Online editing with FCP
by John DeMaio
on
Sep 17, 2008 at 4:31:17 pm
You'll have to bear with me - I was an Avid editor in a previous life and I am about four months into the FCP transition - and I'm very happy with the result!
I need to online a show (13 episodes now and another 13 in January) and I wanted to make sure that I had all of my ducks in a row before I rented the deck.
This show was shot on HDCAM and was offlined on an Avid. I have spent the last few days importing all of the shows into Final Cut via Automatic Duck and cleaning up little bits of audio problems. Everything that I can add to the project is in the project (graphics and titles) but now I'm ready for the batch capture.
I have done this on an Avid many times before (not HD), but I was wondering if there were any specific things that I needed to look out for considering that the deck rental is expensive and my budget is like any other video budget these days . . . small.
Here's what I have: Mac Pro 8 core system with plenty of ram, Kona 3, Blackburst generator, SD and HD monitor, SD waveform/vectorscope monitor and an entire weekend of my life about to be ruined. Any thing that I am missing?
Thanks!
John X. DeMaio
Blackburst Entertainment
www.blackburstentertainment.com
Re: Online editing with FCP by Aaron Neitz on Sep 17, 2008 at 5:27:57 pm
Have you ever used FCP for batch capture before? Specifically online?
The biggest step is getting a video timeline to batch capture that has all the unneeded media removed. Media Manager can do this for you (but you first need to remove all speed effects). Even at that sometimes Media Manager screws up and will want to digitze 4 mins for a 3 second clip.
Alternately you can do the classic EDL export and import and batch capture that with handles. You'll have to copy paste any effects, but EDL is always solid and reliable in a time crunch.
I'd suggest practicing with a DVCAM of the project to see what pitfalls there are - no better way to learn how to swim but get in the water. FCP is a good online backbone - but it's got quirks that AVID took care of in the background.
Re: Online editing with FCP by John DeMaio on Sep 17, 2008 at 6:34:09 pm
Yes, I did a test with a BetaSP deck and I realize that I will have some babysitting to do. This stuff was all transfered to Beta so I copied a sequence and batch digitized from that.
I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything - now I know one thing I'm missing is a TriSync generator. Thanks Shane! I wasn't sure if I needed that or if a regular SD would work.
Anything else that I overlooked?
John X. DeMaio
Blackburst Entertainment
www.blackburstentertainment.com
Re: Online editing with FCP by Michael Gissing on Sep 17, 2008 at 11:38:15 pm
Drives and capture codec are important. From the HDCam you are no doubt going in HD SDI. What are you using to recapture? Most people would advise ProRes as it is less drive intensive than uncompressed.
For 13 eps you will need plenty of drive space. Bear in mind that there will be a lot of render files as well after grading so make sure you have a decent sized RAID which is also fast enough for the bandwidth.
Re: Online editing with FCP by Arnie Schlissel on Sep 18, 2008 at 1:05:35 am
[John DeMaio]"now I know one thing I'm missing is a TriSync generator."
Get an Aja Gen10. It outputs Tri synch and SD synch at the same time (both PAL & NTSC) for only $400-450, including the DWP power supply (sold separately!).
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
http://www.arniepix.com/
