[Rich Rubasch]

Neil might be in Mumbai, but I’m with him. I only wonder about the ProRes HQ on a Gigabit Ethernet network. We do DVCProHD all the time and love the workflow and cost. But once you get into the bigger codecs and more than one person accessing the drives things do get slower.

But we love it.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

I would say for all the trouble you are going thru to convert native HDV files to some codec, you are much better off digitizing the tapes via HD SDI into a Kona card to either Pro Rez or DVCProHD. In my opinion this is the least headache route and will still yield excellent results.

Are you kidding? A 60 minute HDV tape to a Tiff sequence? that would have to be a first. And it would be a folder with 110,000 images in it.

Unless your workflow is entirely HDV and you aren’t doing what you are doing (adding other graphic elements and compositing etc) then HDV always behaves best starting with the digitizing…..and right to an advanced compressed HD codec like Pro Res or DVCProHD.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

What are the source clips codec? Have you tried copying the source files to a different hard drive? Are the source files on an external drive? If so, try copying them to your internal drive. Go to your applications folder and try just opening Batch Monitor….this is the render component of Compressor and this might indicate some issues if it won’t open….try finding Batch monitor prefs and trash them as well.

Can’t think of anything else right now.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Here we go again. Ok, admittedly an odd question to be sure, but I recall the old Mac Clones and how long did you think it would be before someone found a way to load Leopard onto a basic PC framework (ie cheaper?)

And so our friend Howard asks here on the FC forum if anyone has had any experience running FCP on one of these boxes. It is worth asking because if a student wanted to learn FCP but had mostly PC software, a cheaper Hackintosh might be a decent option to learn both FCP and Vegas on a dual boot system.

Our first poster suggests new friends. Clever, but does anyone on the COW actually have any advice or know someone who has loaded FCP on one of these boxes? Wait, Walter is up next, maybe he has some ideas…

Nope, just spends his bandwidth and time adding that our friend Howard just asked a dumb question. Later, Howard has to explain his actual circumstance because he was actually looking for some advice on this topic…

C’mon guys….stop assuming every dang time that when someone asks a question about getting a clip off a DVD that they are trying to steal copyrighted material, and stop treating posters who have an unusual question, to be sure, like they are just another doofus looking for something for nothing.

We probably have to rip a clip off a DVD practically every day because it’s all the client has. Many times this is a show DVD and they want only one segment put onto another DVD etc.

Hackingtoshes seem to be here to stay and might, in good time, become a viable product for even you staunch professionals out there. You never know.

Can we try, just for a while to stop wasting posts just picking on the poster? Please post to be helpful, but cheeky comments are still fun and keep it light. It’s the “That’s a dumb question” posts we can all do without.

I thought there were no dumb questions, and Howard’s certainly was not.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Ahem….Depending on what codec you are editing with in FCP there are a few options….but MPEGStreamclip is perfect for this. Mostly because if it is a copy protected DVD MPEG Streamclip won’t decode it.

We edit SD material exclusively in DVCPro50. We have found that since most of our final SD programs end up on DVD anyway, and since we actually get quite a bit of our elements on DVDs from past projects etc, the 720 x 480 frame size is a better workflow with the advantages of being 4:2:2. It is also a slightly faster encode going back to DVD.

Oh, and much of our SD material is on DVCAM, also 720 x 480 natively on the tape.

In any case, although 8 bit uncompressed is fine, it’s also pretty fat and a good fit if that is what you are editing with in FCP. DVCPro50 has been our workhorse codec in SD over the years and it is solid all thru post, and again, the 720 x 480 frame size makes it even more convenient.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Make sure that all along your workflow you have the 16:9 box checked. We encode 16:9 images for You Tube at 640 x 360 and scale to that size in the encode. It is the native size that YouTube uses for their final encodes.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

By any chance are you using VBR or CBR for the encode? We have found that in almost all cases if you can find the right CBR it almost always streams better in the end.

Curious,

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

I installed a new 320 gig drive in my Macbook plus replaced the Optical drive which had also failed due to a child inserting some foreign object!

I took my original 80 gig drive and put it into a small USB enclosure and use it as a transfer drive.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

IMO HD video on YouTube is ahead of its time. Our experience is that there is a sweet spot for uploading spots to YouTube before it hits their compressors. If you hit them right, it does a pretty good job with the encode. I am glad the HQ mode is up and it is a great improvement along with going native 16:9.

But the HD has really limited potential at least right now. We have 2 G5 dual 2.7 Macs, an 8 core Intel Mac and a quat core Intel Mac. We have 10 meg download Charter cable service. Only the 8 core Intel can really play back the HD material with any degree of satisfaction.

I wish they would have stuck with the HQ in 16:9 for a while to let everyone catch up (while a bunch more fiber optic cable was laid) and then roll out the HD for 2010.

Sure we’d love to show our work in HD to the world, and our clients, but I don’t think anyone wants to deliver studdery HD samples to their clients, and that’s just what many connections will allow.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Rich Rubasch]

Here’s a thought….if you have the AfterEffects files etc and if the graphics and animations are pretty cool, why not use the old project files but swap out a few elements to make it unique and post them as samples? That way they truly ARE yours and you can show them off all you want. You can’t replicate the footage, but the graphics and the project files are yours and you can pretty easily repurpose them.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media