[Tim Allison]

Clark….you have to use XDCAM Transfer, but that hasn’t been a problem for us. I’ve never hd any problems with it. Log and Capture within FCP does not work.

[Tim Allison]

No, it is NOT beating a dead horse, and I wish I could give you an authoritative answer. But we decided NOT to go to Snow Leopard at this time. On the OS, we’re at 10.5.8 and we did go all the way up to 7.0.1 on Final Cut. Even where we are, we’re having some minor problems with our F75 decks; they mount the XDCAM disks, but that disk does NOT show up on the desktop. Everything else about it seems to work.

[Tim Allison]

I’m still a bit fuzzy on what you are trying to do. If you imported the video correctly, and if you set up your Final Cut timeline correctly, then you are already editing the XDCAM video in as high of quality as is possible. At least I’m not aware of anything you can do to make it “better.”

What is your final end product? Blu-Ray? DVD? Plain HD video?

[Tim Allison]

We just upgraded and have run into some puzzling issues. We are now running OS 10.5.8 and FCP 7.0.1 on a Mac Pro. We have PDW-F75 decks. Everything seems to work fine, except that the XDCAM disks don’t appear on the desktop. We can import files from the disks. We can write back to the disks. XDCAM Transfer says the disks are mounted. FAM Driver Utility says the disks are mounted. XDCAM Transfer does give the disk a rather cryptic name, XDCAM800460201260608. I don’t have a clue where that long number came from.

So far, the only “problems” this has caused have been related to naming the disk, and ejecting the disk. When it appears on the desktop, you can just right-click and choose “eject.” Now, we have to open FAM Driver Utility, switch away from FAM mode, and hit the eject button on the deck.

Any one have any clues?

[Tim Allison]

Zane, thank you so much for your helpful response. Do you have XDCAM equipment in your editing system?

[Tim Allison]

Thanks, Craig. It’s those “gotcha’s” that I’m trying to avoid. Since both Snow Leopard and FCP 7 have been out at least 6 months (or more), I’m hoping we don’t have to experience too many “gotcha” moments. It appears that XDCAM Transfer 2.11 solved most of the FAM access problems. That takes care of directly importing XDCAM material into Final Cut. Anybody having any problems writing back to a XDCAM disk with a PDW-F75. It seems like it has been somewhat problematic in writing back to a U1 drive, but we can work around that.

[Tim Allison]

This has been a good discussion, honestly, a LOT more than I expected. In our particular shop, we’ve already committed to the large-form XDCAM-HD format. We have the cameras and decks that handle those nifty plastic-case enclosed XDCAM disks. As I’m typing this, I have a Mac Book Pro sitting in front of me. It has a SxS card reader on the left side, and I have a PDW-U1 hooked up to the USB port on the right side. It just seems like it would be SO EASY to plug in a SxS card on one side, and transfer those shots over to a disk in the U1. Then I can put the disk on a shelf, to access whenever I need those shots.

Craig, you did bring up a scary thought which had previously escaped me….what if software support and development of the PDW-U1 stops, but the computer OS continues to the point that the U1 will no longer “talk” to the computer? Crap….I haven’t even thought of that….a drive that still functions perfectly, but at some point, the computer and drive may not communicate with each other.

I guess it’s just a gamble. While Blu-Ray presently looks promising for long term storage, there really is no guaranty that Blu-Ray will out last XDCAM, or vice-versa.

[Tim Allison]

nt

[Tim Allison]

I have never done a standards conversion with Compressor, but I see no reason it wouldn’t work. I’ve always heard that 25p converts quite well to 24p, so why wouldn’t 50i scenes? I’ve never had a problem converting 60i to 30p, so it seems like you could convert 50i to 24p without a quality hit as well.

I wouldn’t bother converting the XDCAM into ProRes. In fact, it’s possible to use Compressor to convert the DVCPRO HD directly into XDCAM 24p footage. I would experiment on one scene, and see if I could see a difference in picture quality AND transcode time.

We mix XDCAM and ProRes on the same time line quite often with NO issues. I see no advantages in transcoding your XDCAM footage into ProRes.

Be aware of this…..you will be using Compressor to do this transcode, not Final Cut Pro. Compressor is much better at these kinds of jobs, but it is time consuming. This might be an “over-night” render kind of job.

[Tim Allison]

We have not experienced ANY problems in working with native XDCAM files in Final Cut. In our experience, native XDCAM mixes seamlessly with the ProRes codec, so it works quite well to edit with native files, and render to ProRes. With the right hardware, you could transcode your XDCAM files into ProRes files, but that take away all of the work-flow advantages of the file-based XDCAM scenes. I don’t know why you would want to do this. It will cost you some time no matter how you do it, and I strongly question if you will see any difference. I have even stronger questions over if your audience would see any difference.

As for using 422 HQ, or just plain 422, that’s a drive speed and space issue. The HQ files will be a lot bigger. If your drives are fast enough, and if you have the space, then go ahead and do it. Maybe some of the other folks on this forum have sharper eyes than I do, but honestly, I doubt I could tell the difference on most scenes between these two codecs.