Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
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I use disclabel Neato Edition for CDs and DVDs. I don’t reccomend it. In fact I can’t stand it. It’s a piece of garbage.
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You can get RT high definition formats. But not MP4 with non-standard resolutions.
Yes, the next version of Final Cut is rumored to support more video formats. Nobody really knows until NAB, and if someone does know, they can’t post it here because Apple is coming down on people like the Ministry of Information.
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First off, Walter is 100% correct. Blackmagic and AJA cards function as I/O only and do not provide extra horsepower. SOME older Decklink models have some sort of effects handling built in, but everyone now knows to turn those off because FCP’s software RT Extreme is 10 times better. Pinnacle’s Cinewave is the card that adds the extra horsepower for Final Cut, but it’s getting dated and Avid just bought that company. Most wouldn’t buy one at this point, especially with Apple expected to add massive enhancements for version 5 which is rumored to be announced in two weeks at NAB.
Ok let me claify. When I said export as Uncompressed, I meant export FROM the Avid TO a Quicktime file using Apples “None” for the codec. That just means uncompressed. Whatever format you use on the Avid is your call. I can’t comment on that becasue I don’t know enough about the job. Going from Avid 2:1 to Apple Uncompressed is fine. You don’t need to redigitize using Avid 1:1 – if that’s what you’re asking.
Avid 1:1 codec EQUALS Apple Uncompressed 8-bit
Avid 2:1 codec EQUALS Apple PhotoJPEG @ 75% quality.Uncompressed is obviously lossless, while the 2:1 codecs are visually lossless. You won’t see a difference from one generation and it is absolutely suitable for finishing. Remember, Digibeta uses 2:1 compression as well on the tape itself.
So what I would do is export your Avid 2:1 footage to Apple Uncompressed 8-bit. Don’t use Photo-Jpeg because while FCP supports real-time playback, you get no RT Effects with PJPEG.
And again, if you don’t have the hard disk speed to handle Uncompressed on the Final Cut box, you need to go with DV (even thought that’s not a great idea for onlining). If you do need to use the DV codec, then you may as well just dub a DVCam- the end result is the same plus you save a lot of time and hassel.
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It depends. What kind of disk drives are you running on Final Cut? If you have a fast array that can do Uncompressed, then yeah, convert it using “none” (which is uncompressed). As long as the frame size remains 720×486, then you shouldn’t have any field issues at all. Don’t fix it with filters or anything like that. The problem you are having is due to the field dominance being reversed.
If you have access to a Digibeta deck, you can buy a Decklink card for $300. It’s probably cheaper than paying for a transfer.
Anyway, I assume you don’t have a fast disk array which means you’ll have to work in DV. If that’s the case, you might as well just dub it to a DVCam tape. You won’t lose any more quality doing it that way. The end result is exactly the same as converting it to a DV Quicktime on either computer.
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[Ren Hinks] “I’m getting the impression (I REALLY need to take a crash course) that FCP is dependent on PCI cards and other hardware to provide extra horsepower for RT playback of anything more challanging than 720×480 DV. “
The reason you aren’t seeing a difference between DV and 8-bit because you’re using the Firewire as your output to the broadcast monitor. Firewire outputs DV, DV50, and DV100 only. Nothing else. So the 8-bit is essentially being converted to DV as you play it back- hense you don’t get RT playback, only 1 frame when paused (BTW, hit option-P for close-to RT preview). Hopefully that makes sense. You see, Final Cut has no problems working with uncompressed 486 material whatsoever. But without a card, there’s no way to actually view 486 material. You’re trying to force uncompressed 486 footage down the throat of the Firewire bus which only accepts DV 480 footage.
If you stick with the Apple 8-bit codec (or Blackmagic), and you have YUV rendering on, you won’t have to worry. As long as you don’t convert the colorspace, it’s 100% lossless. Just make sure the sequence settings match the media. You’ll know it matches when there’s no colored bar on the timeline. But if you still don’t trust it and you need to see what it really looks from Final Cut, you gotta get a card.
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Here’s what I do. Capture it at 60fps like you’re doing. Then remove the redundant frames after it’s been captured. Use the Panasonic Final Cut Plugin to remove them. It’s on Panasonic’s web site and you can find the link from the AJ-HD1200’s product page. Doing this creates new media that will be 24 or 30. Then you import these and you’re good to go.
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[Bryce Whiteside] “…uh, what naysayers??? All I see here is real world experience to which you have contributed.”
Well… you. Heh, just joking around! Nobody in my office thought it would work either until I did it, so I guess I have a chip on my shoulder about it. The key is that “out of the box” sharing between XP and OSX is a lot slower than it should be. Nevertheless, it is extremely reliable for people who habitually name their files in a PC friendly way. Even though we’re Mac people, we upload a lot of things to our web server, so we got into the habbit of it a while back. And if you need OSX-OSX or XP-XP type speed, there is the ExtremeZ-IP software like I mentioned.
To get the most reliability and to make sure you don’t accidentally open FCP without it mounted, what you do is mount the shared Windows drive on the Mac. Then create an alias of it. Now copy that alias into your “System Prefs->Accounts->Startup Items” and it will mount it automatically everytime the Mac is turned on. As long as you add the login and password to your keychain, you don’t have to worry about it. Just make sure that on the Windows side, you check the box that says “Network users can make changes to this folder” in the sharing preferences.
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Michael, ignore the naysayers- they know not what they speak. We do this and it works very well provided people don’t put question marks or crap like that in the file names. You’re using SMB sharing right now, correct? SMB, if you don’t know, is just the regular method of Windows file sharing that OSX provides. With our setup, the SMB sharing works absolutely fantastic with no headaches. I can run 2 streams of DV media from the WIndows server, no problems whatsoever. But, I’m definately not getting the kind of speed I should get over a gigabit network, so we stick to using the server as an audio and stills library (just for right now). There is a program called “ExtremeZ-IP” (do a Google search). It’s specifcally designed for a Windows XP Server/OSX Client environment. I tried the trial version and it worked great.
Whatever you do, don’t try “Windows Server 2003” with it’s Macintosh Services. It’s total crap. Just stick with XP and get ExtremeZ-IP. The program is $700. You’ll end up spending a 10th of what you’d spend buying an XServe and Xsan software.
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Quicktime Pro will convert to AVI. The selection of available codecs is low, but the most important ones are there.
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[Rayk Hemmerling] “But, if the S-video signal was independed (or created before the DV conversion), I actually had more information compaired to DV. “
I see. Ok, I get what you’re asking. You’d have to check with the manufacturer to be sure, but I’d say that it’s highly doubtful. Think of it this way. When you play back a DV tape, you get S-Video out. That means that the camera contains the ability to decompress the DV stream and convert it to analog. Since it contains that, there’s no reason why the S-Video signal would be created any differently when the camera is recording then when it’s playing back. Make sense?
I wish I could help more but chroma-keying isn’t something I do very much. What I can say is converting DV to Uncompressed digitally is going to look a lot better than S-Video- even if your camera produces the signal independently (which I doubt it does).
BTW, no Blackmagic Design products use S-Video, so this topic doesn’t even belong here. BMD products use SDI, HD-SDI, Composite, and Component.