Setting up FCP workflow for an XDCAMHD multi-cam edit.
 

Hi all,

Another question I have as a newby at the DVD distribution game, is regards to time-line setup in FCP:

All the vision in this production is XDCAMHD and is going to be distributed on DVD and Bluray.

I have successfully imported all clips into FCP and am ready to start editing.

To keep the quality as high as possible for an edit for PAL DVD/Bluray distribution, do I allow the timeline to automatically change to suit the XDCAMHD clips when I drop them onto the Timeline, or is there a ProRes format I should set the timeline up as and for rendering?

Thanks - I appreciate your time.

I am doing the exact same thing right now. While I am using an XDCam sequence set to render in ProRes, you might find it better to convert all the footage to ProRes depending on the number of cameras you are switching and the model of Mac you have. ProRes requiers less processing power from the computer even though the files are three times the size.

Why transcode twice if you don't have to?

David,

Why not just set the project in fcp to xdcam... and set it to render as prores. Then open a new project... when you are done with your multiclip edit...export it as self-contained quicktime movie and then burn you disk. then you will only transcoding once... from the xdcam project to mpeg2 for dvd.

Do a search of the XDCAM EX Cinealta section of DVInfo using the terms DVD Workflow. Basically, you want FCP to do the resizing to SD for DVD. I edit in XDCAM format (saying yes to convert the timeline) and then copy the finished edit to an anamorphic SD using Prores codec for the SD timeline. But read the threads for some other good options you can evaluate.

Thanks - what version of Prores should I render to from the XDCAM timeline?

I see from your other post that you are having problems with running a six multi-cam switch on your i7 iMac. While I'm not sure how many cameras your iMac can handle I can be sure that playing six XDCam mp4 codec files simultaneously is part of the problem. While transcoding everything to ProRes may not help it will certainly reduce the resource loadbon the processors. What I'm not sure is if the data bandwidth on your source drive can handle 6 ProRes files playing back at once.