1080 24P Workflow Setup

S

scrambled2

New member
After much searching, I have decided to purchase an HVX200. I just have a couple of questions so that I can complete my setup purchase. We are shooting a short film and I wish to shoot at 1080P 24 and edit natively that way as well online so that vfx shots and the like can be shipped quickly. I plan on buying a firestore device so I can store footage in the field and offload to the master system later. Will Final Cut Pro 5.1 edit 1080P 24 natively and also do the appropriate conversion from the raw files recorded (which are 60i I believe with flags for the appropriate 24P frames, correct me if I'm wrong). Will I have to convert to quicktime first or what is your reccomended method for this type of workflow. I was also wondering what sort of data I will be dealing with so that I know how fast of hard drives I need to get and how much space I will need. If you could let me know your reccomendations or setups you know are successful in this sort of endeavor or could point me to links that would make it clear it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again,

Chris LeDoux
 
You would need FCP 5.1 (current version is actually 5.1.1) and shoot in 1080 24p Advanced. Then reverse telecine in Cinema Tools to get your 23.98 footage. Don't know what you mean when you say convert to QuickTime. That's how FCP works with MXF files; it rewraps the MXF to QuickTime .mov files. While the beauty of DVCPRO HD is its ability to perform on just a single internal media drive, I would strongly recommend at the very least a 4-drive raid. All flavors of HD except 24pN consume about 1 gb per minute.

Ned Soltz
 
You don't need to use the Cinema Tools to do that. When you import P2 footage, there is an "remove dup. frames..." option to do that conversion upon ingesting the P2 footage. I think a 4-drive RAID system is overkill. I'm doing a huge documentary on one single FW drive. Very fast, holds up very well. No performance problems.

When you ingest the P2 footage, FCP will convert to DVCPRO-HD QuickTime files inside you Capture Scratch folder automatically.

FCP can edit 1080p24, but you have to configure the Sequence to those settings yourself. Thus, you don't get any RT performance out of it. So, technically it's not "native", but it can be done. But yea, a 4-drive RAID can really be overkill. Unless you have a project that requires all that horse power for some reason.

Within this next week Focus and I hope to have a couple of new resources for FCP users detailing the trip from the HVX200 to the FS-100 into FCP. It'll detail alternative frame rates, setting up sequences, etc.
 
Yes, unfort. you DO need Cinema Tools to do that, as FCP 5.1 will do nothing in the way of getting your 1080 24pA clips to be 23.98fps. The remove advance pulldown button does NOTHING for 1080 24pA clips. Look at your file properties. They are all 29.97. Unless you reverse telecine like nsoltz indicated, you will be editing 29.97fps clips in a 23.98 timeline, which = stutter.

Either way, it's not a big deal. Cinema Tools is super easy to use. I learned all this all the hard way LAST WEEK and have been doing this, as I am currently editing my short film in 5.1.1...
 
I do believe that I am right on the need to use CT for 1080 24pA and interesting to see that Justin can confirm this one with his real-life experience.

Ned
 
Thanks

Thanks

I appreciate your help. I'll try it and see what happens. You would think that with all the hype about the HVX200 and FCP that trying to get the highest resolution at the most favored film frame rate would be a snap and not require Cinema Tools but maybe not. Does all 24 over 60i footage need to be treated this way? Even in SD from an XL-2 or a DVX100? I used to shoot 24a on both of them and just set a preset to remove the pulldown and capture away in FCP and it seem to work fine. Was that incorrect, or is this HD thing just still being developed by the companies? Thanks again for everyones help.

Chris
 
nsoltz said:
I do believe that I am right on the need to use CT for 1080 24pA and interesting to see that Justin can confirm this one with his real-life experience.

Ned
Click to expand...

Justin is 100% correct. I hope that Apple will get it's s**t together and start kicking some ass on this one!!!
 
Hey, no worries. I am trying to get a hold on all of this workflow stuff -- it can get convoluted sometimes, so thank god for this site! I was having the same questions/concerns that you were -- wouldn't FCP address this squarely, rather than force the user to go to a second application? There are some threads in here about this very topic -- how the FCP 5.1 literature indicated that it would be supported (that is, having advanced pulldown controls in FCP directly when working with 1080 24pA). However, it just does not seem to be the case. Whether you have "remove advanced pulldown" checked or unchecked does not alter the fact that the clips remain at 29.97fps, which is clearly not what you want if you are looking to edit and outsource something in 23.98 (24) fps.

From reading around in this site, I learned the Cinema Tools process of reverse telecine'ing the clips to conform to 23.98. Then when you literally drag them from your external HD (or whatever you've saved them to) into FCP, they appear in the Browser in the correct frame rate. Then you dump into your 23.98 time line, and no rendering is necessary because the frame rates and the editing timeline base are totally consistent.

I do not believe that ALL 24 over 60i footage needs to be treated in this way. Because FCP 5.1 seems to ONLY have an Easy Setup setting for 1080/60, it forces you to do circumvention tactics around that frame rate issue. With other recording modes, such as 720/24p material, there are Easy Setup settings already native to FCP 5.1 that offer the user a totally consistent sequence setting.

I hope that makes sense. It's frustrating at first, but once you figure it out, it feels very liberating. :)

Justin.
 
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