or the Avid DV codec for our Newscutter XP’s? As a test, I created a Motion 2.0 project and rendered out an AvidDV codec Quicktime, which imported into our Newscutter XP and played back fine, except for some subtle gradient banding. I’m assuming that’s a limitation of 8-bit color space/DV’s 4:1:1 color compression.

FYI, we’re likely to get a Unity ISIS, which will hopefully support OSX clients by the time we get around to ordering it.

mschirad

[Mschirad]

I found an upgrade box, out of 6 left at MacMall, and ordered it. So I guess I’m safe now.

I had no idea that you couldn’t buy DVD Studio Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion and FCP seperately. I would have thought that would be huge news, and affect budgets significantly.

mschirad

[Mschirad]

Keying DV is very difficult in Motion 2.0. PrimatteRT is a nice real-time keyer if you’re footage is uncompressed, horrible filter for DV. The best Motion 2.0 solution is dvMatte Blast for Motion ($100), or dvMatte Pro ($200 I think) from http://www.dvgarage.com. I’ve used dvMatte Blast and it’s much, much better dealing with DV originated footage, in addition to being “real-time” with no preview rendering.

You can also get dvMatte Pro for After Effects and FCP. After Effect’s Keylight is powerful, but it’ll take a good amount of tweaking to get something clean using DV25. I haven’t had much luck with Keylight so far, but I’m not an expert.

Combustion’s Discreet Keyer, or the Diamond Keyer in Combustion 4, is supposed to be really, really good. Worth trying if it’s handy; expensive if it isn’t handy.

Afraid I’ve concluded that DV25 keying isn’t worth the effort, and would rather shoot BetaSP, DV50, even HDV instead.

Mathew Schirado
West Michigan Animation & Effects Users Group
http://www.wmaeug.net