Russell Lasson
Forum Replies Created
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Compressor should be smart enough to. Did you try it?
-Russ
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You might also consider the RAID 1 (mirrored):
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/MirrorRAID/
It costs more, but it offers redundant data. (Data is written to both drives. If one drives dies, then you have the other with everything on it.)
Just a thought.
-Russ
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I don’t think that there are Mac DVCPROHD codec and a PC DVCPROHD codec. The codec is one and the same. The difference is whether or not the quicktime component is provided (which is either Mac or PC.) AVID Media Composer is both PC and Mac and supports DVCPROHD from P2. It’s just like H264 from iTunes. The file is the same for both PC and Mac, but you need the different PC or Mac QuickTime component to play it back.
It’s all about licensing the codec to different software companies.
-Russ
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These numbers are just estimates. Actual numbers vary on drive type and how full they are.
For only one drive, Firewire and eSATA are quite similar, with eSATA being a little faster. Many drives average between 50-80MB/sec. Firewire 800 can sustain up to about 70-80MB/sec and eSATA is somewhere between 250-300MB/sec. So for only one drive, either interface is going allow close to the drive’s maximum throughput, 60-80MB/sec. On the links you provided, there are benchmarks you can look at, but the performance is similar between Firewire 800 and eSATA
For a Firewire RAID, the bottleneck turns into the Firewire 800 interface at 80MB/sec. While two drives in a RAID 0 are capable of 100-140MB/sec, the interface limits it to somewhere around 60-80MB/sec, sometimes even lower.
So either drive is going to preform at close to the same speed.
I would suggest the single drive because it is less likely to have drive failure if you only have one drive than if you have two in the inclosure. Also, if you do have drive failure, it is more likely to recover something from a single drive than a drive that is part of a RAID. Please recognize that drive failure is very real! I know several people that have lost information from external drives because they didn’t think it would happen to them.
As another note, I like the OWC drives a lot. I’ve had very few problems with them, which is a lot more than I can say for Lacie (5 dead Firewire drives out of 8 purchases over two-three years.)
-Russ
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I like to downcovert our projects before we compress them for DVD.
So from a 24P timeline we export it using Compressor. At the end of the post I’ve included the setting. Each show is a little different and you can play with the settings to improve quality. But for the most part, I just keep them like this.
So copy the text below and paste it into a new text document. Save it and then change the extention from .txt to .setting. Then move the setting into the home/library/application support/compressor folder. Open up compressor and the setting should be there.
From there I’ve created setting to ensure that Compressor recognizes that the file is 23.98 and doesn’t change the frame-rate. I’ll attach that too for kicks.
NOTE: For some reason DVDSP calls 23.98 files, 29.97. It’s confusing, but if you burn the DVD, 23.98 files come out as 23.98.
Hope this helps. I’d love to here other people’s tricks as well.
-Russ
Downconvert to 10-bit Uncompressed
Uncompressed%252010-bit%2520NTSC%2520Video%2520with%2520audio%2520pass-through mov yes ima4 -100 1 2 1 0 Y 0 1 0 0 v210 KeyG 0 0 0 0 yes Encode to MPEG-2 23.98 (Change the bitrate to whatever you want)
Fits%2520up%2520to%252090%2520minutes%2520of%2520video%2520with%2520Dolby%2520Digital%2520audio%2520at%2520192%2520Kbps%2520or%252060%2520minutes%2520with%2520AIFF%2520audio%2520on%2520a%2520DVD-5 m2v yes 23.976 1 1 1 0 Y 0 100 0 0 yes 3 6 7.5 yes yes 2 7 IBBP no yes no 384000 -
I don’t have a clue on how to do this without loading QuickTime components that come with an editing software.
It seems silly that if you buy a P2 camera then you can’t view the files in QuickTime on windows or mac without buying editing software (ie. Final Cut Pro, Avid, and other P2 compatible software.) It makes compatibilty with other applications quite difficult.
It probably comes down to Panasonic making money off of the DVCPROHD codec, which they deserve. It’s probably licensed out to other companies. So we either need more companies to get licenses or have Panasonic package the components with the camera. The bare minimum would be to allow us to just buy the components, but that’s kind of a low blow for people who have already invested about $10K into the camera package.
If anyone knows of a work around or if there really are components that you can just download, please let me know!
Thanks,
Russ -
It seems to me like I had this problem once. I think I fixed it by installing the Mac P2 drivers from Panasonic’s website.
It the link doesn’t work, just find the HVX200 on the website and click on “support and resources.” Then choose the second blue link on the right.
Let me know if it works or if I’m just imagining that I had this problem once.
Good luck!
-Russ
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Sounds like a good time to tell the “Boss” to start looking into a real HD system, or at least a card the can downcovert to SD on the fly.
Too bad about the IO not downcoverting. You could view it on an second monitor or just not view it out at all while editing (just watch the viewer.)
-Russ
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I haven’t used the IO, but it might down covert on the fly. If not, we use compressor to downcovert HD all the time. Then you could just lay it off with a 2:3 pulldown.
As far as the camera goes, I suggest not underexposing. I can cause a bunch of noise that is hard to color correct.
As for P2 cards, at 720/24PN you can get 20mins on a 8GB card. You can put the camera in a mode to download these files to a laptop or other computer. But if you don’t have a laptop on set, the you’ll either need enough P2 cards, a P2 Store, or a Firestore. Both the P2 Store and the Firestore need some playing around to feel comfortable.
-Russ
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720/30P doesn’t look filmic. The biggest factor in making something look “filmic” is the frame rate. If that’s your goal, you’ll need to shoot at 720/24P (I’d sugget 720/24PN because of the increased recording time). You’ll then edit everything at 23.98 in HD in FCP. Make any graphics at 23.98. It works great.
If you’re using and 29.97 footage, then you’ll want to convert it to 23.98 using a plugin or other application (I think Natress has some plugins that work).
When you’re done editing, depending on your setup and what you need, either layoff your tape masters using a Kona or Blackmagic card that downconverts on the fly and adds a 2:3 pulldown, or down convert the film in compressor and lay it off over firewire and let FCP add the 2:3 pulldown.