[Rob Grauert]

If you shot on miniDV, your project settings should be good to go.

Before launching Final Cut, connect your camcorder to your mac via firewire. Turn the camera on to VCR/Playback/whatever your camera calls it. Launch FCP > File > Print to tape.

I have a question though. Why do people always want to export to AVI? From what I’ve read, it doesn’t support as many codecs at Quicktime and Microsoft abandoned that format a while ago.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

Beats me. I’ve never taken anything to a post house to transfer to tape.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

Hmm…I would do that, but I have a 4:3 clip in my DVCPro HD timeline that has the black pillars on both sides…because it’s 4:3 on a 16:9 canvas

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

Oh, that’s a shame. I’ll be sure to let them know. It’s hard when I have no idea how much time they invest in preproduction. I don’t know if they fully understand the DVCProHD format.

Thanks again.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

Hey Jeremy,

When Walter mentioned the FRC above, I searched for it in a PDF from Apple named “Working with High Definition and Broadcast Formats,” and that explains all broadcast formats and how to properly use them with FCP.

I came across the section that explains why 720p is always recording 60fps, and I understand why you need remove the pulldown if you want 30p or 24p. That all makes sense, and I understand why you can’t output to tape as 24p.

When I took the tapes to the post house to have them transfer it to a hard drive, I said, “Capture as 720p60.” because everything else that I got a few days ago is 720p60.

I figured I could edit everything in 720p60 and use the FRC at the end to make everything 24p. We are not outputting to tape, we are outputting to a drive.

So to sum everything up, this is how the past few days went for me:

1. I got a hard drive consisting of DVCPro HD 720p60 quicktime files.
2. The next day I got 2 tapes that were shot at “24p” (i know it’s not really 24fps on tape)
3. I took the tapes to the post house and asked them to capture it as 720p60 so that it matched the footage from the hard drive.
4. I’m going to edit in 720p60
5. When I finish editing, I will use the DVCPro FRC to make it 24p
6. Output to a portable drive.

Is that a plausible workflow?

Also, pardon my ignorance of DVCPro HD. This is my first HD project and it was kind of just tossed in my lap last minute. It seems to me that the people who want this in HD don’t completely understand the format, so I’m scrambling to learn what has to be done to complete the project properly.

Thanks for your time and help. It is greatly appreciated.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

I haven’t started editing yet, but I will set it to edit 720p60. The reason for that is because I got a huge amount of footage that is 720p60, but the tapes were shot at 720p24.

The final output is supposed to be 720p24 though.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

Oh nice!, I’ll look into the frame rate converter. Meanwhile, I’ve got to get to the post house.

Thanks again!

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

Final Cut doesn’t need more than 2GB of RAM, but if you plan on doing anything with Motion, then I would load up on RAM because Motion is a RAM-intensive program while working in the program. However, when you render out your final project from motion, I believe the GPU takes care of that task. Personally, I do not do anything crazy in motion. I usually do simple graphics and lower thirds. So dealing with the standard graphics card has been fine for me. I don’t spend hours waiting for something to render.

When working with FCP, only the standard graphics card is necessary. All of the rendering is done by the CPU, not the graphics card.

Also, for the latest Mac Pro, the max amount of RAM is 32GB, not 8. If you plan on getting more than the bare minimum for your mac, I suggest ordering the bare minimum from Apple and purchasing upgrades from Other World Computing.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

“The audio I’m importing is actually of an interview that was transferred to CD from tape, not music. Would it still be at 44.1 khz, and do the same parameters apply”

I believe, generally, camcorders record 16-bit 48Khz. So if the person who burned the CD for you captured the audio from the tape and burned it directly to CD, it should be 16-bit 48KHz, but you can check by bringing the audio file into iTunes, select the track, press Apple + I. That will bring up the information about the audio clip.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.

[Rob Grauert]

hahahaha…ya better believe it’s faster. Compressor is telling me that transcoding a 30-minute clips is going take 125 hours(over 5 days). And then I still have another 30 minute clip after that. I can take a nice vacation to Hawaii and come back before that finishes. So waiting until Monday to get the post house to re-do it is definitely what we’ll do hahaha.

Anyway, thanks again. Have a nice weekend.

Robert J. Grauert, Jr.