Final Cut Pro and the HVX p2....

[Mintkarla]

I'm going to be editing a bunch of footage from an HVX P2 card that was shot with a redrock adapter (all upside down and whatnot) in 1080i, and I was wondering how to best set up my Lacie drive to begin. I've got the 500GB so I think I should have enough room to cut there.


My main issue is that the laptop we were running from is Windows, so the drive has been formatted for PC and is read-only on the Mac where I'll be editing. What's the easiest way to change this so I can edit on the Lacie itself? I really hope it's not going to involve moving all those files.

A few other questions/concerns:
1.) How would you guys set up your scratch disks for this task, considering all the different folders and stuff that comes along with those strange files?
1.) Is there a faster way to flip all the footage around besides selecting the clip, using "Flop", and applying to both? Like, is there a way to flip all the clips at once, maybe even before bringing them into FCP?

2.) What colour correction programs would you reccommend to aid with lowlight issues? We're desaturating to black and white for the entire film, maybe magic bullet?
3.) We shot 1080i 24p, so do I need to set up an HD timeline to edit this stuff? Cos right now when I pull clips into the timeline, I have to render them. What codec does the P2 use? Or will you always have to render each clip regardless because of size?

[VaricamLife]

Hard drive - To my knowledge, you can read/write to a Fat 32 formatted hard drive on both Windows and Macintosh systems. So as long as you format to Fat 32 and dump to that you should be okay. Though Fat 32 has a 2 GB limit for files, so if you have any really long clips, that could become an issue. Unless you can be sure that won't happen, I think you'll want to track down an Apple laptop, someway, somehow.

Scratch Disks - Every "P2 Import" you do will send the MOVs to your scratch disk, so despite the hundreds of P2 'card' folders you might have, you can still bunch all the MOVs into one dedicated folder quite easily (it will do that naturally on its own, unless you work to make it not). Set your scratch disk to a specific folder and then don't change it. Voila now ever MOV that FCP makes from P2 footage will be at an easy to find spot.

Flop the footage - I'm not a big AE guy, so you'll have to confirm with someone that is, but I would think you could run a batch process through AE that could do it all for you. Either that or Shake. Been so long since I did the batch stuff in Shake, so I can't recall for sure, but it certainly sounds like something you could do through it.

Color Correction - first off, if you have vector scopes, try FCP's stuff. I know some guys that do amazing jobs just with FCPs tools and a vector scope (hardware one). They just know how to use the tools. Beyond that I'd look to that new application, Final Touch HD. Haven't had a chance to really dig into it, but looked promising. Or if you have the budget get it to a color correction facility and let them Davinci2k it for one hell of a sweet color correction session.

Your timeline - Go to Easy Setups and then select DVCPRO HD 1080i60. Then try dumping footage into new sequences created after you have it put on that setting. If that still doesn't work, go into the sequence settings and just tweak it a bit to get it to what you need (might need to adjust the editing timebase). If you are putting DVCPro footage of any kind onto a timeline and getting the red render line then your sequence settings are wrong. There will be a sequence setting that will work for you, you won't have to always render everything. I think Barry mentioned in another post that in the 1080i 24p setting its actually a 60i wrapper around your 24p footage. So yes you footage is 24p, but because of the 60i wrapper you'll be using the DVCPro HD 1080i60 setting. You can ask him or read his book for further information about that.

cheers.

[THoff]

Small correction: FAT32 limits file sizes to 4GB, not 2GB. The HVX uses FAT32 as the file system for P2 cards, so you will never encounter a MXF file that cannot be transferred intact to a hard drive formatted using FAT32.

[andy_starbuck]

Here is a method for inverting a lot of footage in Final Cut Pro.

#1) Select one clip in the timeline and apply the 'flop' filter and set it to 'both'.
a) Click on the Effects tab. Find "Video Filters > Perspective > Flop"
b) Drag Flop onto the selected clip.
c) Double click on the clip in the timeline to open it in the viewer.
d) Click on the "Filters" tab in the viewer.
e) Click on the pull-down menu in the filter that defaults to horizontal, and set it to "both".

#2) Create a 'saved effect'.
f) In the bin/effects window, click on your project tab to bring it to the front.
g) Place your cursor over the word "Flop" in the filter tab in the viewer window.
h) Drag "Flop" from the viewer window into the bin window and drop it near your other clips. You have now created a "saved effect". The word "Flop" appears in the bin. And this copy has the "both" setting already applied.

#3) Select all the clips in a timeline. Drag the saved effect "Flop" from the bin window onto the timeline.

All of the clips in the timeline are now inverted.

a votre service,

Andy

[projectsplat]

My advice would be to reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the drive will run like a piece of ..... for editing when it is formatted as FAT 32.

Cheers

Al

[AshG]

I do this all the time. A PC is just plain faster and more reliable with P2Genie than a Mac. I backup to my internal AND a fat32 external at the same time, then take that external to my Mac (or clients) and dump it to the fiber raid at my office and edit from there. This has been a rock-solid flow for me.



ash =o)

[Jarek Zabczynski]

My advice would be to reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the drive will run like a piece of ..... for editing when it is formatted as FAT 32.

Cheers

Al

I was always told to leave journaling off for my scratch disks.

[BollingerPro]

What is wrong with having Journaling enabled on a scratch disk? Doesn't it keep it from getting fragmented?