[Oli Da costa]

Hi Ted, I think I understand what you mean…will give it a try!

Oli

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production

[Oli Da costa]

Hi Chris, yes, that’s what I’ve been doing as a temporary measure, though screen real estate gets somewhat cramped, even with dual screens! Really just interested to know if there was a way to do it within the pre-comp alone, maybe with some sort of expression-driven solution. Cheers though!

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production

[Oli Da costa]

Cheers Mark…think I have an email address for her…will give it a try!

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1

[Oli Da costa]

Thanks Ernie. I’m going to keep on trying, but not having the camera to hand – obviously the cameraman has it – it’s kinda hard to guess settings to ask him to try. According to the FCP manual and Ken Stone (4th bullet), it is do-able…and ToD (presumably with UB code via FW) seems to be the key. Hmm, let’s see, and let me know if you ever try it!

Cheers

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1

[Oli Da costa]

Hi Michael, thanks for the reply. We actually tried free-run on 2 of this year’s shows and both FCP and I hated it, so I can say that I fully agree with your opinion. However, I’m yet to find any software that performs better than Scene Detector, which wasn’t great to start with. I’ve tried quite a few, including CatDV and ReCut, and while ReCut was marginally better, it’s way of marking detected cuts and feeding this back to FCP was far inferior to Scene Detector. I’ve tried some other Mac and PC utilities too, but many were simply unusable for workflow reasons. Hence, I’m a bit stuck!

If I were able to nail a way to use rec-run on the camera, with some UB/ToD setting or other, and have FCP’s DV start/stop work properly – as it says it should – I’d be a happy man!

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1

[Oli Da costa]

Hi David, they’re very short…less than 4m each. However, without any further fettling (I promise), the 2nd Mac suite now displays ‘reference connected’…go figure! I’ll keep an eye on it as if this is an intermittent issue, it obviously raises the question about the reliability of this particular GEN-10 and it may be worth me taking it to an engineer at a local facilities house to have a look at, or return to AJA. Will keep an eye on it.

Oli

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1

[Oli Da costa]

Hi Jeremy, no probs at all, I appreciate you taking a look! I’ve had another look at 3ds max (I’m doing the modeling and rendering too), and whilst it assures me that the field order is set correctly, correct, I have swapped the field order and tried rendering again, and voila…it works, both in AE and FCP!

This must be a bug in 3ds max, or they’ve got their uppers and lowers confused with their odds and evens…but anyway, it’s not what one would expect from a professional and very expensive product (I’m on the latest 3ds max 2010 Design). Anyhow, rant over…got to get rendering! Thanks again.

Oli

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1

[Oli Da costa]

As a fervent Adobe guy for over 10 years (only having recently dipped a toe in the FCS water, but finding it not too bad…), I have to say that the momentum is certainly with PPro, and have found that this opinion is shared by many of my colleagues and friends, many of whom are tired of the secrecy and failiure on Apple’s part to address some minor and major issues with their suite products over quite some years – some of which I’m discovering as I learn.

I work for Adobe as a freelance demo artist across all the Master Collection products at trade shows from time to time and had a lot of people chat to me at BVE (UK tradeshow a few weeks ago) about PPro’s maturity as a solid editing platform as of the CS4.2 release a while back (which added more robust R3D support and lots of other CODEC format support too). Many were oblivious to the ways in which PPro has changed over the years and many simply discount it as they think it’s still like the bad old days of Premier (as opposed to ‘Pro’), which are a million miles behind it in its present guise.

I’ve been lucky enough to see and use many of the CS5 apps first hand in closed-door training sessions and PPro is pretty special, as is After Effects CS5. The Mercury engine is a powerful beast indeed, and whilst this will improve workflow issues, there’s always still the personal preference of the tool of choice (one feature doesn’t convert FCP to PPro users overnight)…but given the opportunity, I’d always go with PPro, and I’d very highly recommend it as a solid and reliable editing application for both long and short-form work – I’ve certainly never had major stability issues (well, early R3D was a bit sketchy, but I’ve recently cut a 40min film on PPro on a PC and a Mac – across a SAN – with over 1000 R3D 4K native clips and mixed HD and SD footage and had no major issues). The ‘Dynamic Link’ functionality with AE is also a huge feature which is well executed and pretty seemless, and for anyone who uses AE in conjunction with an edit application, it can be a huge timesaver.

Back to the issue of Apple’s secrecy, Adobe obviously also have their secrets, but they are much more willing to be open and disclose things that Apple (IMHO). For instance, the MXF functionality within PPro is all (or probably more correctly, mostly) provided by the guys at MOG Solutions, and it’s widely known that a lot of CODEC support is underpinned by MainConcept. Ok, so Apple have QuickTime, so they can be forgiven for keeping things a bit more ‘in house’, but native MXF or R3D playback in FCP really should have been in FCP7…along with lots of other formats, so doing away with Log & Transfer altogether.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an Adobe fanboy, but like many FCP devotees, my personal workflow works best with Adobe applications and vice versa. FCP is a solid edit system, but for many, or rather most tasks, I’d still choose PPro over FCP.

BTW, Craig, I see you’re a fellow Londoner…would be happy to show you PPro in a proper professional environment, if you’re interested!

Oli

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1

[Oli Da costa]

Hi Jeremy, I’ve zipped a full 50 frame TIF sequence for one of the wipes and the corresponding ProRes 444 output file and put it here. Just to reiterate, my sequence is a native DVCPro HD 1080i50 sequence with ‘upper’ field dom (and all media set the same), though my source material is shot 1080PsF25.

BTW, if you want the After Effects project (if that helps), I can upload the .aep too.

Let me know what you make of it…much appreciated, cheers!

Oli

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1

[Oli Da costa]

Indeed…I’m monitoring on a 32″ flat panel TV with native full HD res and a LaCie 324 – both connected via HDMI from my BMD Multibridge Pro 2. I have also connected an SD CRT monitor and set the Mutlibridge to downconvert to SD and monitored via SD component and still it looks awful! All is rendered and prepped for full quality playback.

Will zip and post a couple of original TIF frames from 3ds and the ProRes 4444 wipe in a while (just in the middle of a sound edit at the moment)…

Cheers, Oli

Oli da Costa
Fraktiv Post Production
London W1