XD CAM & FCP frustrations
 

Hello,
I've been cutting on the Avid for years but the new season of my show is being shot on XD and I'm cutting it on a Mac Book Pro (whatever top-of-the-line specs are available right now), a XD deck, an eSATA 1 gig drive (not striped) and a secondary apple 23" LCD. I figured out most of the basics but I'm confused about the workflow a little.

I import the clips using FAM. Once the clips are in the project, I set my in/out and place it on the timeline. I hit play and nothing. The clip needs to be rendered. Bummer. Is this how you guys edit? I really don't have time to sit and wait for renders all the time. How do I cut with proxies? I can't find them anywhere...

Is my system fast enough for this format? My people want to shoot HD and deliver HD for broadcast. I was asked to provide a regular 16x9 test and a 4x3 letterboxed text. How do I do this?

Thanks in advance,
RD

In 5.x, your sequence settings need to match your project settings. Go to Easy Setup, pick the settings that match what you're shooting (XDCamHD 35Mbit 1080i60?), and create a new sequence. Then copy a clip into the sequence. It should appear without rendering. If it doesn't -- your sequence settings still aren't right. Report back for a second attempt.

Please know that Sony has sold hundreds if not thousands of these units, and many folks (count Andy and myself among them) are quite pleased with the workflow -- it is among the highest quality with the lowest bs ratio of any format I've used.

-MW

Robert, I echo what Mike said. FCP 5.1.x doesn't support proxy editing of XDCAM HD. It can be done, but it's a convoluted process. That's perhaps one of the nice parts of using AVID is that it lets you edit with the proxies. Perhaps that has changed in FCP 6, but I don't have it yet to verify.

There's also a next version of XDCAM Transfer in the works that will add some much requested features. Don't know the exact release date yet.

BTW Mike, welcome to DVINFO. I edited your post a bit for language content. Please keep it clean. We're a bit different than other places on the net.

-gb-

Nope. It doesn't. I was hoping the "open timeline" bit would add the flexibility needed to deal with the proxies, but no go. It behaves same as before.

It would be really easy for the XDCAM Transfer folks to transcode the proxy audio to something FCP could use, in real time while the proxies are coming in. In addition, it would be trivial for the proxies to have names that mirror the full res clips.

Just those two things would make editable proxies happen! And the Apple team wouldn't have to lift a finger!

Hm, is there any way for me to cut the XD footage without having to render each time I play the timeline? Is it possible to import at a lower res/edit/offline/import at full rez?
I'm cutting the show on a laptop, is it the lack of bandwith (CPU/RAM/drive speed) that's at fault or is it simply the format?

Forgive my many questions but I'm a FCP and XD freshman.

FCP studio 2 is out soon, should I install that?

RD

Robert, it doesn't sound right to me that you can't make a simple cut without the need to render on a top of the line MBP. I can make cuts and inserts on an iMac G5 1.8 with no problem. Make sure your sequence settings match the source footage. There's a setting somewhere that must be incorrect.

As for installing the new version of Final Cut Studio, I would hold off if you're already into the show for this season. The last thing you want is more complications in the middle of a time sensitive project. I'm not saying you would have complications, but it's a good idea not to switch boats in mid stream.

As Nate indicated (thanks Nate, didn't realize you had already upgraded), even the new version doesn't do proxy editing directly.

-gb-

I just asked the camera guys to switch the quality settings to 35 VBR. I believe I was having a hard time because FCP's defaults are 35 VBR and my test footage was 25 CBR. Maybe that's what was causing the problem. I will report back once I have the footage @ the end of the day.

Thanks to everyone for your time replying to my q's.

RD

No maybe about it, that was definitely causing the problem! You should shoot in 35mb anyway. You're still going to get better than 1 hour with each disc and will be taking advantage of the VBR which is what makes the format look so good.

-gb-