DV Stream to FCP: Is this a real workflow?

D

Dmac

Member
I'm a (new) media producer at a Big Ten school. I recently had a request from another editor to digitize a Betacam SP video and send it to him as a full quality DV Stream (.DV).

My thought to him was that Final Cut is going to need the DV Stream converted to a Quicktime, most likely in a DV NTSC setting. Why not encode the bastard so he can use it right away rather than crap around rendering the .dv or having to share it out of iMovie?

Am I just a greenhorn? or do I know something he doesn't?
 
The Beta is going to a Canopus analog to digital converter and out via its DV i/o connected to a G5 PowerMac via 4 to 6 pin Firewire. We're using iMovie HD to capture the stream and to export the final file to an external hard drive.

Thanks,
Dave
 
Why not just capture the DV i/o into FCP? Or feed S-video to a DV deck and dub Beta to DV tape. Then you get timecode control and everything is happy.

Noah
 
That does make sense--just hand off a dv tape and let the other guy import it however he likes with the benefits of timecode.

I guess what's puzzling me is why he requested a DV Stream (.dv). Is this something that professionals work with? I always thought that it would be a no-brainer for a Final Cut editor outputing to SD to want a Quicktime matching their project settings. If not that maybe an uncompressed Quicktime, but a Quicktime nontheless. I don't even think Final Cut can work with .dv w/o rendering.

Thanks again,
Dave
 
Not quite sure if Imovie HD is in the mix- you should also be on FCP. But at any rate a dubbed tape will be much simpler.

Noah
 
The BIG issue with using iMovie to capture for use in FCP is that iMovie DOESN'T CAPTURE TIMECODE! This information is VERY important. So important that working without it would be stupid. Sorry...but that's the truth.

Why are you not using FCP to capture for FCP?
 
Basically, our only FCP machine was occupied with editing a more complex project (nice excuse, I know). I definitely agree that the timecode issue is significant. I didn't realize that. I guess I'll push to get that machine upgraded (it's a editing workstation for professors who want to do basic capture and editing of lectures and such.)

Maybe a better question is, what kind of file & compression would you request from someone digitizing off of an analog SD source that's the best combination of absolute best quality and editability in Final Cut? What about purely for archival quality?
 
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