HVX Mac / PC Compatibility Issue

[Khaled Lowe]

Hi there,

We shot a video on the HVX 200, captured the footage with the "Log and Transfer" option in Final Cut Pro, then when copied all the footage as Quicktime files onto 6-7 DVDs which we then posted to our editor (who lives in Italy).

He is cutting on Adobe Premiere, and told me today that he received the footage but none of it works on his PC. He suggested that the codec is the only one not recognized by PCs and that he would prefer AVI files or MPEG-2...

Are MPEG-2 and AVI not going to have quality loss compared to the uncompressed DVCPRO HD files?

Any kind of software suggestion for letting him view/edit the files as they are on his PC?

Thanks kindly in advance.

K

[David Jimerson]

There's DVFilm's Raylight Decoder. (NOT Raylight; Raylight Decoder.) Should allow him to use the Quicktimes. Will be a bit of a performance hit, though.

(Hopefully, Apple will eventually get with the rest of the world and give up this slavish insistence on Quicktime conversion.)

[Khaled Lowe]

Thank you kindly for your help David. Is there any way perhaps that I could re-export the quicktime files from my end with no quality loss so that he can view/edit them on his PC?

[David Jimerson]

Not as DVCPRO. Anything uncompressed will be huge and unwieldy.

Raylight Decoder is probably your best bet. Or export back to P2.

[valladao65]

There's DVFilm's Raylight Decoder. (NOT Raylight; Raylight Decoder.) Should allow him to use the Quicktimes. Will be a bit of a performance hit, though.

(Hopefully, Apple will eventually get with the rest of the world and give up this slavish insistence on Quicktime conversion.)




I'm curious about the performance hit you're talking about.

Until now, I've been sending my files to Mac users via MacDrive with no issues going from PC to Mac. I got some footage that was log and transfered directly to quicktimes on a Mac and I'm trying to play and edit with them on my PC in PPro just as stated above.

I downloaded the trial version of Raylight Decoder Pro. The .mov files playback crystal clear in the quicktime player, but when I import them into Ppro, they look compressed and jaggied. I tried creating new projects with different frame rates and pixel aspect ratios, I tried to interpret the footage all with little success in improving the image quality.

Is this the 'performance hit' you're talking about with Raylight decoder? or am I possibly setting the project up incorrectly in PPro?
It seems odd the footage would look so good in the quicktime player and only have problems within PPro.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[jwiley20]

well fortunately apple has released a prores decoder for the pc:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/appleproresquicktimedecoder10forwindows.html

i've been using the DNxHD codec from avid which is their answer to DVCPro, which is also a free codec that is cross paltform and will work with any NLE or compositor:
http://www.avid.com/dnxhd/

as for raylight, that's an outdated solution that is expensive and proprietary. i'd stay away from it. why not have him use the original .mxf clips? If he's using Premiere CS3 he can use them.

[David Saraceno]

Why not send copies of the p2 cards on DVDs and have the editor import those?

[Shane Ross]

What David said. Do that and they get Raylight and there is ZERO quality loss. They edit from the original files.

[AwakenedFilms]

Probably deleted the footage off of the P2 after Log and transfer...

Let this be a lesson to newbs - Say this with me
"FCP plays well with quicktime",

"FCP makes everything quicktime",

"not everyone uses FCP",

"I hereby promise to make copies of my P2 cards before deleting and that includes Last Clip.txt"

By the way, I use FCP. A really good way of transferring P2 footage is to make an exact copy with finder, P2CMS or Disk Utility. Then, ingest into FCP. You will now have 2 copies of the footage (hopefully if wisdom is our friend, on two different HDDs).


Jason

[Nexis]

Probably deleted the footage off of the P2 after Log and transfer...

Let this be a lesson to newbs - Say this with me
"FCP plays well with quicktime",

"FCP makes everything quicktime",

"not everyone uses FCP",

"I hereby promise to make copies of my P2 cards before deleting and that includes Last Clip.txt"


What he said!

[mozingopj]

I'm going to be buying an HVX200 soon and this is very good info as I work on Mac & PC as well. Great suggestions to keep production moving forward! Thanks!

[valladao65]

Probably deleted the footage off of the P2 after Log and transfer...

Let this be a lesson to newbs - Say this with me
"FCP plays well with quicktime",

"FCP makes everything quicktime",

"not everyone uses FCP",

"I hereby promise to make copies of my P2 cards before deleting and that includes Last Clip.txt"

By the way, I use FCP. A really good way of transferring P2 footage is to make an exact copy with finder, P2CMS or Disk Utility. Then, ingest into FCP. You will now have 2 copies of the footage (hopefully if wisdom is our friend, on two different HDDs).


Jason
So, all I need is a time machine to go back make it happen. I guess thats more plausible than getting Apple to make this easier. :Drogar-Evil(DBG):


OK, here's another question...
Since raylight encoder is letting me view the files in quicktime, and I see there is a "save as" option available if you upgrade to quicktime pro, what formats are you able to 'save as'?
Will any of these other formats be more PremierePro (PC version) friendly?

<my little jab at Apple was purely playful, lets not get all crazy with one of those threads>