AF100 & FCP Workflow

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FilmBoy77

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is anybody using FCP to edit footage from the AF100? if so, what would be the best workflow? would FCP 6 be compatible?

i've read on other forums that converting the footage to DVCproHD doesnt look too good and the importing native footage uses ten times the hard drive space than p2 footage?

havent got the camera yet, still reading up on it and making sure i have all my ducks in a row before i pull the trigger. i'm coming from an hpx/p2 world and a little green on the AF100 at this point.
 
Use Log & Transfer and transcode to ProRes 422 or ProRes HQ. ProRes HQ will take up roughly about a gig/min. Yes, it more than the native footage, but you don't really have any other choice as FCP can't edit the native footage. Otherwise you can try Clipwrap to rewrap the MTS files in Quicktime (may not work well in FCP) or Premiere Pro CS5, which can edit the native footage.
 
oh ok so how much space does the native footage take up per minute in Premiere CS5 since ProRes 422/HQ will take up a gig per minute in FCP? i'm actually going to be getting Premiere CS5 in a couple of weeks so maybe that is the better choice to import the footage to my hard drive and then just import the QT files in FCP so that i can edit with FCP Studio - would that work okay?
 
I think it's a little over 100MB/min for the native AVCHD in PH mode. But it's not an edit-friendly codec so your mileage may vary.
 
So far, I am having problems with clipwrap'd AF100 clips. Log and Transfer is the only way I've gotten the video into FCP6 correctly.

Using MTS files in Premiere Pro works like a charm though.
 
how does your footage look when using log in transfer in FCP? also what version are you using? also did you transcode to ProRes 422 or ProRes HQ like mentioned above?
 
I don't have an AF100 yet (Friday), but have imported GH1 and GH2 footage and it's indiscernible from the AVCHD other than ProRes HQ's size and that it's edit-friendly. I always use ProRes HQ. Hard drives are cheap so I don't care about the file size.
 
I don't have an AF101 yet but I have been editing AVCHD from my Panasonic SDT750 in FCP 7 via log and transfer. It looks identical to me (although I'm fairly new to this) and seems to be very fast, at least I'm not experiencing any delays working this way - this is on an iMac i7.

I converted it to Prores 422 HQ (the Panasonic application note recommends LT which uses less space but I haven't tried that yet) and I also saw disc sizes of about a GB/minute - good job I bought 4TB of hard discs for Christmas :)
 
As for PAL I have a canon HF11 camcorder that shoots AVCHD in 1920x1080i at 24mbs the same as the AF100/101.

I find that pro res LT is fine for this level of codec and using 422 or HQ will not add any quality and just use up disc space.
 
sometimes if i'm doing a quick edit that won't get any color correction or effects i'll log and transfer it as apple intermediate codec. saves on file size quite a bit.
 
I'll second the transcode to Apple ProRes LT. That's what I've been doing and it's working fine. Also it's in the white paper having to do with editing AVCHD on FCP (forgot where I downloaded that but I got the link on this board).
 
take2visualmedia said:
I'll second the transcode to Apple ProRes LT. That's what I've been doing and it's working fine. Also it's in the white paper having to do with editing AVCHD on FCP (forgot where I downloaded that but I got the link on this board).
Click to expand...

What we do with all footage that is transcoded to ProRes using Log and Transfer is import as ProRes Proxy, do an edit or ten, and then before we move to things like VFX or compositing, use media manager to trim down all the clips to their edited size (plus 5-10 second handles) and then batch-capture (which simply brings back up the log and transfer window) as ProRes 422 HQ. That way we're not taking up valuable disk space with shots we may never use.

Additionally, we save each and every card as a disk image in its original state, which gets backed up with the entire project and so is always on hand if we need it.

Has worked very well at keeping things fast and reasonably lightweight until we need to bring in the "big guns."

Hope it helps!
 
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mcgeedigital said:
That is s great workflow idea with any tapeless format.
Click to expand...

Matt - the disk images have saved my (growing) rear end several times with projects shot using P2 media where we were renting P2 cards and so couldn't keep the media around for as long as we might have liked.
 
GaryNattrass said:
As for PAL I have a canon HF11 camcorder that shoots AVCHD in 1920x1080i at 24mbs the same as the AF100/101.

I find that pro res LT is fine for this level of codec and using 422 or HQ will not add any quality and just use up disc space.
Click to expand...

Remember, just because the bit rate is the same doesn't mean the quality is the same. I do believe the HF11 doesn't support the same type of intermediate frames as the AF100 footage, so there is probably more detail. When I shot on my HF21 before I sold it, the footage was definitely less detailed than what I see on my AF100.

All I am saying is I would transcode to LT and higher, then compare the images. Just to be safe :)
 
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