[Simon Hustings]

HDV and DV take up roughly the same amount of HD space. DV PAL runs at 3.6mb/sec and HDV takes up slightly less space. HDV is heavily compressed therefore the small storage size.
Check out AJA’s data rate calculator: https://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/25717

If you’re so inclined, you can change the timeline compression settings of your HDV footage to ProRes when you start the edit, as this is a much more friendly format for colour correction, graphics, comping etc.. But will take up a lot more space. It isn’t recommended to edit in HDV if you can avoid it.

Are your deliverables NTSC only? If so, why not shoot HDV 1080i 60. This way, your frame rate is already set up for NTSC delivery. If you want to stay in PAL land and shoot HDV 1080i 50 then you can do the standards conversion through Compressor, on the timeline in FCP or with a plugin Like Graeme Nattress’ Standards Converter for FCP. My suggestion would be the latter. Graeme’s converter does a great job, and from experience, takes a fraction of the time that Compressor would take, if you set Compressor to the highest settings.

Upside down footage is a real bugger isn’t it? I had to go through the same process with a short film I just finished editing.
I flipped the footage, created subclips, exported and imported again, as I was eventually heading into Color for grading and the flop filter doesn’t get sent to Color when using the “Send to” command in FCP. If you follow this method, Match Frame will only link to your new imported clips. If you aren’t concerned about the Color workflow and work from the subclips, match frame will still reference the upside down Masterclips.

Cheers,

Simon

[Simon Hustings]

What are your render settings and what are you trying to render? If FCP is set to unlimited RT, depending on your system and what you are trying to render, Cmd+R might not do anything if your computer can handle the effect in real time. What colour render bar do you have above the clips that you are tying to render? Red or Green?

[Simon Hustings]

The spec you mentioned will be more than enough to run Final Cut Studio, It will handle Motion and After FX too, but it won’t fly.. If you are working in DV only, then expect very few problems. a couple of tracks of HD should be okay too. What kind of work do you intend to do on the MBP?
The 15″ screen may get to you after a while. 17″ would be better – more real estate for you to fill, plus the 17″ comes in a Hidef version too so you can playback any HD footage at native size (which isn’t a possibility on the 15″. Get your self a good external Firewire 800 or Esata HD as I would not suggest using the internal for any more than running the OS and applications.
All the best,
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

Hey Bram,
A couple of thoughts:
For something like this, 4:3 may be your best bet. As you said, there would be nothing to resize, and what you see is what you get. If 4:3 is the requirement of the client, then 4:3 would probably be your best shooting format. Will make post a lot less painful too! Your workflow would be much easier. Shoot 4:3, edit 4:3 and compress to DVD as 4:3. Assuming your film is going to be less than 90 mins, then you will still get the best compression options in Compressor too.
Something for you to consider however: Check the down convert options on your camera, if it allows you to crop your HDV footage and output at 4:3 as opposed to 16:9 then this may be a better solution. When you shoot, shoot HDV but keep all you action centered, so when the camera crops your image and down converts it to 4:3, you don’t lose any of the important action (this down convert usually happens in realtime so your render times are drastically reduced). Plus this means your tapes are still HDV and this gives you the opportunity to reuse the footage for future HiDef projects. But as I said, this depends on your camera. Could be worth testing!?
Cheers,
Simon.

[Simon Hustings]

Hey Bram,

If you shot in HD or HDV and down rezed to DV, and then centre cut the 16:9 to fit 4:3 screen you will notice a dramatic difference in quality compared to the original footage.
Can you not deliver your film in 16:9 or even 4:3 letterbox? If you deliver in 16:9, then you will have the maximum quality available to you for the DV footage (assuming you compress it correctly). Or if it has to be 4:3, then letterbox the image. The image will be smaller, flanked by black bars top and bottom, but at least you won’t lose footage from the left and right of the screen.
Consider that most DVD players, if not connected to a widescreen tv will letter box your 16:9 image anyway. But for the rest of those watching on widescreen, will see your film in all it’s 16:9 glory.

Ultimately, taking a 16:9 image and making it “fit” a 4:3 screen will result in some form of visual loss: Either cropping of squeezing. Keeping things 16:9 (if possible) would be the best option.

S.

[Simon Hustings]

Check out http://www.istockphoto.com they may well have what you’re looking for. (It’s not free, but it’s cheap and royalty free)
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

Hey J,

I’m running 6.04 and yeah, it’s in the menu that you just described.
I can’t remember it’s location in 6.0, but it may be under user preferences on the timeline tab. But don’t quote me on that!!
Si.

[Simon Hustings]

Hey Bram,
Yeah there is an easier way. You change the scale of your first clip by using the scale option in the motion tab (basically creating a centre cut of your 16:9 image to fill the 4:3 canvas- Be aware centre cutting will reduce the quality of the clip)
Then copy the clip. (Cmd+C)
Select the rest of the clips on the timeline that you wish to change and right click on any of the selected clips to bring up the context menu.
Select Paste Attributes, and from the next menu, check the Basic Motion box and hit OK. (Basic Motion includes parameters set for scale, rotation, centre & anchor point as per the Basic Motion section on the Motion tab)
This takes the parameters you set on your first clip and applies them to all highlighted clips. Paste Attributes is a great time saver.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Simon

[Simon Hustings]

This can either be your camera settings or FCP capture settings. Some HDV cameras give you options on how to handle the down convert, whether it letter boxes it or crops it etc. Make sure you have the right option selected.
If that doesn’t do it, make sure your FCP capture setting are correct. You need to capture DV PAL 48KHz Anamorphic. The anamorphic part tells FCP that your DV footage is widescreen and not 4:3.

Simon

[Simon Hustings]

Hi Brendan,

I know Color has issues with most transitions added in FCP. Send your clips clean into Color and then add the transitions afterwards, back in FCP. Try that.

Simon