I thought I'd start this thread in the JVC section (versus the editing boards)... I need some help guys. For the last year, I've been shooting a full length film on the JVC 100. I'm very pleased with the camera and the results - very cinematic, very close to Super 16 mm.

But the problem is my computer (or at least my ability to use it) - I've been using a PC based editing system (Premiere Pro w/Cineform) and I've had almost non-stop problems with it. So many that at this point, I'm about to shoot the damn thing. I'm not a computer savy guy, & I'm sure some of the problems are that I just don't don't know enough about PCs to fix the thing right - that said, I've had guys who are fix it, only to have more problems. Either way, it's either spend a lot more money on the system & tech help, or move on to Macs.

SO, my question is this: Can you (assuming a newer Mac, fast Raids, & newest version of Final Cut Pro) edit footage shot on a JVC 100 right out of the box?

Thanks for any help -

john
(pulling last hair out of his head)

I'm about to try for the very first time tonight!

So I will let you know :-)

My issues with the 200Ub and FCP 6.0.3 using 60P have been:
- broken timecode ALL over the place bringing FCP to a screeching halt (this is "perceived" broken TC by FCP NOT occurring at start/stop points). I now capture entire tapes using the HDV to ProRes preset which captures entire tapes just like Capture Now.
- my external Firewire capture drive is problematic with regards to mounting AND recognizing the camera. I need to cold start the Mac, wait for the drive to spin up fully and then QUICKLY fire up the camera. Sometimes this takes 5 - 8 times. Sometimes the drive doesn't mount, sometimes the drive mounts but FCP doesn't recognize the camera, sometimes I get things just right and it works.
- FCP also doesn't seem to like more than 1000 clips. It refuses to capture anything now that I have a ton of clips in my project so I now capture in a NEW capture project and just import the files as necessary

I use ProRes422 as a codec and love it. At 60P, I'm using about 1GB per minute of footage captured but I love the responsiveness and quality.

All in all, I love the combination when I get it working. It's just Kludgy.

I used to do what Shaun does (capture whole tapes as ProRes) but FCP was finally updated to capture 720p60 as HDV and it works fine for me. Sometimes a take is broken up into two clips even though there is no start/stop but I have found that the reason is that you need to keep the heads as clean as possible (I use the BR-HD50 deck). Otherwise the slightest disturbance will cause a take to be broken up into smaller clips.

So everything works fine for me shooting at 24, 30, and 60 fps- using HD200's and the HD50 deck via firewire and FCP (everything updated).

MacPro (8 core) and a La Cie Biggest S2S 2.5 TB.

This system is used 8 hours, every day, 5 days a week.

As a note, the film is shot at 24p (or 23.97 - whatever the heck the number is).

Will that make a difference?

john

As a note, the film is shot at 24p (or 23.97 - whatever the heck the number is).

Will that make a difference?

john

No. When we say 24 we really mean 23.97 in the video world.

Will I need the "ClipWrap" m2t to Quicktime HDV wrapper? Whatever that is....

:)

john

Hi John,

I, Unfortunately, do not have the answers to your questions but, like yourself, I am looking for a tenable work-flow using hd100 footage and the latest version of fcp.

I may be wrong here but my understanding of the HDV 24p option when using fcp is that it is classed as a trans-code and therefor potentially loses information, although how much I am not sure. Now the advantage of something like Clipwrap is that rather than trans-coding it repackages the .m2ts file into a quicktime container without trans-coding. This then gives you a like for like file that fcp will be able to read.

However, as things stand at the moment I have only been able to use Clipwrap successfully on .m2ts created on my drhd100. Footage I have converted through the dvhscap route has unfortunately been a bit troublesome with regard to Clipwrap. Hopefully Mike will be able to sort this out, fingers crossed. In the meantime I am tempted to look further into the sheervideo option. Shame apple can't build this into fcp

Regards, Greg

Just to clarify...

When you digitize as HDV via firewire, FCP just wraps the M2T file into Quicktime. There is no transcoding! It is fully editable in the timeline- just like DV.

I haven't looked into Clipwrap yet (because I don't need it) but I suspect it's more for those who shoot directly to disk or flash cards as some of those devices don't have the ability to record a .mov file, just M2T.

I used to do what Shaun does (capture whole tapes as ProRes) but FCP was finally updated to capture 720p60 as HDV and it works fine for me.

I should have noted I started a large paying project before FCP & QT were updated and common wisdom is DON'T upgrade in the middle of a project. I look forward to a stress-free day as Justin suggests, I'm just not there until I clear this project. Thanks for the input, Justin.

I had hellish time capturing my footage last weekend. I did this for the first time with this camera as a deck (a had an access to a deck before, not anymore). Anyway- the program was not recognizing my camera at first. After capturing in Apple intermediate codec (looked i would have to render every clip in this setting) I was able to switch to 720/30p and capture the tapes. The next day- the same story. What are the correct settings for 720/30p in FCP6?
BTW stupid question: what would be the advantage of capturing in ProRes 422 instead in 720/30p?
Interestingly enough my 720/24p was done the first try and the computer recognized the deck first try.

I'm about to try for the very first time tonight!

So I will let you know :-)

How did it go?

john

Keep in mind that you need to have everything plugged in and turned on before you open up FCP. For example, FCP wont recognize the deck if you just turn it on and try to digitize. Assuming firewire is already plugged in, you have to quit FCP, turn on the deck/camera, then open FCP, then digitize. Works every time.

FCP now has all the HDV presets in the easy setup menu.

So why would any one need clip wrap?

john

I've had some success with my HD100 and FCP 6.0.4.

I shoot wedding videos, mainly in HDV 24p, using ProRes 422 to ingest. My understanding is that capturing via component using ProRes you get a true 4:2:2 colorspace from the HD100. Only issue I had was incorrectly formatting my scratch disk as NTFS (don't ask me why), so my video clips were being capped at 4gb. Fixed that little faux pas and have had no issues with timecode breaks, even over very long clips (30 minutes+).

I would think ClipWrap would be mostly for people using Avid, Vegas, or Premiere and using something like AVCVideoCap to capture just the raw m2t file, assuming they're using some version that doesn't have native HDV codecs.

And by the way, what's so great about DVHSCap?? I tried it and no matter what I do it doesn't want to recognize my camera- or my vhs player for that matter.

My understanding is that capturing via component using ProRes you get a true 4:2:2 colorspace from the HD100.

You get 4:2:2 colour space if capturing live from the camera, not from tape playing back. Once it hits tape, you're at 4:2:0. Well, TECHNICALLY when it captures from tape, FCP places 4:2:0 colour into a 4:2:2 colour space with padding so no colour resolution is gained, you just have more latitude to make colour adjustments in post.

So why would any one need clip wrap?

john
Simply because FCP sometime messes up HDV capture with tapes that have minor problems. ClipWrap fixed two tapes that I couldn't capture at all with FCP in any codec or transcode with MPEGStreamclip. Plus it treats the footage better than MPEGStreamclip.

I've only had problems with JVC 720 HDV never Sony HDV, can't say why.

For those who have used Premiere/Vegas for a PC and also used FCP, is FCP easier to use, at least in terms of system stability?

The reason I ask is that most of the FCP problems you guys have talked about seem minor compared with some of the nightmares I've been having.

john

For those who have used Premiere/Vegas for a PC and also used FCP, is FCP easier to use, at least in terms of system stability?

The reason I ask is that most of the FCP problems you guys have talked about seem minor compared with some of the nightmares I've been having.

john

That's a tough question but VERY generally speaking the consensus is that FCP is more stable mostly because Apple makes the hardware and software, thus tighter integration. Before I started my own company I used to be a free-lance editor. To this date my own FCP system is light years more stable than any other systems I worked on. On the other hand there were many people working on those other systems who would always mess something up for the next person!

John-

What version of Premiere are you using? And what are your problems? I have CS2 at home and run into problems of sync with 24p. Those issues seem to have gone away with the CS3 version I have at work. If you have CS2, try to keep your captures around 7-10 minutes or less and it seems to keep sync...sometimes. If sync goes out, try capturing again. One issue I have with large projects is that it takes a long time to load the project, sometimes 10 minutes, but afterwards it works. Cineform captures well and works, but I've only used the demo. I've had issues capturing 24p with HDVsplit and bringing it into any editor as it seems to write 60fps into the m2t header. Best results have been by capturing within premiere. One thing we did on a pilot I shot this summer, was to slate every scene and take and we captured our audio separately.

Mostly issues - I believe - dealing with hardware and software compatibility. Problem is that, b/c it's a full length film, we have a terrabite's worth of footage.

Some of the problems: Can no longer digitize sound from my in/out box. Unrendered footage will not play; crashes when you try to render. Just not very stable even for the most mundane tasks. We've split the time-line up in to 3 30 minute long chunks, which helped for a while, but not so much no.

Just did a total re-install with all the latest stuff...

When Justin spoke about Apple making the hardware and software (thus tighter integration) it really stuck a cord with me. Getting the PC to do what I want has been just a nightmare.

We digitize in Vegas, then transcode it with Cineform to import into Premiere. Not even sure if we have to do it this way anymore, but that's how we're doing it. I'm sure if I was a PC tech a lot of these problems could be solved, but I'm not.

Thanks for all the words of help/advice guys...

john

John I have experience in Vegas and FCP though I use FCP mostly.

I would have to say that Vegas is equally or more stable than FCP, this
with about 4 years of real world experience. Forget about premiere at least
in its current versions, its been highly unstable for a very long time, but
I'm hearing that CS4 will be much much better.

experiment with Vegas though before you jump into a fcp system, I think
you'll find it very stable and it does a lot of things that fcp doesn't
do that it should, like resizing bicubically so that a downconvert actually
looks good and not horrible for one.

We actually tried Vegas first, based on mostly on we heard it was the most stable. It proved any thing but. Perhaps on shorter stuff it is, but we soon had major problems with stability - simply unusable for this length of project.

Like I said, we actually still use Vegas to digitize the footage - as Premiere won't - then use cineform.

All which makes for a lot of steps.

john

Exactly what do you mean by 'all the latest stuff'? Keep in mind that, even though many components in your PC are interchangeable, even some of the high-end pieces are not best used for working with video. For example, AMD makes Phenom processors with quad-core technology, but AMDs run hotter and are not designed with multitasking as a top priority like Intel's Xeon line. Also, some motherboard chipsets handle audio and video much better than others.

I think Apple and FCP are wonderful, but I switched over from Premiere after having shot a short film that I was having trouble ingesting. Let me tell you on a tight schedule trying to learn a whole new system and interface was rough. If you're going to switch I would suggest either waiting for a lull in post projects when you have plenty of time to get familiar, or get a lot of video tutorials like Lynda or VASST and get ready for some long nights.

john what kind of long form are you talking about here? full feature length 90+ minutes?

there are not really any NLE's that handle long form well including Avid's if you don't set the project up properly, basically having timelines no longer than 20-30 minutes long (break up the edits into acts etc...)

even fcp on an sd timeline on a quad core system can be sluggish after the 20 minute mark.

Yeah, it's about 90 minutes long.

We've broken it up into 1/3's, but still problems. I just want to make sure - before I jump into FCP - that the "Instant Edification" promised by JVC (regarding FCP) on the back of all the trade mags are ture.

john

sounds like a good plan.