[Ryan Holmes]

Post in the FCPX forum. You’ll probably get a better response:
https://forums.creativecow.net/fcpxtechnique

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

Following up on what Shane said….you may need to drop down to ProRes (LT) or even Proxy to do your edit and then relink to your high quality (HQ) files afterwards. Basically an offline to online style workflow.

Do some tests before you commit all your files to whatever format.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

Easiest way is probably with Compressor or MPEG Streamclip. Just queue up a batch of files and let it run.

For future reference when shooting 5DII or 5DIII footage there is little value in transcoding to ProRes (HQ). Good old ProRes is sufficient, unless you know of a reason why you’d need the added data rate of (HQ).

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

If you’re going to go back and forth between PPro and FCP then you’ll need to standardize on 1 codec. While PPro works natively with just about any type of footage, FCP does not. So if you want to do edits in PPro and then pass them off to a FCP workstation you need to transcode all footage to a standard codec, probably Apple ProRes would be best.

Once that’s done it’s simply a matter of passing XML’s back and forth between the apps. Keep in mind though that many filters and FX won’t translate between the two apps. If you’re simply worried about edits then you should be fine. But if you start compositing, color correcting and adding animated graphics in PPro don’t expect that to translate correctly, if at all, over to FCP.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

What OS are you running?

Have you trashed preferences? Restarted? Run a “verify/repair disk” in disk utility? Restored permissions on your boot drive and any drives where FCP is accessing media?

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

So the original footage is 29.97 widescreen SD (anamorphic)? And you want to convert that to 24p widescreen SD (853×480)?

If so, just drop it into Compressor and make sure the geometry and frame controls are setup accordingly to match that and you should be good to go. If you want to upscale that footage to HD then just change the Geometry tab to appropriate HD setting (1280×720 or 1920×1080). Depending on what codec the footage is in, what codec you’re transcoding to, how long the clips are and how fast your machine is the conversion may take a few minutes, a few hours, or all night.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

Yeah. You’re not gaining any quality or added color space by going to ProRes. Your footage will only ever be as good as it was on initial capture – in this case DV. When you render out of Color it will automatically convert every clip to ProRes as it renders your color grade (assuming you’ve set it to do so in Preferences).

Workflow wise it’s always best to work with one codec, one frame rate and as few resolutions as possible. In the real world sometimes projects just don’t go that way. But as good a standard I try to convert everything to 1 standard codec (either Apple’s ProRes or Avid’s DNxHD). That tends to make everything run smoother – the edit, the color grade, the graphics, etc.

It sounds like you’ll be alright leaving those clips as DV and going to Color. If you experience problems, then convert them to ProRes and try again.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

You can buy a DVD burner with HDD from MarkerTek or B&H:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/659769-REG/Panasonic_DMR_EH59GA_K_DMR_EH59GA_K_Multi_Zone_250GB_HDD_DVD.html

But then you’ll need a way to play it out of your Mac into the DVD player (AJA or BlackMagic card). And that will be at realtime. So 2 hours of footage will burn onto the disc in 2 hours.

Instead of spending money, just leave the sequences encoding tonight when you leave work. Tomorrow morning, build a couple of DVD’s, burn and ship. Cost $0 (not counting shipping! 😉

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

You should be able to just drop it on the timeline and edit. When you export the sequence out as a QuickTime movie it’ll compress it to the codec you select at export.

if you plan on doing color work/graphics/compositing you may want to convert it before hand (ProRes holds up well to multiple decompressions). If so just use Compressor and transcode the footage to whatever flavor of ProRes you want/need.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Ryan Holmes]

What codec is the footage currently in (Animation, Uncompressed, ProRes, XDCAM, DVCPRO, h.264, etc)? What are you editing off of (firewire drive, SAN, Thunderbolt drive, etc.)?

What is the original frame size? What resolution do you want the footage to be?

There is no magic bullet — high quality and low file size. That is a constant tug of war within the codec world. So you’ll have to make choices about what you want. Within FCP the best balance between high quality and low file size is using some flavor of the Apple ProRes codec. Which flavor you choose depends on what format the camera originally captured, what you plan on doing with it in post (edit, color, graphics, etc), and what’s the final delivery format.

As far as frame size, inside Compressor look on the “Inspector” floating window. You’ll notice a tab that looks like a square, circle, and triangle image. That’s the Geometry tab. Adjust your frame size in there. If you footage was 1280×720, but you want it to be 1920×1080, adjust in there. You’ll also notice the other tabs like “Frame Controls” that’s where you can apply a resize filter to the footage (how much thinking it should do as it resizes footage up or down).

That should get you started…

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes