So how's the open timeline on Final Cut Studio 2?
 

Anyone tried mixing formats on a timeline in Final Cut Studio 2 yet?

I'm wondering if you drop SD cutaways into an HDV timeline if you can resize your helmet cam footage and go about your business without waiting for a render?

What about an .mpeg file from a digital camera like the Xacti or Everio?

thanks

Yes.

Yes, if the helmet cam is a supported format.

That's the limitation of Open Timeline...only the standard FCP codecs/formats are supported...DV, DV50, DVCPRO HD, HDV, XDCAM, ProRes, etc. It's quite a lot actually.

its a joy...i am currently editing an xdcam hd 1080 25p projectet with some 720p footage. Plays perfectly.

Open timeline for rough cuts only?
 

I'm not sure about this open format timeline business. One of the things they claim is that you can mix PAL and NTSC on a single timeline without rendering. This is true - but if you drop a PAL clip onto an NTSC timeline, you'll find that the transcode process (both in the timeline itself and if you export to quicktime for example) is unacceptable - it simply repeats every fifth frame to get up to 30fps.

Now, this is just an example. But I would certainly rigorously test the output of any other multiple formats I wanted to mix (24p and 60i, for example) to make sure there aren't any issues.

The danger with the example listed above is that some people are going to think they can mix formats and get professional results - precisely because the OFT never threw up a warning, or even a red render bar, to alert them to the dangers...

So use the OFT with caution, is my advice. :(

Finally got FCS2 on one of our machines.

As a test, I dropped five different clips on a 4:3 NTSC timeline: HDV1080i60, 720p24, dv, dv anamorphic, and some weird .avi file that nothing else will open. (The .avi properties in FC6 say that it's cinepack at 15.5fps.)

All five clips automatically sized to letterbox within the 4:3 frame. The 24fps and the avi needed rendering, but the others did not. Playback within final cut looked good. I didn't look critically at the 24fps footage, but I didn't notice anything that jumped out as bad, either.

I think this open timeline thing is gonna be great.

'Color,' on the other hand, looks like a nightmare. The interface is some unix programmer's idea of a joke.

Color
 

I love Color. At first it seemed out of sorts but after one or two hours and no manual, I love it. I have some experience with Shake which helps but give Color a chance.

Ryan