HMC 150 workflow in FCS

[Lenilenapi]

I'm sure thus has been discussed before but I don't see it in a recent thread and its not on sticky.

What is the recommended workflow for HMC-150 footage on an Intel Mac.

Is it to immediately convert to Pro Res?

Is there a downside to converting to Pro Res?

Any issues?

What is the best way and where duiring the process.

Lenny levy

[nantnee]

Converting to Pro Res has been glitchy in FC, for me at least. A lot of people here use Toast 9/10 to convert to either Pro Res or DVCHD-Pro. I've been converting to Pro Res, looks really good, but the only downside is huge file size. I believe I converted a 8min video to Pro Res HQ, and it was 17gb. It was somewhere along those line. Best to have a raid setup or external (raid preferred). But ya, once you convert to Pro Res or DVCHD, you'll fly through editing.

[Spec-Comm]

I heard that AJA just released a new product at NAB that converts the AVCHD content to DVCPROHD for easier editing and it's a hardware device. It does the transfer in real-time. I'll check it out tomorrow to see what it's all about. We carry their products and I hope that this one will be a hit too.

Sincerely,

Andrew Hoffman
Vice President
Specialized Communications Corp.
20940 Twin Springs Dr.
Smithsburg, MD 21783-1510 USA
800-359-1858
301-790-0103
Fax: 301-790-0173
andrewh@spec-comm.com
www.spec-comm.com
www.twitter.com/speccomm

[FarCountry]

I've been copying card contents to a drive I use for archiving originals, then log & transfer in FCP to pro res. It works like a champ for me, and as said, one down-side is large file size, but editing is pretty smooth. I am hugely looking forward to a faster processor so I can cut down on transcode times.

[Humanoid Typhoon]

No probs for me (at this time). Goes right into prores, pretty much real time if not a bit faster. Only downside to prores that would matter is the HUGE file size it turns out to be. About 7 times larger than the avchd file.

[tigerten02]

I've been using FCS2 and a 150, works great. I use an iMac with 4 GB ram and an external FW 800 drive. ProRes is about 20% larger than P2, and about 7.5 times larger than the original AVCHD files. ProRes HQ is about 10X larger than AVCHD. This depends upon shooting format, 1080 30p is larger than 720 24p. So YMMV.

ProRes works really well in FCP, and the transcode time is about the same as ingesting DV tape. ProRes looks good, and ProRes HQ looks great.

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Do you see a huge NOTICEABLE difference b/w ProRes HQ? If there is a huge difference, I don't mind the extra space but not if its not easily discernable.

[aalleexx]

you cannot transcode to prores HQ, if you are transcoding using fcp, it will only transcode to normal prores, now once in fcp you can export as prores 422 HQ but for what? you cannot add pixels that you didnt have to begin with

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Why can't you transcode to ProRes HQ?

[aalleexx]

its just not an option when you are in the log and transfer window, it only lets you transcode to regular prores 422 or to AIC (apple intermediate codec) aic sucks by the way, stick with prores


Why can't you transcode to ProRes HQ?

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Ah I see. I never bothered to try and change the settings when importing footage.

Question still stands, if using Toast 9/10 to transcode to ProRes HQ, is there a discernible difference in quality?

[aalleexx]

probably not, due to the bit rate of the avccam files, and to top it off if you think regular prores files are huge, take a seat beacause prores HQ is even bigger, not worth the hassle and then you still need a computer that will be able to handle the load of prores 422 HQ which comes at you at the scary rate of 150-220 Mbit/s so you will need some heavy cpu horsepower and a very fast raid

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Cool. Thanks for the great answer! :)

[Humanoid Typhoon]

I'm using toast 9.0.2 to transcode to ProRes. The file is 24mins long yet it is telling me it is going to be ONLY 266 MB. That doesn't sound right. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I tried using HDV preset and also quicktime preset to choose ProRes 422 and it always is about the same final size.

Any suggestions please?

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Well...Toast was just estimating incorrectly. Came out to 24GB so that's about right (6 times the original file size).

All the artifacting I was getting while transcoding thru FCP is gone.

[marginalhdguru]

Well...Toast was just estimating incorrectly. Came out to 24GB so that's about right (6 times the original file size).

All the artifacting I was getting while transcoding thru FCP is gone.
Hey Humanoid,
What artifacts were you getting in FCP and can you do a bullet point workflow on how you're transcoding the AVCHD Cards via Toast (does it matter between Toast 9 or 10?).


Thanks!

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Hey there,

I was getting these weird color artifacting and break ups. I deleted the clip so I no longer have them to show you. I trashed the ProRes file because I'm using a mix of HDV footage and my HMC150 footage.

I've found that when using ProRes files and turning on the scopes, it requires me to render when it didn't need to before turning on scopes. Since I'm grading ALL my footage, I need scopes to flow rather smoothly.

I now transcode to high definition video (HDV) and it comes out as AIC. It mixes perfectly well with the HDV footage in requiring no rendering unless I stack 3 way CC along with a dissolve.

This is what I did :

- Start toast 9
- Click on the Ipod with TV icon
- Click on video convert
- Add the MTS file from the folder structure of the AVCHD card
- Hit the record button
- Chose the appropriate codec (in this case was HDV in which toast kicks out an AIC/apple intermediate codec)
- Selected where it was going

And that's it.

Good luck!

[ulisses]

Here using Toast I get audio out of sync when converting AVCHD to MOV.

Ulisses

[Humanoid Typhoon]

Here using Toast I get audio out of sync when converting AVCHD to MOV.

Ulisses


Which version are you using? I think 9.0.2 was the last version to have sync'ing correctly.

[ulisses]

Using version 10

Thanks,
Ulisses