2008 Mac HD100 Post Workflow!?
 

Ok it's 2008 and I've been using a workflow for capturing footage that was told to me back in 2006. I'm on a mac, and naturally I'm a final cut user (v 5.1.4). Problem with final cut pro and the hd100 as I've experienced and come to understand is that when you capture directly from the camera into final cut pro, the program will cut off the beginning and tail end of the clips by about five seconds wherever it detects a "timecode break", and these "timecode breaks" as final cut interprets them are basically whenever someone starts and/or stops the record button while shooting. As you can imagine this results in a lot of lost/unusable clips... so I've been having to deal with a very complicated and lengthy process for importing footage onto my mac and converting it to a format that can be edited in final cut.... my method is as follows... step 1. hook up me firewire and playback the tape, capturing the footage as an m2t stream into the program DVHS cap... why DVHS cap? I used to use HDVxDV but it often fails to detect that the hd100 is even connected tp the computer so instead I use DVHScap, stopping the tape every 15 minutes and creating a new m2t stream so as to avoid audio-video sync issues which always seem to happen whether the whole tape is captured in one go or broken into segments :( Then once the m2t stream is captured via DVHScap I will import the m2t file into HDVxDV and encode it to Apple Intermediate Codec with the HDV 720p preset... now after doing this the audio is generally a bit out of sync on a 15 minute clip and the file size is usually about 3.0 GB! Sometimes though some of these converted m2t stream clips can't even be opened in quicktime... an error message will appear saying "this is not a movie file" so then I have to take the same m2t stream into MPEG streamclip and fix the "timecode breaks" and then reexport it to apple intermediate codec at 720p resolution... generally this works but with a few flaws that include the audio becoming totally unusable(white noise), the picture speeding up by 200 percent or slowing down 50 percent, and the file size being double of what it would be if exported through hdvxdv... now after all is said and done, I can edit these clips in a final cut sequence that is configured to handle apple intermediate codec.....

NOW I am hoping that somehow out there is going to tell me that this is a horribly complicated and outdated method for importing footage off of the hd100 and into a format that can be edited on final cut... please let there be someone with news on how I can import my tapes into final cut without having to go through this ridiculously long and tedious process, it is 2008 after all and surely there must be an easier method. Now why don't I capture directly into final cut? The reason why I don't capture directly into final cut is because, when last I checked, when capturing HD100 material, final cut decides to shave off seconds from the beginning and end of the clips, crucial seconds for me since I shoot documentary style things... people told me why don't I change the preroll/postroll, I did.. I tried, changed it to 1 second but still a significant portion of each clip(5-7 seconds in some instances) would not be captured... I shoot documentary style things and sometimes I can't afford to do a preroll while shooting, I have to capture stuff as it happens... hopefully they've fixed this issue in final cut pro by now? I have a friend who is an hd100 shooter/pc user using premiere and he captures directly to avi through cineform aspect HD with no problems or errors and is ready to edit as soon as the playback on the tape has stopped... WHY can't things be as easy for us mac users!?!?!?!? Can someone please edify and enlighten me?!

Hi Ryan,

Here's the latest discussion on it from this forum:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=118627

Hope that helps,

Liam.

Ryan: On my HD200U(b) and FCP 6.0.3 (DON'T DO THE 6.0.3 UPGRADE!!!!) I have resorted to capturing using Apple's "new" Intermediate Codec ProRes. I lose 12 frames at each camera start-up and have no consistent timecode (negating recapture) but KNOCK ON WOOD, it seems to be rock solid so far (10 hours of documentary style footage captured) as far as getting the footage onto hard drive.

Less than ideal but I needed to go to post. If you do upgrade to FCS2, try to avoid upgrading past 6.0.2 for now. I can't verify it but I have heard that 6.0.2 works with JVC cameras and the 6.0.3 version (and 7.4.x Quicktime) is what "breaks" the JVC support.

Oh and good luck trying to find the 6.0.2 updater!

Hi Shaun.

I upgraded to QT 7.5 and did a successful capture test for native HDV 24p and 25p footage. Using FCP 6.0.3. On a new Intel iMac. Of course, this was just in my case. I don't know how that will go for others.

More info in this thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....78&postcount=6

Thanks David. Of course, just to make things interesting, I of course am using 60P. I'm on a white iMac 2.16GHz for now. MacPro end of summer, hence why I want to nail this down.

As well: are you running 10.4 or 10.5? Edit: Never mind, I just followed your link. 10.5 Thanks!

Apple seems to have changed the way FCP captures ProHD footage
 

I just captured a tape with 42 separate clips all in one go!

I meant to only capture one clip at a time, but I was a bit slow to press Esc and FCP just kept on recording and, each time the tape went over a stop/start point, FCP simply made a new clip and kept on capturing. That means you can capture a 50 minute tape in only 50 minutes! Of course, I'll have to go back and properly name each clip and add any metadata, etc., but it's shaved a good hour or two from my overall capture time for a tape - and, best of all, zero mid-clip breaks!

So I reckon Apple have quietly re-jigged FCP 6.0.3 to properly capture ProHD footage, but it must have initially caused some bugs with QuickTime - we had reports on this board that FCP 6.0.3 had ruined the ability to natively capture ProHD. It seems that QuickTime 7.5 might have now fixed the bugs caused by the FCP re-jig.

There is about a 6 second gap between each captured clip (not a problem for me because I allow at least 10 seconds pre-roll for each take). I was going to further experiment by reducing the amount of pre-roll in the FCP controls, but I seem to have forgotten how to find the pre-roll control! (I used to know - honest!) So, that'll have to wait. But it would be great if the 6 seconds were reduced to only one second. That would make almost everyone happy.

Here's some specifics on how and what I was capturing:

Tape stock: JVC ProHD tape
Camera Firmware: Never updated. Original mid-2005 firmware.
Recording mode: HDV 720p25
FCP 6.0.3
QuickTime 7.5
FCP Easy Setup: HDV 720p25
In User Preferences, set to "On timecode break: Make New Clip"
Capturing via FireWire 800 to an external 500GB LaCie drive with about 320GB of free space
Using "Capture Now"
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 4 GB RAM
All HDV720p25 footage recorded in REC mode (rather than REGEN). An old habit when I shoot 720p25, but I suspect it will work just fine with REGEN. Note that I didn’t rewind the tape at all while shooting in REC, so as to maintain an absolutely unbroken timecode. That’s why I suspect that REGEN will be best from now on (because if you rewind, REGEN will just create continuous timecode from what you were last viewing).

I'll test it with some old HDV 720p24 tapes next week. (I've got to re-capture about 30 tapes. So I hope I remember how to reduce the pre-roll to 1 second before then!)

I wonder how it’s going for others. Such as 30p plus the 200/250 users with 50p and 60p.

Or is my improved FCP capturing experience just an isolated case?

If it's the same thing you're talking about David then it's under Audio/Video Settings as per the attached pic.
Bit odd that when I change my settings it, for some reason, creates a copy of the Set up (again see pic).

Unfortunately although I've had the latest firmware upgrade (and motherboard fix - although never found out what they actually did) I'm still getting broken clips and missing chunks of footage. I am however still running FCP5...I think if I can confirm FCP6 runs with 5:1 sound I might be persuaded to upgrade :)

Good news your set up is [FINALLY] working for you David.
Love to see some of your indie project by the way...I'm about to work on a indie flick in August...expect a barrage of new questions on that front!

Cheers.

Thanks, David. That really helped me.

I just set it to 1 second pre-roll and 1 second post-roll and recaptured an old HDV 720p24 tape. It was recorded with the TC GENE switch set to REGEN. There were 103 clips on that tape and it captured all in one go, splitting into separate clips for each take. The gaps were only about 2 seconds (2 1/4 seconds or so).
So it looks like you only lose one second at the beginning of each clip.

And the capture was 100% rock-solid. I now consider FCP 6.0.3 (with QuickTime 7.5) 100% rock-solid with JVC ProHD native HDV 720p24 and 720p25 capture.

So long as you allow one second of pre-roll.

Hey, I wonder if you can set the pre-roll and post-roll to 0 seconds?

Well done to Apple and the FCP team! To say that I am thrilled with this development is an understatement!

Yes, it was NEVER a firmware problem (because other NLEs have not had these capturing problems). Logically, it could only be a problem with Apple's NLE. And with FCP 6.0.3, Apple have fixed their NLE (and also fixed QuickTime with version 7.5). And I don't know about FCP 6, but I've noticed that FCS 2 has a new version of Compressor (currently Version 3.0.3) which has an icon to "Add Surround Sound". Maybe that will help you make the leap to FCS 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpAd1vlIo50
(Make sure that you click the "Watch in High Quality" bar underneath. YouTube's standard quality can be pretty diabolical.)

I spoke too soon
 

Unfortunately, further testing has shown FCP 6.0.3 not to be rock-solid with native 720p24 capture. I captured 4 tapes in a row and noticed some mid-clip breaks in the latter ones. Darn! Presumably caused as the playback heads and hard drives heat up? (That's a total guess.) It's still much improved (FCP capturing) but it isn't bug-free.

Hey David - it looks absolutely fantastic! Is this the indie project you've been working on for some time? You should post it in the Finished projects section (unless of course it's still in production). Although you've 'bequeathed' many of your tips and workflows I'd be interested in how you went about many of the shots (the moving car shot and tennis tournament shot looked very pro - really believed the guy was at a pro match despite there seemingly being just two extras!) and indeed post production elements.

*Thanks for the Youtube Higher Quality tab - can't believe I hadn't spotted that one. Quality comes across well for youtube - H.264 codec?

[QUOTE]Unfortunately, further testing has shown FCP 6.0.3 not to be rock-solid with native 720p24 capture. I captured 4 tapes in a row and noticed some mid-clip breaks in the latter ones. Darn! Presumably caused as the playback heads and hard drives heat up? (That's a total guess.) It's still much improved (FCP capturing) but it isn't bug-free.[/QOUTE]

It really is the holy grail as far as FCP/JVC go...:(

Hi David.

Thanks, and yes, that's from my long-overdue indie project.

Those shots were all done by my DP (Michael). He's a hand-held specialist and the entire movie was shot hand-held (well, except for a couple of exterior building shots which were locked off on a tripod). The only shots I did were a few "2nd unit" pick-up shots (of buildings and crows). The tennis shots were done with a Digital Betacam camera (and the rest of the movie was shot exclusively with the GY-HD101E). Michael has his own special hand-held attachment (which he first invented for his trusty old Sony PD150) and it worked really well with the 101E. And he said that the Anton-Bauer battery on the back really helped balance it. Shooting hand-held for up to 8 hours at a time makes a camera's ergonomics of paramount importance and he was very complimentary about the 101E.

Yes, I exported via Compressor and used the preset "H.264 for Apple TV" (77MB file) and then uploaded that to YouTube.

Thanks for sharing that info David - it's a pro job fella. I've never used the h.264 for apple tv codec (usually use the h.264 LAN if I'm showing off small clips) - I'll give the apple tv a try in that case, although very pleased with the LAN footage for such small files.
So I guess you're directing/producing then?
Good luck with it and keep us updated.