Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
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Search the Ken Stone website for “24p”.
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It’s really simple. Apple has a “my way or the highway” philosophy. The do not believe WMV files should work in Final Cut. Just like they don’t believe MP3 files should. That’s what comes down to more than anything. But its not a simple as you think.
Final Cut and Quicktime are based on very old code. Part of the reason Premiere Pro doesn’t have these limitations is because Mircrosoft’s Directshow works much differently than Quicktime, and Adobe designed their own video renderer for Premiere Pro, which in turn was recently created from the ground up (2004 I believe). This probably had a lot to do with why Premiere Pro was not released for the Macintosh until just this year.
Quicktime cannot just edit, remux, and render any random intraframe codec. It WASN’T designed to do this. Period. Look at how clunky HDV editing is (HDV is an intraframe codec just like VC-1 WMVs). They obviously struggled to make HDV and IMX work. And those intraframe codecs use a GOP stucture that is far more edit-friendly than VC1. So it’s not like they can just flip a switch and make MPEG2, VC1, h264, etc. work. Final Cut uses legacy technology. And Apple also believe it isn’t necessary, and that professionals do not need to do this with any type of regularity. And in this case, they are right. VC-1 is not designed for editing. And just because you can get it to work in Premiere Pro, doesn’t mean Adobe or anyone else thinks its a good idea. This is the type of workflow that is slow, clunky, and lossy. No matter what NLE you manage to do it on.
Some people here (particularly Cow leaders) agree with Apple’s philosophy. On top of that, many people who are trying to make FCP what it is not designed for (and you are wrong – it was NOT designed for certain tasks) appear unprofessional. Many haven’t read the manual. And many will not consider alternative ways of doing things (like converting the WMV to something else, perhaps?). This annoys people. And you get obnoxious replies to it. That’s the way it works around here. Like it or not.
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[Devin Crane] “We’ve been using the XDCam SD PDW 1500 decks for 3 years now with FCP and have no complaints. Fast transfers over ethernet, and high quality.”
Thanks. That’s good to know.
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First of all, absolutely do not do an update over Tiger.
Secondly, many will say to back up your old system first then do a clean install. I say don’t even bother. Just remove the Tiger system disk and put it on a shelf. Install Leopard on a brand new SATA disk (they’re like $80 or less). That is the only way to go. Now you’re only 5 minutes away from reverting to your old system.
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I didn’t realize that you do not have the HD deck – that instead you just have the captured HD media which you need to re-connect.
That’s good news. All you have to do is this. Using Media Manager, create a duplicate of your sequence that has the DV clips OFFLINE.
Now, open up a new project and import all your HD media. This project only serves the purpose of changing the timebase of your HD media’s timecode. Use the “Modify -> Timecode” option and change all of your HD media to 30fps NDF or DF timecode (whatever your DV media is). This will alter the TC of your HD media, which is stored in the actual Quicktime files. If this makes you nervous, write down the original values. And you can always change it back to 24fps timecode if you need to. Close the project. No need to save it.
Open your project that has the offline DV clips. Now you have 23.98 HD media that’s using 29.97 timecode. Just reconnect it. You’ll probably see some warnings but that’s fine. It should match up properly. Only one issue will occur. Because you did not edit in “film safe”, some clips will be a frame too long or a frame too short. You’ll have to go through and manually trim these edit points.
Quick warning. I have personally done this quite a few times where the SD clips used NON-DROP timecode. And it worked every time. But I don’t know first had if it works with Drop-frame. It should work since FCP [supposedly] calculates the differences when you use “Modify -> Timecode”. But I haven’t tried it myself.
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And I’m not saying not to try Shane’s EDL method (which is more conventional). I’m just offering an alternative.
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Sorry, I just realized your 29.97 footage is offline DV quality.
Set your deck to output 1080i 29.97. Batch recapture in full quality like you normally would. Then follow the steps I described.
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I’ve been in this situation more times than I care to remember. I’m not a big fan of the EDL method. Try this.
FIRST STEP
Export a self-contained 29.97. Download this small, simple, yet extremely powerful app called JES Deinterlace:
https://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ejeschot/JES_Deinterlacer_v3.2.3.zip
This program is the one and only utility that can do a reverse telecine while detecting cadence breaks. And it’s screming fast.
Keep in mind it is not always flawless. If you have a lot of quick cuts, it won’t detect the cadence 100% of the time. But this is absolutely the first thing you want to try out because it’s so fast and there is a good chance it will take care of your problem completely.
SECOND STEP
If JES fixed most of your footage but it missed a few scenes, manually fix those scenes using Cinema tools reverse telecine. Then throw your JES clip on a 23.98 timeline, and use your new CT clips to “repair” the bad scenes.
THIRD STEP
If for whatever reason the above doesn’t work (no reason it shouldn’t) then there is away to re-capture without using an EDL. The jist of it is that you can reconnect your 29.97 clips to 23.98 media, and it will match up, provided you take the proper steps.
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In the sequence settings, there’s a setting for scaling. You can set the quality to “best”. This won’t solve your problem though.
Try exporting a self-contained Quicktime. Then run that file through Compressor.
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[gary adcock] “and what did you look at it in? something that is NOT an apple application?
there are a number of issues with MM handling of conversions, it is the same issue with Color and is even included in the Color read me file”
No I just looked at it in Final Cut on my broadcast monitor. Final Cut said it was square pixels, 1920×1080. And video output confirmed it. The aspect ratio was proper.
I’m looking at the Color release notes now. I do see what you’re talking about, but it says it happens with mixed-format timelines. I tested an actual clip from the browser (no timeline) and it worked fine.
But believe me, we’re in 100% agreement as far as not blindly trusting Final Cut to convert anything properly.