[Tom Brooks]

Yep, that’s the vicinity I was heading for.
Cheers!

[Tom Brooks]

Need a little more info. Check the item properties of the still clips in the Browser. What are the dimensions (typical) and what is the pixel aspect ratio set to?

Also try this: On a clip in the Timeline, control-click and select Remove Attributes. Uncheck Distort if it’s checked.

[Tom Brooks]

Doing fine with my systems–mostly. I am lately experiencing infrequent crashes on the G5 when attempting to use UNDO in Motion.

Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, Mac OS-X 10.5.6, Quicktime 7.6, Adobe Prod Prem CS4, G5 Quad 2.5, Kona-LHe V6, 8.5GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7800-GT 256MB, G-RAID 2x1TB FW800, 6TB RAID-5 (Enhance E8-ML, Highpoint 2322), Panasonic HVX-200P P2. Also MBP 17″ Core 2 Duo 2.5, 4GB, GeForce 8600M GT 512MB.

[Tom Brooks]

https://www.pro-bel.com/site_documents/Vistek_HD_Poster.pdf

[Tom Brooks]

You might try selecting the pasted clips and then Control-click and select Remove Attributes. On the menu that opens, check Distort.

[Tom Brooks]

OK, I see where you’re going now. I’m leaning toward 24P in either SD or HD flavors. I shoot HD to future-proof a little. If the lower frame rate suits your material, that is. I suggested the conform in the event that you absolutely had to shoot in 25P and deliver an NTSC DVD (which would include 24P DVD). Here’s a great little tutorial: https://allbetsareoff.com/tutorials/conforming-to-24p/

Ahh, the comforting voice of good ole Aharon Rabinowitz. But shooting 24P is a better compromise worldwide if you’re restricted to one format only. Does your camera do 24P? My Panasonic shoots 24PN, which is a dream for this stuff.

As far as changing the compression to ProRes goes, it’s commonly done with DV (and HDV) sequences so that titles and graphics are rendered in the better color space. You don’t gain anything on your camera video, but your titles, stills, and Motion graphics gain a lot. So, you edit in DV, then change the final sequence to ProRes. Presto, your graphics get a huge benefit from the wider color space.

If you can take the time, test out all the ideas here that make sense to you. Take the workflow all the way from start to finish and see which one works best.

[Tom Brooks]

Let’s separate things out a bit.
Shooting PAL: 25P can be easily converted to 24P in Cinema Tools. No loss in visual quality, but audio is slowed down 4%.

Shooting SD: Seems to make sense to me in this case, considering your lower end edit system and your SD final output. Would you possibly gain something by shooting HD at 25P? Maybe. It’s not clear to me how color grade, lower thirds and graphics would be affected by ingesting HDV to ProRes as opposed to starting in SD. My bet is that the easier workflow in SD offsets the possible gains.

How to capture: You have one FW bus on the Macbook Pro. You might be able to capture from the camera to a FW800 drive, but I wouldn’t guarantee it. Better bet, as Walter said, would be an Express34 eSATA adaptor to an eSATA drive, leaving the FW bus with only the camera on it. USB is unrelated and irrelevant.

So my proposal is this: You shoot SD 25P and edit as such. Color grade. When done, change sequence compressor to ProRes to bump up quality of titles and graphics. Export QT self contained. Conform that to 24P. Make NTSC DVD. If you need to go back and make changes, you back up to the 25P sequence and make the changes there. The 25P project will be archived for future use.

My stab at it. Thoughts?

[Tom Brooks]

I suspect the flicker is just a function of the lower frame rate and would also be apparent at 24P. My HVX-200 finder looks that way at 24P. I have shot 24P for European clients and they have done the conform in Cinema Tools or Compressor. Both 24P and 25P can be conformed from one to the other, making them good choices for dual-purpose use in the US and Europe. Your camera shoots both, so you’re able to choose the best for each situation. If the footage is only for use in France, the 25P is the way to go.

Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, Mac OS-X 10.5.6, Quicktime 7.6, Adobe Prod Prem CS4, G5 Quad 2.5, Kona-LHe V6, 8.5GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7800-GT 256MB, G-RAID 2x1TB FW800, 6TB RAID-5 (Enhance E8-ML, Highpoint 2322), Panasonic HVX-200P P2. Also MBP 17″ Core 2 Duo 2.5, 4GB, GeForce 8600M GT 512MB.

[Tom Brooks]

When dual mono is captured, I think FCP default is to pan the channels center. This results in the -6 levels. If you pan the channel hard left or right it will be normal. Can you confirm this?

[Tom Brooks]

The announcer on their demo sounds familiar…
OK, no wonder, it’s Aharon Rabinowitz of Creative Cow fame! Nice.