Tricaster export

Hi all. I did a search of the forum but found nothing. Here's my issue. I have a client who lost an employee due to a car accident, he's out for some time. They have about six hours of footage that was recorded to a Tricaster. They want me to edit the video.

I am Mac based using FCP 7. On the first go around, the company gave me AVI files they exported from the Tricaster. I could hear the audio, but there was no image. A web search found issues with this so I asked them to give me MOV files.

They did, but FCP did not like the MOV format. I took the files into MPEG Streamclip and kicked out into an MOV format that FCP liked. I was able to edit the videos. (FYI the image out of the Tricaster was horrible looking, but they told me that's how the image always looks.)

The problem is this took forever. The export to MOV from the client took according to them, almost 3 days and they weren't useable. Can anyone tel me how to best export media from the Tricaster for easy use with FCP? Thanks. My first step is to get them to avoid the Tricaster all together.

Jeff Heck
NaJor Productions
Indianapolis

Thanks for your help. I'll have to explore why I couldn't get any image with the AVI files they gave me on my mac in FCP or MPEG Squared, I couldn't see anything on a PC either. Only audio would play. I still have them and will see what I can pull off.

Jeff Heck
NaJor Productions
Indianapolis

Hey Craig.

Don't have the AVI files, I trashed them when I had them kick back out to MOV. I was able to work with those files.

Here's why I think something was wrong on their end with the original AVI files they gave me. They told me it took 3 plus days to export four hours of recorded footage. That seems a bit long, my opinion. Also. I couldn't get an image on the AVI file using my mac, a windows machine, and also another edit house. All we could do was get the audio to play, no matter what we did to change the settings. Nothing worked.

I got the project done fine using the MOV files. I wanted to see the export choices on this unit and also see the quality of the recording settings because the image out of the triacster they gave me looks like old time television with a bad antenna reception. Exceptionally poor. They said that's how it always look when they record using the tricaster. I can put up a link to some of their footage on Vimeo if you'd like to see it. I mean, it is really, really poor. The bad antenna example is not an exaggeration, it is that bad.

Thanks for your help. I am hoping to see this tricaster so I can see how they kicked it out originally.

Jeff Heck
NaJor Productions
Indianapolis

Hey Craig. I sent you a friend request here. I'd like to chat offline with you if that's ok, not on the forum. I still have the original MOV files the client sent, these are the ones that look terrible. Thanks. My direct email is

najor@comcast.net

if you can email me there and we can correspond. Thanks again.

Jeff Heck
NaJor Productions
Indianapolis