The short verdict: don't buy it unless you already have Final Cut Express 2 and you don't have Livetype and Soundtrack. Buy iMovie HD or LumiereHD if have Final Cut Pro HD.

Capturing HDV sucks. The code seems lifted straight out of iMovie HD. You do not get the normal capture dialog (aka as Final Cut Pro's Log and Capture minus the log part), but instead you get a tiny dialog asking for a clip name. FCE HD will start capturing from where ever your tape is located. There is no camera control, no rewind, no fast forward. It will detect when you stopped the camera and start a new clip afterwards. Clips are named as "Clipname-number". Timecode is lost. Every clip starts at 00:00:00:00.

It seems to be full of bugs. It detected scene-breaks and end-of-tape where there weren't any. It complains it can't find the "built-in audio" device on startup.

I could open my FCE HD test project in Final Cut Pro HD, but the aspect ratio of the clips was wrong. You have to tick the anamorphic flag on the clips and the sequence to get them right.

The upgrade from Final Cut Express 2 gives you: half assed HDV support and Digital Cinema Desktop Preview, which you probably won't need for DV, and Livetype and Soundtrack.

It is no more a usable HDV solution than iMovie HD + Final Cut Pro.

ouch!

So no Timecode in HDV.
Does FCexpress records the timecode when you adquire DV?
How difficult would be to include time code capture in HDV? I do not understand thhis limitation.

Ric

Final Cut Express records timecode in DV mode.

A DV stream contains timecode for every frame. An MPEG 2 transport stream doesn't have to. There is a provision for timecode at the start of every Group of Pictures (GOP), but the FX1 doesn't fill it. I get all zeroes in my tests.

BTW, can someone point me to a raw m2t file from a Z1? I'd like to see if the Z1 fills the GOP timecode field.

Today i captured some scenes from the FX1-E in an AvidXpress Pro system. The camara downconverted from HDV to DV and the timecode shows in the captured clips.
So in the meantime, I'm planning to do some off-line work in this configuration. Then, when the manufacturers launch real proffesional HDV support (not Imovie) I can do the on-line finish, hopefully batch capturing the native HDV material.


Ric

<<<-- Originally posted by Ricardo Renaldi : Today i captured some scenes from the FX1-E in an AvidXpress Pro system. The camara downconverted from HDV to DV and the timecode shows in the captured clips.
So in the meantime, I'm planning to do some off-line work in this configuration. Then, when the manufacturers launch real proffesional HDV support (not Imovie) I can do the on-line finish, hopefully batch capturing the native HDV material.


Ric -->>>

Here here!

Final Cut Expres captures the timecode just fine when you let the camera downconvert to DV, but it doesn't if you capture HDV without downconversion.

http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/sonyhdrfx1/freerun.php

Also, when I've captured in iMovie HD and put it into FCP HD, I DON'T click the 16x9 flag. The settings for going from iMovie HD to FCP HD are found here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38145

heath

If Final Cut Xpress is really so crappy, this won't do sales of FCP5 any good. Why do software vendors keep on doing this to us? Do they think users are complete morons? Some people might look at other options just because they're pissed off - but of course if you're using Mac what other options are there? Poor saps.

I believe that this won't happen to FCP 5. I expect FCP 5 to fully support HDV cams with timecode and batch capture. I think FCE HD was just a stop gap measure to keep people quiet.

I think they're trying to get FCP to be a pro HDV solution.

hwm

Originally posted by Heath McKnight
I think they're trying to get FCP to be a pro HDV solution.
Dear God, let's hope so.

Yes!

hwm

"I think FCE HD was just a stop gap measure to keep people quiet."

Of course, people don't keep quiet, do they? If the software's half-baked they complain, post their complaint's, etc. Avid are probably taking the best approach - no promises now, but undertaking a pro hdv solution by June. Meanwhile Liquid Edition 6, Premiere Pro 1.5 and FCE promise hdv editing, but miss vital components or are clunky to use. Sigh...

As Frederic said, mpeg2-ts is tough to edit.

hwm

The problem is not mpeg2ts but the intermediate codec used for the editing. My guess is also that FCP will be better than either imovie and FCE HD. If a HDV release was not yet done for FCP, this codec nightmare is certainly the reason. Don't worry, FCP should be released with a much more viable HDV option.

Maybe the AppleIntermediateCodec won't be improved (or maybe a little), but FCP will retain the original MPEGTS files for renders - a bit of a cheat (and I admit a steal of LumiereHD's workflow) but the MPEG-TS files would be "hidden" and not apparent. When rendering or outputting, it would go back to the cached MPEG streams rather than use the intermediate. This is what you do manually with Lumiere, but in this case it would be internal to FCP, automatic and "behind the scenes".

This increases the disc space needed, but AIC is already 4 times the size of HDV, so another 25%, if it improves quality, wouldn't be that big of a hit, not with hard disk prices what they are.