Sharing EX1 footage with HV20 Footage in FCP Timeline

Chadfish

Chadfish

Veteran
Hi

I had 2 friends shoot a 30 min set of my band, however the cameras were different. One was an EX1 shot at full rez, 1080 24P, and the other was an HV20 shot at HDV 1440 24P. I have the timeline set for the EX1 resolution in Final Cut Pro, and all the footage captured. When I drop in the HDV footage I get the green "needs rendering" bar, which takes forever. And every time I will make a change I suspect I'll loose the render again. I plan on editing in multicam mode.

• Is there any way I can make the HDV file play without rendering over and over while it's in the higher rez timeline?
• Should I re-capture the HDV at a higher resolution, or some Apple Pro-rez setting?
• Can anyone here who has blended these two different resolutions in one timeline offer any suggestions ?


Thanks

Chadfish
 
You can convert them both to prores and edit on the same timeline. Here's how to convert the HV20 clips:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2410

You can convert the EX footage into prores as well in Compressor, I think the preset is under "advanced format conversions"

good luck!
Gerry
 
I would capture the HDV tape again with ProRes. Converting it may lose a bit of quaity and with consumer HDV you need all the quality you can get.

I haven't edited EX1 footage with FCP yet but if you are golden with that already just worry about capturing HDV to Pro Res.
 
converting to prores

converting to prores

adamr316 said:
I would capture the HDV tape again with ProRes. Converting it may lose a bit of quaity and with consumer HDV you need all the quality you can get.

I haven't edited EX1 footage with FCP yet but if you are golden with that already just worry about capturing HDV to Pro Res.
Click to expand...

I've used this method many times and graded the footage in Color and it works/looks great, there is no discernible degradation of image, and he's already captured the footage. If he recaptures the footage via firewire that is still transcoding from the HDV codec so that is no better than converting it anyway.

The method outlined in the Apple doc also converts the footage to 23.98 editing base as well which makes it easier to match the EX footage once it's been converted to Prores.

Cheers,
Gerry
 
gerry_C said:
I've used this method many times and graded the footage in Color and it works/looks great, there is no discernible degradation of image, and he's already captured the footage. If he recaptures the footage via firewire that is still transcoding from the HDV codec so that is no better than converting it anyway.

The method outlined in the Apple doc also converts the footage to 23.98 editing base as well which makes it easier to match the EX footage once it's been converted to Prores.

Cheers,
Gerry
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. My boss took the HDV cam on vacation so I can't re-capture right now. Gerry is is necessary to convert the EX1 footage to prorez too? The project is set up for the EX1 footage, and has no problems playing that. It's just the HDV footage that needs constant rendering. Both were shot in 24P too, and the proj is set to that.

I have never converted anything to ProRez. Is Prorez one particular resolution that's used for working with any HD footage? Or are there different versions of Prorez specific to the footage you're capturing/converting to? I don't quite understand what exactly Prorez is. I mean. when I get my EX1, should I always convert to Prorez to work on EX1 footage?

Thanks to all for helping out a noob.

Chadfish: Soon to be EX1 owner...
 
prores

prores

Hi Chadfish,

If you already captured the footage from the Canon, you don't need to recapture it using the method in the Apple Link.

Here's an excellent article on Prores, which is a codec that allows you to work at the quality of uncompressed HD at a fraction of the bit rate/file size:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/apple/story/prores_a_closer_look/

I suggested converting the EX footage to Prores just so you'd be working with the same codec on the same timeline. Converting the Canon footage got it to the same frame rate and frame size.

As a general rule, you don't need to convert the XDCAM footage to Prores, but you might want to change the compresser setting in the FCP to Prores rather than XDCAM. I'm not sure if you can mix formats if you edit in multicam mode in FCP, you'll have to research that.

Anyhow, that's more than enough to get you started-you might want to start searching some of the FCP forums for more answers.

Cheers,
Gerry

ps just saw your spec on your system, you'd be better off having an even amount of RAM in matched pairs to get the most efficiency out of your mac pro. go to barefeats.com for more info
 
Last edited:
Thanks Gerry. I'll check that out when I get a chance. As far as the ram goes, it is all in matched pairs. One pair is 512mb each, and the rest are 2gigs each. Is that cool?
 
randy the RAM

randy the RAM

There are all kinds of variations of performance based on what processor etc. but I think it would be best if they were matched pairs. Probably not worse than if you took out the 512 pair, though. Check out barefeats for more tests they do all kinds of cool performance tests/comparisons and show how many instances to set up in Compressor for max performance to utilize all your cores.
 
Hey Gerry C!

Are you sure I will get just as high quality files by converting my (already captured) HDV footage to PrRez, as if I captured them directly from the camera at ProRez?

I mean, if HDV is a compressed codec, how can it uncompress to a nicer file by simply changing the file type?

Just wondering before I get into this full steam.

Chadfish
 
conversion

conversion

Hey There,

Technically, the codec is XDCAM, not HDV, it's higher quality than HDV, and prores is also a compressed codec, I'm not truing to be nit picky, I understand your question.

How are you planning on capturing prores from the camera? Do you have an AJA I/O HD or similar device?

In any case the conversion works nicely that I recommended. If it makes you sleep better at night to spend the extra time converting, go ahead, but I'm curious to know what method you were planning on using to convert from the camera.

In any case how you lit and shot the footage will make the biggest difference to the quality, that's where you should put most of your energy. ;)

Gerry
 
Hi Gerry

I have 2 camera's footage already captured. I have one angle from an EX1, and one angle from a Canon HV20. So I was going to convert the HDV footage from the HV20 to prorez so I can edit the two together without having to constantly render the HDV footage in the XDCAM project. So at this moment I am attempting to convert the HDV to ProRexHD19x9 (The highest setting in the prorez menu, but it's confusing because one says "ProRezHD" and one says "ProRezHD16x9") and it's taking about an hour for about 20 min of footage with my 8 Core MacPro.

I'm not sure if I'm going about it the right way. If I need to put both into ProRez to get multicam going then so be it. So my question remains if I should capture HDV off the camera as PRoRez, or if I can simply convert HDV to ProRez off the FCP timeline using Quicktime Conversion.

What do you think?

Thanks

Chadfish
 
My recommendation was/is to use compressor as outlined in the apple doc to convert your already captured footage, I never said anything about quicktime conversion. Quicktime conversion will definitely result in a loss of quality. You keep mentioning capturing the footage off the camera but don't say how you are going to do that.
 
HI

THe only way I capture is through firewire. The HV20 only had firewire out. I thought when you said,
"If you already captured the footage from the Canon, you don't need to recapture it using the method in the Apple Link.

Here's an excellent article on Prores, which is a codec that allows you to work at the quality of uncompressed HD at a fraction of the bit rate/file size:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.p...a_closer_look/"

I thought you meant I could just convert the already captured HDV footage.

I'll stop the quicktime conversion...

Chadfish
 
You can capture prores out of the hdmi port too. that's why i asked. i did mean working with the footage you already captured. quicktime conversion is a specific method used within final cut, i guess you didn't mean that. anyhow, good luck, young jedi.
Gerry
 
So to clarify:

1. Is it better to recapture HDV through firewire (I don't have an HDMI card) to prorez than to convert HDV footage (captured through firewire) to prorez?

2. Converting HDV to Prorez will look better done in Compressor rather than Quicktime Conversion off the FCP timeline?

Thanks man.

Chad
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top