[Nick Meyers]

“I find the FCPX ones oddly titled…”

Yes, they are!

[Nick Meyers]

you’ll want to re-post this in the FCP X Techniques forum,
this is for FCP 7 and under

nick

[Nick Meyers]

you could convert in FCP if the DSLR has an appropriate plugin for FCP’s Log & Transfer.

“AVCHD, (which automatically converts to Apple Pro Res if it’s the first clip in the timeline).”

are you using FCPX?
there’s a separate forum for that, (FCP X Techniques)
this is for FCP7 and under

nick

[Nick Meyers]

you need to transcode the DSLR footage into something FCP7 is happy with, like ProRes.
it can choke on h264, or other non-standard material.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

you might want to re-post this on the FCP X Techniques forum.
this one is specifically for FCP& and under.

from my FCP7 perspective (and never having worked with this new full gate), however, i;d say that the full gate format would be difficult to work with as it’s a non-standard frame size (1:1.55 ratio)
maybe X can handle that, FCP would not be too happy,
and it would also mean working with a constant motion effect (and possibly a mask) on everything if you want to see the desired frame.

in FCP7, i’d be looking at making a 16/9 version, and adding a mask if it’s to be 2.40.
that give a decent amount of flexibility for re-framing

as for transcode format, that’d be a discussion to have with your editor and facility (or whoever is paying the storage).
i’d say that Proxy sucks. looks noticeably bad.
LT is a very happy medium> Looks good, with low data rate.
it’s what i prefer to use for off-line editing, and i do a lot of feature work.

does X offer LT?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

all our systems had X and 7
i know when we upgraded X we hid 7 and it’s corresponding apps in a separate folder within the applications folder.
i’d do the same thing with X if it is giving you trouble.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

works fine.

i’ve just finished a feature doc on machines using mavericks and Yosemite.

most annoying thing for me is that various save and search windows don’t remember their last used window size.
they alway open in the default size, which is too small for me.
i believe this issue is not FCP7 specific.

a more troublesome fault is that the simpler eye-droppper doesn’t work,
you have to open the colour picker window and use it’s eye dropper.
ok for some things, but NOT ok for matching colours in the Colour Correction filters.

so a couple of rather small issues, nothing major for me so far.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

VLC? not many options for export there, from memory.
might not be the best tool for the job.

Adobe Media Encoder might be worth looking at, too.
i cant say what’s on it, mpeg-wise, but i hear good things about it.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

Neat Video

i’ll second that suggestion, it does the job well.

[Nick Meyers]

if you are able to, the best option would be to re-export the files from your music creation app (ProTools?) as 48k 24bit.

most audio for video is 24bit these days.

nick