FCP proxy creation

S

superblue

New member
I'm going to be using HDV for the first time and I want to use proxies/low res mode for a loooong documentary.

I'll have the clips digitized on my computer in the their native state. However, I'd like to work with low res clips (480x270, PJPEG) because I'll probably move them around and I don't want the disk space to disappear to fast.

I understand I can convert the clips individually into my format, but how can I conform them back? Is this possible with FCP 5.2? AFAIK, low-res recapture doesn't work with HDV? How would I go about this semi-manually/quickly?


Thanks!
 
Grrr. I hate to reply to my own thread... just in case this wasn't clear.

I want to digitize in FCP, take my clips and downscale them. Edit with the downscaled clips. Then swap out the low-res clips for archived HDV clips.
 
IMO just buy a bigger HDD. They are cheap, and HDV's data rate is low so even FW400 is good. Transcoding everything into smaller files then relinking back to the original source media just sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen.


-A
 
Yeah- it's really pointless to 'proxy' or offline HDV as it is highly compressed already. Lot of extra time, rendering, media management and conform hassles for minimal hard drive savings and hard drives are dirt cheap. Just edit native HDV- FCP is great for that.

Noah
 
Nothing is great at natively editing HDV IMHO. Its quirky as hell and continually having to conform HDV to print to tape can take forever.

Fortunately FCP 6.0.2 enables you to capture via FW directly into ProRes which gets you out of HDV into an I-frame editing format. However it comes at a cost, more than four times the amount of data and for the medium quality it is 140Mb/sec.

Disks are much cheaper and a 2TB FW800 or eSate RAID would work fine with the medium quality ProRes.

I realize that this seems like overkill, but I have five edit bays working on an HDV project and after five months of jerking off with it we are switching to ProRes. It is sooooo much easier. It would have been great if Apple would have enabled us to capture and convert HDV to DVCProHD via FW. That might have been a happy compromise.
 
Regarding HDV Data Rate, yes it is 25 Mb's but one of the things we tried to do to maybe speed up the conforming was to render a complete HDV clip and then place that into a new timeline to print to tape.

Strange thing happened, although the conform went much quicker, when we tried to export it to a Sony HVR-M25U HDV/DVcam tape deck from a Lacie FW800 drive the video skipped. We are using 3.0Ghz Intel Dual Core 6GB RAM with X1900 graphics card.

We also have a 4Gb dual channel fiber array, when we used that it printed to tape with no problems. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out hwy this happened, but I did try it on two different systems from different 1TB Lacie drives and the same thing happened.

That was kind of the last straw for us and HDV...
 
Yes, HDV has problems as a post codec, but FCP 6 handles it a lot better than previous versions (especially since you can set your sequence to render in Pro Res). At my current job I'm one of 13 editors and we mix and match HDV, DV, and DVCPro HD on a daily basis. We never go back to HDV tape though so the conforming process is a non-issue for us. Ideally we'd transcode into another codec, but logistically that's not feasible for us. Our content is very timely so doing a software transcode isn't viable, and we don't have the budget to expand our xSan (already a very full 18TB) to handle the bigger file sizes of changing HDV to DVCPro HD or Pro Res anyway.

It's always something.:kali:


-A
 
Sorry -A, I have a couple of off topic questions regarding your workflow.

What sequence settings do you use and which codec do you generally encode for output?

We just installed a FiberJet SAN and we consolidated all of our ingest and output to one system. A problem that has surfaced since doing this is that we get a this file is locked error when the I/O workstation tries to print to tape. There seems to be a permissions issue even thought the FCP project loads and plays fine. The work around is to do a save as and print to tape from the new version. Have you experience this?

Since we have a new SAN, the dilemma is where to get out of HDV, when we capture or just prior to output. Your right FCP6x is much improved but there seems to be just enough quirkiness using HDV to consider taking the hit on storage capacity now. :undecided

Also, currently all content is HDV but there's talk of upgrading cameras and the new camera's will in all likelihood not be HDV.

Like I mentioned earlier a nice compromise would be DVCProHD. I'm considering using the HD-Connect MI, taking the HDMI from the Sony HVR-M25U and converting it to HD-SDI DVCProHD and capturing that. Has anyone tried that?

Does anyone know an easier way to convert HDV to DVCProHD in real time during capture?

Although there is always something else to think about, its pretty exciting that you can build a 15-20TB SAN and work in HD for less than 50K :D
 
ChuckS said:
What sequence settings do you use and which codec do you generally encode for output?
Click to expand...
We'll typically make the sequence match what the dominant footage format is for that piece. So, for example, if I have a piece that is 70% HDV 1080i60 and 30% DVCPro HD 720p60 I'll use the HDV 1080i60 Easy Setup (w/the timeline set to render in Pro Res). Most of our content is destined for the web, but the stuff that goes to tape is either DigiBeta or HDCAM. The DB stuff we drop in an uncompressed timeline and lay back to tape using a Black Magic Multibridge. The HD stuff we air is finished out of house currently. But when we bring it in house the plan, so far, is to transcode the locked edit into Pro Res, round trip to/from Color, and lay back to HDCAM using a Black Magic Eclipse.

We just installed a FiberJet SAN and we consolidated all of our ingest and output to one system. A problem that has surfaced since doing this is that we get a this file is locked error when the I/O workstation tries to print to tape. There seems to be a permissions issue even thought the FCP project loads and plays fine. The work around is to do a save as and print to tape from the new version. Have you experience this?
Click to expand...
We have an in house admin maintain our Apple xSan so I'm useless in that department.

Since we have a new SAN, the dilemma is where to get out of HDV, when we capture or just prior to output. Your right FCP6x is much improved but there seems to be just enough quirkiness using HDV to consider taking the hit on storage capacity now. :undecided
Click to expand...
If you have the money to invest in the right gear I'd get out of HDV upon ingest.

Like I mentioned earlier a nice compromise would be DVCProHD. I'm considering using the HD-Connect MI, taking the HDMI from the Sony HVR-M25U and converting it to HD-SDI DVCProHD and capturing that. Has anyone tried that?

Does anyone know an easier way to convert HDV to DVCProHD in real time during capture?
Click to expand...
I think the only easier way would to be to get the HVR-1500 (which has HD-SDI on board). That would avoid any possible hiccups the HD-Connect MI might have.
Although there is always something else to think about, its pretty exciting that you can build a 15-20TB SAN and work in HD for less than 50K :D
Click to expand...
Technology is great, but I think I'm going to stab myself in the eye when we add XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX to our current smorgasbord of formats.:furious3::tongue:


-A
 
my solution = media manager

my solution = media manager

Thank you Shane!

That's exactly what I needed to know.

My motivation behind this is I'll be away this summer with nothing but a new HDV camera and a G4 laptop. ( I know I know, I'll upgrade soon). I can't take disk drives with me because I'll be all over the place -and I currently don't have the funds to invest in new equipment. :cry:

I'm just hoping I'll be lucky enough that the G4 will be able to capture HDV and I can render real slowly in the downtime.

Woot!
 
I'm confused now. In your first post you made it sound like you'd capture the clips to one computer, then make smaller copies to edit w/on a different computer. Now it sounds like all you'll have is a camera and a G4 laptop so do you plan on capturing the clips, converting them to something smaller then deleting the original "full res" media? Also, using a G4 to do all the media conversion is going to be s-l-o-w.

-A
 
yes

yes

I have clips digitized on a fast computer now... trying to use them on a slow computer later.

I really just wanted to know how to bounce the fcp projects around.
 
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