Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
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This is what I do in these kinds of situations. Change your Easy Setup to reflect what the project is supposed to be and create a new sequence. Now from the browser (not the original sequence) drag one of the clips into the new sequence. Final Cut will automatically do things to make it match. Sometimes it will automatically add the “Shift Fields -1” filter. Sometimes it will change the Motion settings (scale and distort). The thing is, FCP 5.1.2 usually knows the difference between source and sequence, and adjusts accordingly when you drag it in from the browser. For example, drag an HD clip into an NTSC sequence, it will scale it and adjust the aspect ratio properly.
So once you do it, double click and examine in the viewer what changes it is making. Then you can copy and paste attributes to the clips in your working sequence.
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Yeah I mostly agree. But I have to admit, the idea that they were waiting until Leopard does kind of make of sense.
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For backups, I’m hoping this solution will come around soon:
https://www.inphase-technologies.com/products/professional/download/DataSheet_MEDIA.pdf
https://www.engadget.com/2007/02/13/inphase-300gb-holographic-storage-solution-out-the-door/ -
Yeah the cards suck. That’s why their first suggestion was Firestor.
There’s also XDCam.
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[John] “Does this work with HDV footage which is 4:2:0?”
I have no idea. But one thing I know, what was true for DV may not be true for HDV as far as the chroma smoothing effect from using SDI. Since HDV decks don’t even come w/ SDI, we may be talking about apples and oranges here.
[John] “Also.. I don’t think anyone meant to imply that a FW transfer is lossy. It is, as you say, a perfect transfer. The issue is with HDV and whether this highly compressed format is viable for editing HD materia”
Actually, look at the title of the topic. Then see all the replies saying “Yes”. I’m in 100% agreement that it’s better to capture in a normal format rather than edit in HDV. But capture cards do not “give better quality input source than firewire”.
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Capturing Firewire, you are capturing an exact 1:1 clone of the data on the tape. Not one iota of quality is lost. It is a flawless process, like copying a file to a disk.
The tricky thing is that some codecs like DV and HDV has a low color sample rate. Converting these codecs to a codec that uses 4:2:2 offers many advantages.
There are several ways to do this conversion. One of them is to output HD-SDI and capture with a Kona or Blackmagic card which is what this topic is about. When outputting HD-SDI from the deck, the decoder inside the deck is doing the conversion. On Sony DVCam decks, this process is known to have the added benefit of smoothing out the chroma artifacts. The same is quite possibly true for HDV decks as well using the HDMI output with an HDMI to HD-SDI converter.
Alternatively, can capture firewire and edit in HDV (which can be slow and painful to work with) and then do the conversion before or after your editing by using software like FCP or QT Pro to convert the video to a 4:2:2 format. The Apple decoder however doesn’t apply the same chroma smoothing that you get from a Sony deck. BUT… there is a filter in FCP called 4:1:1 Chroma Smoother which is known to smooth out the artifacts just like an HD-SDI capture would do.
I’m typing all this because to say that “the Kona improves the quality of HDV” is very misleading. In practice, yes, this workflow will add an improvement over capturing FW and not doing anything else to it. But the Kona isn’t actually doing anything. It’s the deck’s HDV decoder doing the smoothing, and the same thing can be achieved with the FCP filter if you want to capture using firewire instead.
All that said, I’d recommend going the HD-SDI route and not messing around with HDV capture if you can afford it. If you can’t afford it, like I said, just capture with firewire, use the chroma smoothing filter, and covert to uncompressed 8-bit. Video quality will be just as good.
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[The Edit Doctor] “But, take the audio file in your system, go to MODIFY/SPEED/ and change the audio clip to 99.9 percent instead of 100.”
You can do this, but it’s not exact.
To be EXACT, the best thing to do is open it up in Cinema Tools. Must be video and audio since CT can’t do audio only for some reason (you can of course separate the audio after the fact if you need to).
Just use the “conform” option. Bam. 23.98 is converted to 24 instantly.
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FYI, there’s a setting so it will automatically playback whatever format is on the tape.
The 720p light means it’s set to record 720p, not playback.
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Use network cards and a switch that supports Jumbo Frames.
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I think it’s safe to assume there will be an 8-core Mac Pro soon. Intel is already selling the chips. Nothing to do with rumors, just speculating the obvious.