HMC-150 & Final Cut - How To

USLatin

Panamaniac
What setting changes have you guys made to work with the straight footage from the HMC-150 in FC? Or do you always transcode to ProRes?
 
Transcoding is required as of now until FCP can edit natively. Personally I have been transcoding to DVCPROHD with Toast 9 and working in FCP 5.

All though i have been thinking of jumping ship and building a quadcore PC and running Premeire CS4 to work with the AVCHD natively. I have always used Macs but honestly these days I'm all about getting the work done and using whatever will accomplish the task the easiest.
 
Well I guess at least Toast converts all automatically... right?
I assume that.

Is FC Expected to support AVCHD in the near future? Ever?
 
Also, how heavy are the DVCPRO HD or ProRes clips? I suppose they would be lighter than the HVX-200/a or HPX-170... right? How would the 1080p stuff edit on a Mac Laptop?
 
Well I guess at least Toast converts all automatically... right?

Toast can batch-convert all your files.

Is FC Expected to support AVCHD in the near future? Ever?

Rumors say FCP 3 will support AVCHD natively.

USLatin said:
Also, how heavy are the DVCPRO HD or ProRes clips? I suppose they would be lighter than the HVX-200/a or HPX-170... right? How would the 1080p stuff edit on a Mac Laptop?

I think ProRes clips are heavier than DVCPRO HD clips. But also, ProRes supports full HD resolution while DVCPRO HD does not. Read about all ProRes here:

http://newsletters.creativecow.net/newsletters/more_news/index.php?p=2007/05-30/2.php
 
when you log & transfer it transcodes the clips to pro ress, not sure what you mean by dragging to the timeline? if you were to try and do a file>import a clip off of the card fcp would give you an error. you must either go through file>log & transfer or transcode using toast 9.
 
Ok, so FC has a log and transfer function that transcode the stuff for you... that is great news for my friend so long as his laptop can cut the 1080 stuff with ease...

...what I meant to say about the ProRes files not being as heavy was that the AVCHD files from the HMC-150 are MUCH lighter than the DVCPRO HD files from the 200/a or 170... so... wouldn't you be able to transcode them into a lighter file size without losing resolution? And to be clear: Does ProRes or DVCPRO HD allow you to set a bit-rate? If not is there any other lossless alternative codec available from the log & transfer function?
 
Toast can batch-convert all your files.



Rumors say FCP 3 will support AVCHD natively.



I think ProRes clips are heavier than DVCPRO HD clips. But also, ProRes supports full HD resolution while DVCPRO HD does not. Read about all ProRes here:

http://newsletters.creativecow.net/newsletters/more_news/index.php?p=2007/05-30/2.php

Where are you getting your rumors from? Btw, do you mean FCS 3? FCP is on version 6 now. I have a HF10 that I would love to be able to natively edit it's footage in FCP.
 
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I believe it was at IBC in September that Apple announced that the next version of FCP would support AVC-HD natively. But I don't think they said whether that would be a downloadable "point" upgrade, or whether it'll wait for FCS3 (which we used to all think would be announced at NAB, but since Apple pulled out of NAB now I don't know if we have any real idea of when to expect it. Macworld maybe?)
 
I believe it was at IBC in September that Apple announced that the next version of FCP would support AVC-HD natively. But I don't think they said whether that would be a downloadable "point" upgrade, or whether it'll wait for FCS3 (which we used to all think would be announced at NAB, but since Apple pulled out of NAB now I don't know if we have any real idea of when to expect it. Macworld maybe?)

Thanks Barry!

You gave me some hope!
 
The next version of FCP, in all probability, will be a major paid upgrade. Although NAB is the traditional announcement time, nothing is set in stone.

LAFCPUG.org orchestrates a huge FCP SuperMeet at MWSF each year, and Cupertino is only 45 miles away. Apple reps usually speak at the meet.
 
Native editing would be sweet, but I think I'll need a new comp for that... I"m hoping to pick up a new Mac Pro when they are announced in january, or maybe buy one of the older models cheap.
 
Not rain on anybody's parade, but I don't know of any information to indicate there will be new MacPros come January.

Do you know otherwise?
 
the last update on the mac pro machines was in january. the average lifecycle for the mac pro is about 220 days. so its about 110 days over that right now. and with new xeon processors released recently its only a short time before they'll show up in new machines. it might now be january but it should be in the 1st quarter.
 
No official leads but that seems to be what apple and when their towers are refreshed. I"m at the point where my dual G5 just isn't cutting the mustard, and I can't convert the clips through FCP on this box. it'll be time to shell out another 3k, but it has to be done. I usually get 4 solid years on each Mac and with the amount of crap that goes through it, that's a decent deal.
 
Build yourself a hack.. intosh! So you can overclock the crap out of it... I find that overclocking is a must if you already know how. If you have done it then you have heatsinks for almost anything on any board, and the seven years of life you will cut out of the back end of the life of ALL of your overclockable gear, well it won't mean doodly when you feel it is time to dump a couple of hundred in it for faster something, now you can just get a new CPU or RAM, and every so often a new Motherboard. The thing is can we get a dual core motherboard to run? But there's got to be a way, muahahaha...

But yea, just buying one has it's clear benefits. :)
 
Product cycles is one way of guessing at upgrade. I'm just asking if someone knows something.

As to overclocking -- the proapps are historically sensitive to hardware. To me, at least, it isn't worth the risk.
 
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