imovie and FCP compatability

J

John M

Active member
I need to capture a number of tapes and the only utility available to me is imovie. Eventually the project is going to get moved to FCP. imovie imports file as a .dv while FCP uses .mov

My question to you guys is how appropriate is .dv for use in fcp?

I've read that .dv is the same quality as .mov (so I'm covered there), but I've also read that .dv is really hard to deal with when it comes to FCP.

Does anyone have any tips for dealing with something like this?

Any and all thoughts would be appreciated.
 
Just don't do it. If this is meant for FCP, then capture with FCP. Don't have it? Then get it, or capture on the system that will be using the footage. BIG no no to capture with iMovie for FCP. SO many things wrong about it.


#20 Using iMovie to Capture for FCP edit

Shane's Stock Answer #20: Using iMovie to Capture for use in FCP.

iMovie handles the media differently from FCP, specifically where audio is concerned. So it is not a recommended workflow. Here's why...

iMovie captures using DV Stream (.dv) standard which does not use timecode. That is a big disadvantage over the way that FCP captures in that you can't go back and recapture the material at a later date if you need to revisit a project.

The DV/NTSC specification (the one FCP uses) also calls for seperate tracks for audio and video, even if you capture it as one clip. iMovie' DV stream format is muxed audio and video, which means that they are tied together (I can't get into specifics because I ain't no engineer or programmer). FCP is a bit more demanding and captures the seperate audio/video tracks, either in a single media file or as seperate video and audio files. With FCP you could capture video only or audio only because each is defined by the DV specs. while with iMovie you can't.

Also, if you drop the iMovie footage into the timeline, your will get the RED render bar forcing you to render the footage in order to see it. You can use either QT Pro or Compressor to convert the .dv footage into DV/NTSC in order for FCP to work with it without needing to render.
 
Thank you very much for your answer. I really appreciate that. Does anyone know if there are any good utilities out there that will allow me to capture video that will work with FCP? I googled it but nothing really stands out. Thoughts?

And thanks again for the answer.
 
But why- FCP is what you use for this. I'd suggest waiting until you have FCP in your possession. Half the utility of FCP is having everything logged properly for which you need FCP in the first place.

Noah
 
If you capture with any other software, it will have to be converted to work with FCP, so you will lose time and quality. Either wait for the FCP machine to be available, or buy FCP.
 
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