Getting my 720/60P/50P into Final Cut Express - is there a workaround?

L

LoneWolf

Member
Hi folks,

I'm thinking of using 720/50P for certain events, to be played back at 50fps (not slow-mo). However, due to me being unwilling and unable to cough up extra $ for Final Cut Pro, I cannot import 50P footage into Final Cut Express. My camera is the PAL version, but I welcome comments from 60P users as well - they are likely to work.

I'm thinking of another workaround. Would Voltaic allow me to transcode to AIC and then dump the AIC media into FCE and be able to work with 50P? I notice FCE has a HDV 720/50P preset so I think it's capable of interpreting 50P footage once transcoded.
 
iMovie '09 is an alternative, and something that you may already have on your system. I've transferred footage from card into iM, then imported the transcoded video files from the iM Events folder into FCE. Interestingly enough, I also tried to imported 720 60P via Log and Transfer in FCE earlier this week: worked like a charm.
 
Your tip is excellent, many thanks :) 720/50P footage (HMC152 here) can be imported into iMovie 09 on a Snow Leopard system and then later dragged across to FCE.

However, FCE is pretty limited - I hear you either get a choice of 30fps or 25fps. You can use the 50P footage, at 25P, which defeats the purpose of using 50P in the first place. I have an excellent 1080/25P option which I have been using to date. Movie Inspector in Quicktime Player confirms that the AIC transcoded clip is 50fps.


I was also mistaken in saying that I saw a 50P setting in FCE, it is actually HDV 720/25P or HDV 720/30P. My bad..

Still, your advice is great for folks who need to get that footage across somehow, even if they aren't able to fully utilize the benefits of 50P :) guess I will go back to shooting 1080/50i, which is pretty versatile, till the day comes that I step up to FCP.
 
Agreed on FCE's limited feature set when dealing with HD. On the other hand I don't need all the bells and whistles of FCE Studio for my line of work either (at least at this point), and just can't seem to get enthused about using iMovie for anything other than transcoding. I did use iM '09 for one project: it was painful to use.
 
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