workflow confusion

[mccainds]

A friend just recieved his camera and I will be gettting mine this week, and we were discussing workflow for our clients and we have some confusion I am hoping can get cleared up by your knowledge.

I plan on shooting and backing up to 2 firewire drives via my powerbook. However we are confused about the difference between PC and MAC users.
1.) Do we need to know what system the client is cutting on so we know how to format the firewire drive, or can a firewire enclosure work on both MAC and PC?
2.) Can I shoot RAW MFX files and back them up on on the firewire drives that can then be imported to either system?
3.) I believe the MXF files have to be rewrapped into quicktime files to be used with final cut. Does this process happen during the edit stage, or do I need to do this in the field?

Please advise about this PC or MAC issue.

 

[Minh]

Hi,
1) MAC can read but cannot write to NTFS Pc drive, Mac can read and write to FAT32 PC drive, and PC can't read neither write to MAC drive..unless you have Macdrive software from Mediafour (which is not that expensive I believe...).
So if your client has a Mac, he should be able to read your drive, whatever format it is. But if your client has PC, he can only read PC drive, unless he has Macdrive installed
2) I know you can import MXF natively on Avid from harddrives, but I believe you would need Flip4mac to import it on FCP...unless you import directly from your P2....but I'm not sure about this one...
3) rewrapping into quicktime is done when importing MXF, so during the edit stage...
Hope that helps...

 

[Jarred Land]

for cross platform drives, format at Fat32. I know your thinking fat32 has a 4gb filesize limit and your expecting 300gb of P2 files, but not to worry, cause each file from the HVX is limited to 4gb to fit.

 

[Jarred Land]

more specific to your questions:

1.) Do we need to know what system the client is cutting on so we know how to format the firewire drive, or can a firewire enclosure work on both MAC and PC?

fat32 is the safe play. NTFS is also ok, as the pc can handle the files natively (in Avid) and on mac they can be read, which is fine because all FCP does is read the files then write them to your seperate scratch disk as MOV.

2.) Can I shoot RAW MFX files and back them up on on the firewire drives that can then be imported to either system?

yes.. you will get folders like "card 1" etc. these are the raw files, you put those on your HD and keep them like that.

3.) I believe the MXF files have to be rewrapped into quicktime files to be used with final cut. Does this process happen during the edit stage, or do I need to do this in the field?

you click "import P2 from the file menu in FCP.. this happens at anytime during your edit, just like you would import any other media file.