FCP Double the Trouble ?

F

f5freddyj

Active member
Or Not. (Perhaps I'm doing somethig wrong)

FCP 5.0.4


First I daisy chained the Camera and 500gb Lacie to my box. (iMac PowerPC G5 1.8 GHz 2.0 ghz ram)

Transferred files to a folder on the drive. Took about 18 min for a 16ghz card.

Here's the question though. Upon importing the clips into an fcp project, it took another 15 minutes or so. (Creating the qt files and placing them in the same drives capture scratch folder)

So my question is. Am i to understand that every time you import clips into the project a quicktime copy is made and the mxf and the accompanying audio file is actually copied. and this process doubles the time of getting up and running to edit?

fj


fj
 
<FX:Shreik!> Nobody but nobody should be letting FCP anywhere near their MXF files!

You've spotted one downside insofar as you spend twice the time importing one time downloading to the computer then AGAIN converting to QT.

Two other things you should be aware of - you'll need to back-up twice one for the QT one for the MXF which has the effect of doubling your storage requirements for no decernable benefit.

But the most unforgiveable thing in converting to QT is that it will STRIP and perminantly DELETE all of your precious Metadata =8O

Come to think of it once your clip total runs into 100's or even 1000's (as mine do) you'll encounter another Apple annoyance... No media manegement! how do you find that fantastic sunset you filmed or pull out JUST your 24/25p etc... you can't with FCP other than doing manually which is a right royal PITA!

My workflow is to use Panasonic's P2cms which is a free download to pull the cards off the HVX. I can then use the internal viewer to sort and add metadata which is placed in searchable database. I've heard that certain versions of FCP will allow you to drag and drop onto the timeline. I don't have this version but I would still use the most excellent RAYLIGHT (Trust me it'll be the best $95 you spend all year!!!) to create folders of footage of the cards (if that makes sense!)
Cheers

Indy....
 
Go look at the link posted for Raylight for the MAC.
It is even easier to use than Raylight for the PC.
It takes like 2 sec to write a little QT proxie file that
exists in your CONTENTS/Video folder. No need to
do "double work" anymore. Until Apple gets it's native
act together - I would go with Raylight.
Edius on the PC can use the native .mxf files but as
an editing solution it is not very good.
Plus I have not found any assistants who have ever
used Edius. All the schools are teaching FCP.
 
I make my living cutting fcp these days. Can't bail on it.
But I can buy Raylight for my personal Suite. Just one more toy to put in the box.

thnx for the feedback.
fj
 
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