take2visualmedia
Well-known member
Thank you. That is the link I was speaking of.
AF100 & FCP Workflow
- Thread starter FilmBoy77
- Start date
Thank you. That is the link I was speaking of.
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
Nice find! They seem to think LT is okay as well, although they don't mention the AF100 specifically. I am still going to test it, but the rest of the document is pretty much what I'd recommend as well from my testing of working in FinalCut so far.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Yes, CS4 does support the files, but frankly, it's not really very good at it. CS5 is a massive improvement over CS4, primarily in editing speed and efficiency of AVCHD files.
Also, CS4 has a bug where the chroma gets all jiggied up in 24pN AVC footage; that's fixed in CS5. For anyone working with AVCHD (or DSLR footage) I'd highly heartily recommend upgrading to CS5 over CS4.
What's the best way to backup original footage from the AF100? I'm new to this type of post production workflow. What steps do you guys take from migrating footage from cards to computer, and how you go about making a duplicate. Someone on here said making a disc image works fairly well. I wanted to get others comments on this.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
Thanks for asking this. I too am also thinking about the same thing, and have not found the best method yet.
Stu Siegal
Well-known member
This really deserves its own thread, as not all of us can go the LTO route, would be nice to hear others best practices. Care to do the honors swanny?
Sure thing!
Here's what I do with all my projects. I'm on a Mac.
When on set I backup the cards to 2 separate external hard drives. I use the portable bus-powered USB and/or FW drives for this. Currently I like to use the Seagate GoFlex portable drives because they have a removable interface that lets you use them with USB 2, USB 3, and FW800 (there's eSATA but it requires a powered eSATA port which is rare). You may be be wondering why I don't backup to a GRAID or some other more robust drive. That's because these portable drives are smaller, cheaper, don't need their own power, and are solely for a backup.
I create a folder on each drive that says "Project Name Video Reels" and in that folder are numbered folders for each card. Because I backup up to 2 drives I'm not worried about losing all the footage because if one drive goes bad I have the other, and the bad drive can be replaced cheaply as well. Also, since these are strictly backup drives they don't get much use and should last longer than a hard drive that gets regular use.
Copying the cards to the backup drive can either be done with a simple copy in Finder or using an app like ShotPut Pro, which does a verification of the copy and can copy to 2 drives at the same time faster than Finder can. I don't make disk images because that takes more time and if the image goes bad all the files in that image are lost. You also have to open/mount the disk image to access the files. With using ShotPut Pro (or even just copying with Finder) you have access to each file in the card structure without having to mount the image and it's less risky in my opinion.
When entering post-production, a copy of the cards are copied from one of the backup drives to a RAID-5 array, and then the backup drives are locked away.
Then the footage is imported into the editing software. I currently use FCP so I transcode to ProRes HQ. Sure, I could go with LT or regular 422, but HQ will show less generation loss than LT or 422. I don't transcode to ProRes proxy either. I prefer to edit at full quality and would rather not spend time later having to media manage to the final codec. Hard drives are cheap, so storage space isn't an issue. It also allows vfx work to begin alongside the edit at full quality, rather than waiting until the edit is done or having different versions of those shots in the project. And once the edit it done I can jump right into Color and grade the project without having to break for media management.
As post-production progresses I update one or both of the backup drives periodically with the project files, additional media (vfx, sound fx, music etc.), or anything else that pertains to the project. When the project is finally finished I do a final complete backup of everything to both drives and store those away. Sometimes I save the ProRes HQ transcodes and sometimes I don't. It depends on the project, and whether I do or not new transcodes can always be generated because I save the original cards.
This method also gives you essentially 3 backups of all the original media during post-production (2 backup drives, plus the RAID-5 array). And with the RAID-5 array if one drive goes bad then still no data is lost because you just replace the drive and the RAID controller rebuilds the entire array.
When on set I backup the cards to 2 separate external hard drives. I use the portable bus-powered USB and/or FW drives for this. Currently I like to use the Seagate GoFlex portable drives because they have a removable interface that lets you use them with USB 2, USB 3, and FW800 (there's eSATA but it requires a powered eSATA port which is rare). You may be be wondering why I don't backup to a GRAID or some other more robust drive. That's because these portable drives are smaller, cheaper, don't need their own power, and are solely for a backup.
I create a folder on each drive that says "Project Name Video Reels" and in that folder are numbered folders for each card. Because I backup up to 2 drives I'm not worried about losing all the footage because if one drive goes bad I have the other, and the bad drive can be replaced cheaply as well. Also, since these are strictly backup drives they don't get much use and should last longer than a hard drive that gets regular use.
Copying the cards to the backup drive can either be done with a simple copy in Finder or using an app like ShotPut Pro, which does a verification of the copy and can copy to 2 drives at the same time faster than Finder can. I don't make disk images because that takes more time and if the image goes bad all the files in that image are lost. You also have to open/mount the disk image to access the files. With using ShotPut Pro (or even just copying with Finder) you have access to each file in the card structure without having to mount the image and it's less risky in my opinion.
When entering post-production, a copy of the cards are copied from one of the backup drives to a RAID-5 array, and then the backup drives are locked away.
Then the footage is imported into the editing software. I currently use FCP so I transcode to ProRes HQ. Sure, I could go with LT or regular 422, but HQ will show less generation loss than LT or 422. I don't transcode to ProRes proxy either. I prefer to edit at full quality and would rather not spend time later having to media manage to the final codec. Hard drives are cheap, so storage space isn't an issue. It also allows vfx work to begin alongside the edit at full quality, rather than waiting until the edit is done or having different versions of those shots in the project. And once the edit it done I can jump right into Color and grade the project without having to break for media management.
As post-production progresses I update one or both of the backup drives periodically with the project files, additional media (vfx, sound fx, music etc.), or anything else that pertains to the project. When the project is finally finished I do a final complete backup of everything to both drives and store those away. Sometimes I save the ProRes HQ transcodes and sometimes I don't. It depends on the project, and whether I do or not new transcodes can always be generated because I save the original cards.
This method also gives you essentially 3 backups of all the original media during post-production (2 backup drives, plus the RAID-5 array). And with the RAID-5 array if one drive goes bad then still no data is lost because you just replace the drive and the RAID controller rebuilds the entire array.
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Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
All ProRes 422 are 10-bit (and just went and verified).
So here is the dilemma I get into. I would shoot a ton of stuff on my 7D and put into directories as you have. After a project is long gone, I might want to go find a clip to use for something else. I end up going into each directory and going through each of the files to find in.
Going to AVCHD makes this worse, as I don't want to keep archives of anything but the original files. What would be nice is a program that you can point to a root folder, and have it bring up a thumbnail of every video under that folder, and allow you to view them.
I *might* be able to do this with AVCCAM, it looks like, but wow, do I wish the interface was a little better.
Are there any other solutions I am overlooking?
So here is the dilemma I get into. I would shoot a ton of stuff on my 7D and put into directories as you have. After a project is long gone, I might want to go find a clip to use for something else. I end up going into each directory and going through each of the files to find in.
Going to AVCHD makes this worse, as I don't want to keep archives of anything but the original files. What would be nice is a program that you can point to a root folder, and have it bring up a thumbnail of every video under that folder, and allow you to view them.
I *might* be able to do this with AVCCAM, it looks like, but wow, do I wish the interface was a little better.
Are there any other solutions I am overlooking?
Right. I'll fix my error.
What I do is load the project in FCP. All the media will go offline if it's not in the same folder anymore. You can reconnect if you want. For the clip you're looking for, you can select it and then batch capture. That will open Log & Transfer and you transcode and import that clip again. FCP remembers which file it was. You may have to tell FCP where the reel is now if it's on a different drive than when originally imported. Another thing you can do, and this is something I do, is name your shots with the reel # and clip # included. So I'd have a shot/clip named like this in the browser: "20C take 3 (Reel 004, Clip 5, File A483DS)". You set your own file naming presets in Log & Transfer so all you have to do is type "20C" in the shot field and "3" in the take field. The rest, including the word "take", is already in the preset so it's automatic. That way, if I wanted, I can find the MTS file myself in the Finder because I name/number all my reels. All I have to do is go to the "Project Name Video Reels" folder, then into the 004 folder, and then find the file A483DS.MTS. That's how I do it.
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
That would be if I did the editing or the clip was used. Sometimes on location, I'll see something cool and shoot some stock footage I will use later. Fortunately I have a good memory of shooting this stuff. Unfortunately, it's not perfect to remember the day, or shot number. So, let's say I have about 50 shots of butterflies (because I do actually). I wouldn't want to convert all that to ProRes because I am not using it all. I just want to scan through my archived folders and view the clips.
I think what I will do is setup a sample directory of a bunch of clips and then test out AVCCAM and also see if there are any other solutions.
I think what I will do is setup a sample directory of a bunch of clips and then test out AVCCAM and also see if there are any other solutions.
I see what you're saying. Maybe create a Premiere Pro project that points to all your AVCHD media. Add new clips to it as you shoot and sort of use it as an iPhoto for your video. You could give them descriptions in the project too, so when you do go looking for something you can look at how you described it, then watch it, and even export it in a different format.
tflak
Veteran
You might want to check out FlamingoHD. Haven't had time to check it out myself. There's a free demo.
http://www.shedworx.com/flamingohd
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
Not bad. Wish it had a native player in the program, or at least, I haven't found a way to make it play anything yet. This could be a workable solution, though I will continue to look. I wish Toast X had a demo so I could try it as well.
Keep us posted if you find a good solution. I'm interested in this as well