Mixing EX and XDCAM HD footage in FCPro
 

I am working on a project that will involved mixing XDCAM HD 35mbps (50i) footage with EX footage. I was hoping to shoot 35mpbs with the EX as well but I see that the image raster in HQ mode is 1920x1080 where XDCAM HD is always 1440x1080. Is this a problem for editing in FCPro 6? We will be on a pretty tight and stressful schedule so I'd like to avoid having to process or render anything. I just to know what is the most compatible EX shooting mode to be mixed with XDCAM HD 35mbps (50i).

Thanks.

So, any help with this?

Your going to have to set up a sequence for the XDCAM stuff first @ 1440x1080 then bring in the ex stuff it will rezise to fit the 1440x1080 size. Did this recently with XDCam footage and brought it down to the HVX200 size, with FCP 6 worked just fine.

Thanks Steve. So we can shoot in HQ mode (1920x1080)? Is the resizing realtime or is that a render?

Thierry.

What's the final delivery? XDCAM HD disc? If so, at some point you would have to resize and render the EX1 full raster material to conform it with the standard XDCAM format for output. No getting around render time somewhere down the line unless you don't need XDCAM output, at which point I would suggest transcoding all material to ProRes 1080 50i.

We need XDCAM HD output. Would it be more efficient to shoot in SP mode (1440x1080 raster)? Quality is not the primary concern, the workflow efficiency is.

Thanks.

Theirry- we went out to SD DVD but in your case out to XDCAM may be a different story to match the XDCAM size. Render would then would be in order.

I would cut in XDCAM HD VBR (aka 35mbs).

The EX footage will go in the timeline fine, will eventually need to be rendered when you layoff to tape or output another Quicktime for layoff.

The rendering will not be fast, but it will not be ridiculously slow either. Assuming a 44 minute program, say 20 minutes of which is EX footage, I'd expect a 30 minute render on my 2.66 quad Intel.

Of course you can speed up rendering time by telling FCP to render your effects in that XDCAM timeline to ProRes. Higher quality and faster.

Nate,

This is for campaign coverage dailies so the pieces will be short, may be 2 or 3 min. max. We are now running some tests, I'll keep the thread updated on our findings. Standby...

Gotcha. Assuming one VNR per day (or thereabouts), I would think what I and the other guys propose would be no big deal.

Let us know, I have yet to get my hands on any EX media. But I have two doc projects with extensive amounts of 24p from a V1U that I'm mixing, and it's been a non-event so far.