Best Method for Giving 30 hrs of Footage?
 

Let me know if there is a better forum for this. I'm going on it being a post question, and I edit on a Mac.

Problem is, the company I'm going to license 30 hrs of footage to edits with Avid.

What's the best way for me to give them the footage, while I retain the original?

Copy my original 30 miniDVs to miniDV? If so, what's the best way to do that? I don't have a deck, should I get one? Also, I've read about using cheap miniDV cameras as decks. Are there no quality differences on the record heads when you use cheap equipment that way?

Either get a deck or an inexpensive Mini Dv camera and use the Print to Tape function in FCP via FW. DV is DV so it won't matter what kind of system the dubs will end up on. The quality will be the same since it's a direct transfer of data.

If you plan to do a lot of dubbing, a deck or second camera would be a good investment. Otherwise using your camera is fine.

Another option is to see if the client or person you are giving the footage to, has a FW hard drive they can ship you. For 13 hours of DV you'll need 390 gigs. You can then just capture to that drive or transfer the capture scratch on your drive to it.

Record heads? What was I thinking? Magnet tape evidently.

Thanks for your tips Dave. I think I'll try the hard drive route. And buy a cheap miniDV camera.

Note: FCP files will not transfer directly to AVID. Different codecs. Avid edits with OMFI files.

Best bet is the straight DV method. Just capture as DV tapes, or DVCAM if you have a deck, hand them the tapes and they can digitize into AVID. Otherwise, store as quicktime files, they can be imported directly into Avid.

Richard, can you help me with a little more detail? Can you walk me through the process, starting with a freshly shot miniDV tape that I haven't captured yet?

Let's say I buy a cheap miniDV camera to serve as a deck. Where do I go from there?

Richard,

I was not aware that the captured files from FCP would not work in an Avid. I thought FW capture of DV footage would remain standard DV footage rather than become proprietary.

Sam,

If you get a deck with FW or a Mini DV camera, you would just use a FW cable connected camera to camera and not even use the Mac.

Sam,
My advice would be to simply copy the tapes, and hand them over to the AVID editors to work with. So you will need a second camera or a deck, connect via firewire from one cam to the other, and 'dub'.

Avid puts its files in OMFI wrappers, and material imported from another NLE will have to be 'rewrapped' upon import. The simplest way to do this is to hand them the files as quicktime files.

To transfer projects AND files between FCP and Avid, look for "Automatic Duck", it's a translating/trasferring software.

http://www.automaticduck.com/products/pefcp/

Thank you both. I'll give that a whirl.

Preserving Timecode
 

When I dub from camera to camera or deck to camera (or camera to deck?) is the original timecode preserved?

Nevermind, I just found the threads on The Thin Black Line.