Canon HF100 Mac Workflow

E

Esozt

New member
Hey guys,

I just bought a HF100 due to the rave reviews of the HF10 and HF100 on this message board. I had a question about the editing workflow on a Mac (PowerMac) and I was wondering if anyone had run into this.

So, from what I've found AVCHD won't play natively or edit natively on Mac. I see that Final Cut 6 has a patch for editing it, that still requires a conversion. That only works for Intel-based Macs, however. So, searching I found this program called VoltaicHD which converts it to Apple's Intermediate Codec.

Has anyone used this or any other program you may know about?

I'd really love for native AVC editing, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Thanks
 
I'm interested in the MAC workflow also. I have an HF10 and stopped playing with it cause I couldn't do anything with the files. Time to re-visit this.....

Thanks, frisco
 
log and import in FCP will convert the files to ProRes - they look awesome. Has to be directly from the card though in my testing.

As for native playback, doesn't appear to be happening at this time. I work on Sony Vegas more than FCP and they playback pretty well on those timelines. However I got so used to going to an intermediate codec with Vegas 8 and Canon file issues that importing the AVCHD into FCP as ProRes doesn't bother me. It's really not much more time than importing the native files themselves, you just deal with the larger file sizes.

cheno
 
What about Final Cut Express?

I have Final Cut Express on a Intel Macbook Pro and FCP on a Mac Tower Power PC.

frisco
 
Yeah -- FCP 6.03 looks like a viable solution, but you need an Intel-based Mac for that, and I've got a PowerMac. I decided to go the VoltaicHD route and it does a pretty decent job. The only problem is the length of time it takes to convert. I shot about 2.5 hours last night and its only about 7% converted after about 6 hours. So its gonna take some time.

Kinda defeats one of the key purposes of solid state recording. I really wish for native editing. I wonder if someone will make a hardware decoder so I can view and edit in the native format. Anyone ever seen anything like this for AVCHD?
 
That takes all the fun out of it.......

frisco

Esozt said:
Yeah -- FCP 6.03 looks like a viable solution, but you need an Intel-based Mac for that, and I've got a PowerMac. I decided to go the VoltaicHD route and it does a pretty decent job. The only problem is the length of time it takes to convert. I shot about 2.5 hours last night and its only about 7% converted after about 6 hours. So its gonna take some time.

Kinda defeats one of the key purposes of solid state recording. I really wish for native editing. I wonder if someone will make a hardware decoder so I can view and edit in the native format. Anyone ever seen anything like this for AVCHD?
Click to expand...
 
Chenopup said:
log and import in FCP will convert the files to ProRes - they look awesome. Has to be directly from the card though in my testing.

As for native playback, doesn't appear to be happening at this time. I work on Sony Vegas more than FCP and they playback pretty well on those timelines. However I got so used to going to an intermediate codec with Vegas 8 and Canon file issues that importing the AVCHD into FCP as ProRes doesn't bother me. It's really not much more time than importing the native files themselves, you just deal with the larger file sizes.

cheno
Click to expand...

I've also read about setting FCP to ingest the footage into a Apple Intermediate Codec, but I'm still having trouble. I'm using the latest version of FCP Express(may be the problem) and when I choose log and transfer, I can't seem to make the files pop up for transfer. Any suggestions?
 
The files may be huge (17.5 MBs!) but I really like the FCP Log and Transfer workflow with Canon AVCHD and ProRes. It didn't take much longer than realtime to convert my HF10 17mbs clips to ProRes, and that's with a 2.2ghz Core2duo MacBook Pro.

Much faster to render effects than HDV and the intermediate quality is superb.

I'm really excited for the HF11 with the max 24mbs recording. Very nice little cam with a good AVC encoder.

I used the HF10 with a Brevis for the first time yesterday. Here's a test grab:
1220998427.jpg
 
Esozt said:
I'd really love for native AVC editing, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Careful what you ask for, you may just get it!

ProRes editing is worth the trouble of uprgrading to an Intel Mac. Hard drives are cheap and fast now, why burden your computer with AVCHD editing? It's super-cpu intensive and not worth the hassle, IMO. HDV editing is barely tolerable, as it is.
 
Barlow - great grab - I've been meaning to stick my HF100 on my LEX. I'm very impressed with the footage and too can't wait for the higher bitrate.

As for the ingest of the AVCHD, I was blown away at really how fast it is to just pull if off the card and into ProRes - pretty snappy. Now with the decoder for Windows, it's nice to have this format for both FCP and Vegas.
 
Chenopup said:
Barlow - great grab - I've been meaning to stick my HF100 on my LEX. I'm very impressed with the footage and too can't wait for the higher bitrate.
Click to expand...

Thanks, shot that with a Nikon 85mm prime and I think I was all the way open at 1.4. I'm sure I could get sharper stuff but I was having fun going for really shallow shots.

Kind of funny how the little Canon cam just sort of hangs off the adapter. ;) It's like a tiny little recorder at the end of the bazooka.

Chenopup said:
As for the ingest of the AVCHD, I was blown away at really how fast it is to just pull if off the card and into ProRes - pretty snappy. Now with the decoder for Windows, it's nice to have this format for both FCP and Vegas.
Click to expand...

Yes, very impressed with the ProRes conversion speed on my laptop. So, what does it convert it to on Vegas?

Incidentally, I got phenomenal slow mo from the 1080i mode. The fact that it records a full raster 1920 horizontal makes for very good deinterlacing and conversion to 720. It's noticeably better than my HDV 1080i conversions to 720, which I was reasonably happy with.
 
Elton said:
So, what does it convert it to on Vegas?
Click to expand...

The new ProRes decoder from Apple allows ProRes footage to be played back on Mac / PC's now with QT. Very nice and it plays back as good as Cineform intermediates on the Vegas timeline. So straight to the timeline playing back in ProRes glory.
 
Okay, I'll ask my question again, what are the steps in getting the avchd files off the card and onto the log and transfer window? I can't even get them to show up and before I set my settings to AIC Pro Res.
 
I don't know if FCExpress will do it correctly. I had problems with my USB SD card reader, so I just plugged the camera into the laptop via USB device mode and FCP 6.0.4 Log and Transfer had no trouble finding the volume and the media files.

Looking at the Final Cut Express AVCHD editing demo movie on Apple's website, it would appear that it should work the same way as 6.0.4.

Maybe try plugging the camera directly to the computer like I did. Don't know what else to try.

I have to say I'm not a big AIC fan; its much lower quality than ProRes and will add noticeable artifacting to the already heavily compressed video.
 
hf100 w/ fcp

hf100 w/ fcp

so i am thinking about buying a hf100 this week. before doing so i want to make sure all the fcp editing stuff is good to go because that is the nonlinear that i use and am comfortable with: so with that said...
could someone walk me thru the workflow process...
1. i have everything shot and it is just sitting on the card, now what
2.
3.
4.
so on
 
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