HMC150 - FCP workflow question

Michael Carter

Michael Carter

Veteran
I'll try to be brief - coming from a DSLR-FCP workflow which worked great:

Copy card to drive; transcode via streamclip batch into a transcoded folder (lately added 5DtoRGB); generally I convert everything to 720p, drag good takes to FCP and edit. When I need to send something to AE, I can create a new file or rename files so AE footage automatically replaces in FCP. If I need to composite, I can work the 1080p files and render out to 720, etc. All my clips are in a directory structure within my given project folder. Works out great and archiving projects is simple, everything but render files in one master folder.

Just got a 150, so - far as I know - the best first step is log and capture directly from FCP. (My first test of this took several tried to accept the "Private" folder though, seemed a little wonky...)

What I'm wondering about - this places all the Transcoded footage in my scratch disk folder (which is on a huge drive that's also my nightly backup drive), along with folders for render files/etc. In FCP System Prefs I can set my Video/Audio capture to my project folder - but I will need to remember to do this for each project, and to visit the system prefs when I switch projects if I want all my footage in one folder.

I assume there's a way to transcode the footage clip-by-clip (though streamclip won't work with AVCHD, right?). Any downsides to working this way with 150 files? Any better workarounds that people use?

I've done a search here for transcoding and found a few threads dealing with Toast and third party stuff but (unlike the DSLRs & Streamclip) there doesn't seem to be a favorite accepted way to do this.

Any tips? I'm all ears.
 
What a pain in the butt.

Working with the Adobe CS5 suite, everything edits natively. No transcoding.

More than a few FCP users have switched since CS5 came out.
 
I currently use FCP, though I'm also evaluating CS5. My workflow for DSLR and HMC is identical. I use Log & Transfer for both camera types. Not sure why you are using streamclip for your DSLR stuff since FCP can use the Log & Transfer feature (with the EOS plugin - don't forget to change the default from ProRes 4444 or you'll get huge files!) and you get to keep the time code, whereas Streamclip doesn't. Anyway....

I log and transfer, and yes the footage ends up in the scratch folder. However, I create a 'Footage' folder in my project folder (all my projects have their own folders) and once all the footage is ingested I MOVE the footage from the scratch folder to the local Footage folder. FCP will now see the footage as 'Offline' (because it's no longer where it though it was) but this is easy to fix. Select all the clips in the FCP browser, right click and select "Reconnect Media". A dialog will appear, click the "locate" button and locate the FIRST click in the Footage folder. From here on FCP will automatically connect the rest of the media.

Now you have all your footage in your project folder and not on the scratch disk.

Log & Transfer is much better than using external utilities because you can log extra stuff at the time you ingest it. For instance, I log the scene (e.g. Ceremony), angle (e.g. Front, Back, Side) and for DSLR footage I also log the Camera type, the Lens, Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO settings etc etc. You don't have to, but it's proved useful in sorting through large projects.

While CS5 can indeed edit native footage, when I'm importing 500 clips at a time I still need to go through them in CS5 to sort them, figure out the scene/angle etc before I can really get down to serious editing.
 
Joe: wow, amazing - thanks for the helpful response, just what I was looking for, etc, wow ::end sarcasm:: (man, you must have a lot of time on your hands)

Switching to sincere mode:

Thanks Exact - problem for me is much of my work is kind of artsy/experimental - for interviews, etc, I get everything at one time and can easily use log & transfer. I just did some Dallas Cowboys stuff and a full day of two-camera shooting is fine regardless of how it gets sucked into the computer and I can edit away.

For the work I really love doing though, I'm constantly shooting little ideas and tests, and lots of crazy props/sets/in-camera effects and effect plates - my system is in the corner of my shooting space and I'll dial in my latest weirdness, run the card over and injest, test/play/etc and then shoot another version, etc. So I'm constantly making changes to frame rates, frame size, sometimes going straight into AE, sometime Photoshop, etc. So it's really easy to do this manually and drop files into folders named for their specific uses and versions of ideas.

It's also great for doing non project-specific tests to not have to open or create an FCP project.

I'm sure I'm a little weird, but for my creative side, it's absolute heaven to dial stuff in this way - I got the 150 because the "artsy" stuff suddenly has the phone ringing for broadcast & corporate stuff where I need the XLRs, so this may not be a huge issue - my workflow may to a great extent may naturally differ for DSRL vs. regular work.

I'll be testing several of the existing free-standing converters this week and compare them to FCP's output on a big screen, that could be an easy answer for when I want that shot-by-shot control. (And going back to Joe's comment, FCP's just a way to stitch stuff together for me, an NLE just doesn't get me fired up like AE or Pro Tools or Photoshop. FCP's fine for my needs.)
 
If you are looking for a tool similar to Streamclip but want to re-wrap the HMC files then look at ClipWrap. You can either just re-wrap to a .mov file or you can transcode at the same time.
 
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