[Tom Meegan]

I had my doubts.

We built aliases to all the stuff we knew we would be using and kept those aliases on the same drive (empty and new) as new projects and captures.

Five of the seven drives were variations on the LaCie Raid 5 boxes

[Tom Meegan]

I second Walter’s recommendation of the “Getting Organized” DVD. I work on many different FCP systems in many different formats, and I find myself using Shane’s tips to keep things straight often.

Stable.

The system I worked on the last three weeks had 10+ terabytes of storage daisy chained over seven FW 800 drives.

It was set up in three different office trailers from Calgary to Lake Placid, NY.

We used projects from FCP 4.5 all the way to FCP 6.0.1.

The formats/codecs the system handled include: AVCHD, IMX 30 PAL, IMX 50 NTSC, DV PAL, DV NTSC, and uncompressed 8 bit NTSC.

The system crashed twice. We narrowed the cause down to Boris Title 3D items from FCP 4.5 projects. The work around was Live Type.

No problems with the inevitable format mixing.

No problems from the less than optimal drive set-up

[Tom Meegan]

Sounds like the sequence needs to be rendered, which means that the sequence settings and the clip settings don’t match.

Select the clip and hit Command – 9.

Make notes.

Select the sequence and hit Command – Zero.

Compare and contrast.

Alternatively choose the appropriate easy set up for your footage.

Also

[Tom Meegan]

Hi Phil,

Martijn Swart of the Netherlands set us up with this work flow last winter on the World Cup Bobsleigh Tour. xSan, three FCP stations, two XT2s, XStore and some hubs

[Tom Meegan]

Select what you want to batch out in the Browser.

Right Click and choose Batch Export.

Use the dialog box to set the settings and destination.

Hit export.

[Tom Meegan]

We take my son to a chess club at the local Border’s bookstore. I had some time, so I browsed the new edition of FCS on the Spot.

If you are functional in FCP but want to be faster, or if you find yourself wrestling with the interface a bit, this is THE book to buy.

Even if you fancy yourself pretty good, this book is a gem. I found things I didn’t know, but wish I had, in every chapter.

I also found many things I DID know, but haven’t been using

[Tom Meegan]

Create a new sequence.

Name it appropriately.

Double click it to open it in the time line.

Drag the sequence that has your edited movie into the time line.

This “nests” the original sequence.

Run the speed effect on the nest (Command – J)

I’m not at a machine to test this

[Tom Meegan]

35mm can be telecined to:

D5
HDCam
Digital Beta
BetaSP
DV

etc. These all have different requirements for capturing.

HD can be acquired in a variety of flavors that make very different demands on a system:

HDCam
DVCPro HD
HDV

come to mind. Yet more ways to capture. Each choice effects your needs.

Also, there are a number of strategies/CODECs for capturing the HD footage:

Uncompressed
ProRes
DVCPro HD
Native HDV
Apple Intermediate CODEC
DV down convert for off-line

and others.

You mention that you might outsource the output. This would have a large impact on your needs. Here is some examples:

Down convert to BetaSP using analog component
Down convert to Digital Beta using SDI
Deliver on DVCPro HD tape
Deliver on HDCam or D5 to a dub house
Deliver on DV tape for dubbing at the broadcast station
Use of an online delivery solution for broadcasters

All of these solutions could have an impact on your needs.

My suggestion would be to talk a consultant to discuss your needs, answer your questions, and help find out what the issues are. Alternatively, talk to ProMax. They put systems together for a living.

What follows is a list to get you started at the high end of what you describe. You should be able to scale back once you know what the work flow would be. I may have left out a few (or more) things here, so be sure to hire an engineer or system integrator like ProMax to put all of this together. I included both a tower and a laptop to give you the flexibility to work on location or do demos in client offices.

A top end maxed out Mac Pro with a Kona 3 card

A top end MacBook Pro with an IO HD

An SATA or Fibre Channel Array from Ciprico or CalDigit or Sonnet or Dulce or fill in the blank

A very good external RAID from LaCie or G-Tech or similar and an ExpressCard adaptor to connect it to the MacBook Pro

The best CRT you can afford (Sony 14 or 20″ L5)

A very good LCD for monitoring HD. Search all over the Cow for recommendations.

External Scopes

Very good near field monitors (Yamaha, Genelec, Tannoy, etc)

An appropriate sub to go with the near field monitors

A mackie mixer to route your audio sources to the monitoring.

The cabling for the tape decks or similar you are going to need for capturing and outputting

The tape decks you need to buy, or budget to rent or outsource.

UPS to protect against power failure.

Best wishes,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

What format will you shoot?

How will you deliver the final product?

The answers to those two questions will largely determine how much computer and what additional equipment you will need.

However the short answer is to buy the best you can afford. It will last longer and have fewer issues, not to mention save time everytime you render or encode.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

Eric:

GIven your situation I would work in uncompressed or ProRes. In FCP I’d avoid the animation codec, although your mileage may vary.

ProRes HQ would be my first choice