Russell Lasson
Forum Replies Created
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How do you intend to do the onlining and finishing work? On your own with FCS or will you send it out to somewhere for color? This is the main question that will determine how you work with the rest of your workflow.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
I’ve been doing digital cinema mastering for the past two years. I need to warn you that getting your file to play on a digital cinema server is more than just getting the right codec. I’ve worked with several people that have been under this false understanding that if they just export a QT file in the JPEG2000 codec that everything would work. That’s just not true.
Using the right compression is only part of the equation. The JPEG2000 files then need to be properly wrapped in MXF and other files prepared (cpl, pkl, volindex, assetmap). It is possible to do it on your own, but you should be prepared for a lot of trial and error in getting through it. You’ll also need access to several open source tools and be very comfortable using Linux. It really isn’t an easy process unless you have a full dci authoring system. If you’re really interested in a DCP, then contact me and I’ll see if I can work with your budget.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
FW800 is what you’d use to connect to the iMac. FW800 maxes out at around 80MB/sec. Most drives now days are faster than than. So if you get a g-tech 2TB drive or a g-raid 2TB raid, they’ll both max out at around 80MB/sec over FW800.
I would suggest just buying the single drive version. Less expensive and less can go wrong with it.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
[john lukas] “2.26 OCTO with 16 GB RAM and an ATI graphics card”
I think this is a better option. The more cores the better:)
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
I believe that FCE allows for editing 1920×1080 footage using the Apple Intermediate Codec. Since the footage is all at 30fps, you don’t need to worry about the fact that FCE doesn’t support 24P. With a little research, this might work out for you, at least for the short term until you can get FCP.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
With you selecting exactly 2.39, I had a feeling that you had a good reason for working at that resolution, but you never know with some of the silly questions that get asked around here.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
1920 divided by 804 is 2.39. I guess he’s just going for that scope look. Most people would still edit in a 1920×1080 sequence to be broadcast friendly for TVs and other equipment and just ad the widescreen filter to the footage.
But yes, there is a way to have FCP not scale the clips to fit. User Preferences – Editing – bottom right says “Always scale clips to sequence size” – deselect this.
Again, I would suggest editing at 1920×1080, but that’s just me.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
What did it say under timeline options? What you’re looking for is a window that says the resolution, frame rate and compressor of the timeline. The window should be called sequence settings. It’s possible that your timeline isn’t set up correctly.
But back to your question, 1920×1020 is a 16:9 resolution. To see the the actual resolution of the file, open it in Quicktime and get info. Under the format section, it should tell you the actual resolution.
And just to help out in the future, when you’re talking about how many pixels high/wide a file is, you should use the term “resolution”. If you talking about how many MB or GB a file is, you should use the term “size”. Your thread title makes it sound like you’re having problems with the amount of Megabytes or Gigabytes of the exported file.
One more thing, Final Cut Express isn’t the right tool to use the Canon 5D Mark IV. You should really be using Final Cut Pro. If you’re only playing around, then do whatever you want, but if you’re hoping to make videos people are going to pay you money for, then you should really bite the bullet and get the Pro version. It will make your life so much easier.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
Select something in your timeline and hit “Command 0” on the keyboard. What do your sequence settings say?
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
Man Walter, that stinks! Nothing worse than going through the troubleshooting of that type of problem.
I was really thinking that a group of i7 iMacs would be a very nice addition to a lot of studios. So much for that. Thanks for the heads up.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net