Got the V1 today. It was overcast and gloomy but the initial footage I took with the camera is AMAZING! I can post more as I take more in the coming days . The only disapointment I've found so far with the camera is the lack of control when doing an SD downconvert.

IMHO the camera is misleading in the way it words things in the menu. It appears you can do a downconvert via iLink with it LETTERBOXED, SQUEEZED or SIDE CROPPED. As an FX1 owner I was able to do a SQUEEZE OR LTBX downconvert but not an edge crop. On the V1 it will ONLY downconvert to DV squeezed. The other settings (Listed right under DOWNCONVERT in the menu) are for analog output only over S-VIDEO, A/V or Component, NOT OVER iLINK!!!!!!

Many of my clients like to shoot HDV but then want to edit in LTBX DV. We'd make them a LTBX DV dub over firewire and it looked and worked great. With this camera you can't output that way! It's a major disappointment that you can't do it. To me it's a shameless way for SONY to try and sell their HDV decks. It's really a limiting factor in the transitional days of HD/SD.

Other than this, I must say the camera is a joy and the footage looks GREAT! It's just a 95% satisfaction for me, not 100%. I thought some of you might like to know this bit of info.

I guess I don't understand why you'd want to letterbox when the cam shoots widescreen, and all editors can deliver widescreen. This was a discussed feature during dev of the camcorder, and it was pretty well unanimous that most folks would want to stay widescreen and not deliver 4:3 as letter boxed.
It's not an issue of "trying to sell decks" but rather one of "do we use more memory on the DSP for this or that feature." It's all a trade off. Some features have to be sacrificed for others, and personally, I feel this is more or less a moot sacrifice.

as the manufactures "push" the next thing in video tech. on the consumer, you will see some of the "old" features start to drop off of models. This keeps the price down in the range profitablility for the companies. Just wait 24 months and all of the current features will be old school.

HDMI output alone overcompensates for any lack of SD features. You can see SD widescreen on a $200 computer monitor and I think it's possible for some to understand HD. It isn't that big a deal to go analog if you want letterbox. HD is here! Don't sweat SD too much. That can be done analog or in the computer any way you want.

Spot, I don't know how to contact you. I can meet anywhere in Honolulu tonight (Friday) or Saturday. I'd love to get some V1 pointers and I think I may have some footage you will like, assuming you like cliche' sunsets/sunrises. :)

Marcus,
dse [at]]vasst [dot] com
is my email addy. (apologies to the rest of the forum)
I'll be at Dillingham most of Sat morn/early afternoon, jumping at the Pacific Coast, looking at the whales from 13K, and hoping to take photos on the way down.
Back in Waikiki Sat afternoon.

Craig, as mentioned before, this was a discussed feature, and the decision was to put more into the cam in new features than offer features that aren't going to be used by many. My opinion as expressed to the designers of the camcorder, was that 16:9 displays are so commonplace and will be yet more commonplace, that offering a 4:3 crop simply didn't make sense as opposed to anamorphic squeeze. My input certainly wasn't the only input; others had the same opinion as well. I'd rather have say...6 color profiles available as opposed to 3...
there is only so much memory and DSP on the cam without them increasing the budget/cost/price of the camcorder. This holds true regardless of the manufacturer.

I don't really understand the value in editing in letterboxed DV. What have I missed?

Surely it is better for the playback device, i.e. the ubiquitous DVD player, to handle letterboxing/Pan&Scan of Widescreen SD material. Maximum resolution is maintained while the content retains some level of future-proofing when the person upgrades to a 16:9 set. Letterboxed DV will look horrid on anything other than the 4:3 tv it was intended for. Can you buy 4:3 TVs any more :) I couldn't see any in my local electrical shop last time I visited.

I am all for keeping functions off cameras that don't directly assist the shooting process.

TT

Every local broadcast across America is done 4:3. If you're delivering a local TV show or a local commercial, you're delivering 4:3. If you wanted to shoot in HD for some reason and downconvert, and you're doing so for local broadcast, you'd need a 4:3 master, and delivering a letterboxed version in 4:3 would be a convenient way to get that.

I don't know if I really understand the problem.

With the software I use I can set up the timeline to what I want the output to be. If I drop 16x9 into a 4x3 timeline it automatically letterboxes it.

I understand about the camera not giving you the option to do the letterbox insitu but is that really a problem if you can get to the same end with your computer side workflow?

Chris

That's the point, IMO. All NLE software *can* letterbox if you so choose. Capture the maximum information, then manipulate it to suit the output, but have an archive of the full signal.

While the majority of small broadcasts are 4:3, it won't be that way for too much longer; two of our largest clients have been demanding local commercials at wide for exactly a year, since their holiday campaigns of 05 started. All of our tradeshow clients are wide. Most indie film is wide AFAIK. Even the new mom/pop cams are mostly wide now, to have longevity.

Additionally, if you capture letterbox vs anamorphic, you can't easily recompose the frame should you need to, regardless of the delivery format.

I think that's a good move - the only time you need a letterbox output is for monitoring on older, non-16:9 capable monitors, imo.

With the Z1, I've had a few annoying times where the camera's been left in letterbox mode from a shoot and you get half the footage captured before you realise it's all bloody letterboxed!

So good riddance, say I...

Got the V1 today. It was overcast and gloomy but the initial footage I took with the camera is AMAZING! I can post more as I take more in the coming days . The only disapointment I've found so far with the camera is the lack of control when doing an SD downconvert.

IMHO the camera is misleading in the way it words things in the menu. It appears you can do a downconvert via iLink with it LETTERBOXED, SQUEEZED or SIDE CROPPED. As an FX1 owner I was able to do a SQUEEZE OR LTBX downconvert but not an edge crop. On the V1 it will ONLY downconvert to DV squeezed. The other settings (Listed right under DOWNCONVERT in the menu) are for analog output only over S-VIDEO, A/V or Component, NOT OVER iLINK!!!!!!

Many of my clients like to shoot HDV but then want to edit in LTBX DV. We'd make them a LTBX DV dub over firewire and it looked and worked great. With this camera you can't output that way! It's a major disappointment that you can't do it. To me it's a shameless way for SONY to try and sell their HDV decks. It's really a limiting factor in the transitional days of HD/SD.

Other than this, I must say the camera is a joy and the footage looks GREAT! It's just a 95% satisfaction for me, not 100%. I thought some of you might like to know this bit of info.

I have FXs and now a V1 as well, and while i love the images the V1 produces, its low light performance is not close to being FXs. Much noisier image at the same levels as the FXs.

Are you seeing this?

I may not have worded my original post well. I mostly do work for broadcast, which as Barry states, means 4x3 MASTERS (for now in my area). SOME of my clients (Local commercial spots)...want to edit in SD LTBX. It's quicker and IMHO better to let the camera downconvert then to go through the long render times in FCP to make the master in SD 4x3. Shooting in HDV provides better "raw" footage to work from.

The bigger issue for me is I shoot/edit hour long documentaries for PBS. I want an HD master so I edit native hdv then make a Master copy on HDV (which takes close to 6 hours to render!). I'm also asked to supply a 4x3 LTBX master. So I just make a real time 4x3 downconvert for broadcast, using the LTBX feature from my HDV master. I've also had to make a 4x3 version once using the crop feature. It's quick, convenient and most importantly, makes a better downconvert then using Compressor.

To render these out in FCP from the HDV timeline takes FOUR times as long! For me time is money. I use this stuff to make a living, not just for a hobby. I know FCP can make 4x3 copies but it requires LONG render times. For a 30 second spot, that s not a big deal, for any long form project it's a MAJOR problem.

Maybe these features aren't useful to some but to others they are VERY important. Especially those of us working in broadcast. While TVs are mostly 16x9, most every station still wants a 4x3 master! I wish it weren't so but it is! I'm not in the biggest market (it's #93 in the country), but thats the way it is here. I can't believe that it would cost that much more to add (actually LEAVE) this on the camera. Personally I'd rather see them lose the Memory Stick feature which to me is useless and is something I'll never use! Why include this on a "professional" camera? Anyone who wants high quality stills will be taking them with a higher rez still cam. You see, to each his own!

I still have my FX1, so I'll be OK as I'll use that camera to do the downconvert. The point of this thread was to make people aware of this fact in case they missed it in an earlier thread like I did. Some people are just now getting into HDV, this MAY be their first camera, and they may be working for a broadcast station. This is a major piece of info they'll need to know. Also since SONY's decks all provide this feature, you don't think this is part of the reason it's been eliminated? I guess I respectfully disagree with you on that one! Personally, for the same cost of one of those decks, I'd rather buy another camera as a feeder deck. Then you have a spare and/or a second camera to use. I know it's wear and tear on it as a feeder, but to me it makes more sense. If they start "eliminating" some features from the cameras that the deck provides, it'll make them more desireable to own. So far, while it would be nice to have a deck, I can't justify the cost over another camera to buy one.

BTW, if someone knows of a quicker way (then real time) to make a 4x3 LTBX or CROP downconvert from an HDV master, (excluding $$$ external hardware) then I'm all ears!

Daniel,

Not to go off topic, but initially I must say the low light is not as good as the FX's. They are rated 1 lux lower so we shouldn't be too surprised. I've been reading elsewhere that some are having good luck in low light by tweaking some of the settings. I'll need to do more tests before I can comment to much though.

I may not have worded my original post well. I mostly do work for broadcast, which as Barry states, means 4x3 MASTERS (for now in my area). SOME of my clients (Local commercial spots)...want to edit in SD LTBX. It's quicker and IMHO better to let the camera downconvert then to go through the long render times in FCP to make the master in SD 4x3. Shooting in HDV provides better "raw" footage to work from.

The bigger issue for me is I shoot/edit hour long documentaries for PBS. I edit native hdv then make a Master copy on HDV (which takes close to 6 hours to render!), then I just make a real time 4x3 downconvert for broadcast, using the LTBX feature. I've also had to make a 4x3 version once using the crop feature. It's quick, convenient and most importantly, makes a better downconvert then using Compressor.

To render these out in FCP from the HDV timeline takes FOUR times as long! For me time is money. I use this stuff to make a living, not just for a hobby.

Maybe these features aren't useful to some but to others they are VERY important. I can't believe that it would cost that much more to add (actually LEAVE) this on the camera. Personally I'd rather see them lose the Memory Stick feature which to me is useless and is something I'll never use! Why include this on a "professional" camera? Anyone who wants high quality stills will be taking them with a higher rez still cam. You see, to each his own!

I still have my FX1, so I'll be OK as I'll use that camera to do the downconvert. The point of this thread was to make people aware of this fact in case they missed it in an earlier thread like I did. Also since SONY's decks all provide this feature, you don't think this is part of the reason it's been eliminated? I guess I respectfully disagree with you on that one! Personally, for the same cost of one of those decks, I'd rather buy another camera as a feeder deck. Then you have a spare and/or a second camera to use. I know it's wear and tear on it as a feeder, but to me it makes more sense. If they start "eliminating" some features from the cameras that the deck provides, it'll make them more desireable to own. So far, while it would be nice to have a deck, I can't justify the cost over another camera to buy one.

BTW, if someone knows of a quicker way (then real time) to make a 4x3 LTBX or CROP downconvert from an HDV master, then I'm all ears!

I understand some of your frustration. For news stuff, I use that 4:3 crop/downcovert feature on the F350. But then again, they understand that the F350 would be more likely used for ENG than the V1. It's nice to shoot spot news in HD knowing I can output it to the NLE via FW in SD cropped to 4:3. However, the camera only does that on playback from disc, not in realtime.

As to the memory stick, don't think of it as just a stills media. I don't know about the V1, but the F350 uses the memory stick to store many different types of camera setup files which can then be loaded into another camera either locally, or via the internet after the file is downloaded and placed on the card. I would hope the V1 provides some type of set up file storage to memory stick.

regards,

-gb-

Greg,

You're right, the memory stick does provide camera set up storage. I may use that one day but since I'm the only one that uses my camera, and there are already 6 Custom Presets, I don't see it being used nearly as much as what I would've used the downconvert feature.

Also glad to hear I'm not the only one who uses the downconvert feature!

BTW, if someone knows of a quicker way (then real time) to make a 4x3 LTBX or CROP downconvert from an HDV master, (excluding $$$ external hardware) then I'm all ears!

Unfortunately it involves $$$, but you might want to look at the Matrox MXO. I think it would do what you want...

http://www.matrox.com/video/products/mxo/home.cfm

See the review in the current issue of DV magazine; the author used it for this sort of application.

Greg,

You're right, the memory stick does provide camera set up storage. I may use that one day but since I'm the only one that uses my camera, and there are already 6 Custom Presets, I don't see it being used nearly as much as what I would've used the downconvert feature.

Also glad to hear I'm not the only one who uses the downconvert feature!

Sharing set-up files is a good way to paint several cameras so that they match up in post or provide an overall look for a given network. In the old days, this meant going in and tweaking pots on a circuit board. Today, it's much easier by loading files into the camera via some type of flash media (or via FW in the case of the Canon XL2).

Many folks here have benefitted from the excellent work done by other members who have contributed camera 'looks' files for the JVC HD100 and Canon XL2. I suspect we'll see more of that in the future, perhaps for the V1 as well.

Oh, and most importantly, the memory stick is how the firmware upgrades are distributed for the XDCAM cameras. Don't rule out that possibility on the V1 either!

Regards and Happy Holidays,

-gb-

I may not have worded my original post well. I mostly do work for broadcast, which as Barry states, means 4x3 MASTERS (for now in my area). SOME of my clients (Local commercial spots)...want to edit in SD LTBX. It's quicker and IMHO better to let the camera downconvert then to go through the long render times in FCP to make the master in SD 4x3. Shooting in HDV provides better "raw" footage to work from.

The bigger issue for me is I shoot/edit hour long documentaries for PBS. I want an HD master so I edit native hdv then make a Master copy on HDV (which takes close to 6 hours to render!). I'm also asked to supply a 4x3 LTBX master. So I just make a real time 4x3 downconvert for broadcast, using the LTBX feature from my HDV master. I've also had to make a 4x3 version once using the crop feature. It's quick, convenient and most importantly, makes a better downconvert then using Compressor.

To render these out in FCP from the HDV timeline takes FOUR times as long! For me time is money. I use this stuff to make a living, not just for a hobby. I know FCP can make 4x3 copies but it requires LONG render times. For a 30 second spot, that s not a big deal, for any long form project it's a MAJOR problem.

Maybe these features aren't useful to some but to others they are VERY important. Especially those of us working in broadcast. While TVs are mostly 16x9, most every station still wants a 4x3 master! I wish it weren't so but it is! I'm not in the biggest market (it's #93 in the country), but thats the way it is here. I can't believe that it would cost that much more to add (actually LEAVE) this on the camera. Personally I'd rather see them lose the Memory Stick feature which to me is useless and is something I'll never use! Why include this on a "professional" camera? Anyone who wants high quality stills will be taking them with a higher rez still cam. You see, to each his own!

I still have my FX1, so I'll be OK as I'll use that camera to do the downconvert. The point of this thread was to make people aware of this fact in case they missed it in an earlier thread like I did. Some people are just now getting into HDV, this MAY be their first camera, and they may be working for a broadcast station. This is a major piece of info they'll need to know. Also since SONY's decks all provide this feature, you don't think this is part of the reason it's been eliminated? I guess I respectfully disagree with you on that one! Personally, for the same cost of one of those decks, I'd rather buy another camera as a feeder deck. Then you have a spare and/or a second camera to use. I know it's wear and tear on it as a feeder, but to me it makes more sense. If they start "eliminating" some features from the cameras that the deck provides, it'll make them more desireable to own. So far, while it would be nice to have a deck, I can't justify the cost over another camera to buy one.

BTW, if someone knows of a quicker way (then real time) to make a 4x3 LTBX or CROP downconvert from an HDV master, (excluding $$$ external hardware) then I'm all ears!

I use the downconvert feature when I'm in the field with the laptop. It just can't handle HDV. I use Liquids media quality setting to keep the SD and HD versions of the captures separate. I don't know if FCP has such a feature.

With that in mind, I can do my web stuff in SD using the laptop since its MUCH faster than trying to edit HDV with the laptop AND when I get home I can capture the footage again on the desktop in HD if I want to make something that needs HD. I just transfer the projects over to the desktop and bump up the media quality setting in Liquid. I have liquid only recapture the video that is being used in the project. A BIG time saver there as well.

Since Liquid does the letterboxing based on how I setup the timeline AND it doesn't reduce performance over normal SD 4:3 editing I see that as a viable option. It works great on the laptop that way. I did the entire One Lap of America last spring using that technique and it worked very well. Everything I shot with the HD camera I brought in downconverted to DV but still 16:9 and just dropped into a 4:3 timeline. No performance hit at all and the end result was nicely letterboxed for 4:3. The tape is still HD and will look great when I get the DVD project finished.

I wish I knew more about FCP. I'll be helping a friend set up his new FCP system right after Christmas. Maybe in my playing around with it I'll be able to offer a better suggestion.

I now understand your pain though.

BTW, if someone knows of a quicker way (then real time) to make a 4x3 LTBX or CROP downconvert from an HDV master, (excluding $$$ external hardware) then I'm all ears!

You answered your own question above...FCP isn't too fast for rendering LTB from wide. If you have Bootcamp, I'd urge you to try Vegas or Edius.

It wasn't a cost issue, it was a memory issue, if I remember all the discussions correctly (I'm not home, so can't go through old email).

As Greg mentioned, on the V1, the primary use for the card slot is to save/transfer/archive camera settings.

You answered your own question above...FCP isn't too fast for rendering LTB from wide. If you have Bootcamp, I'd urge you to try Vegas or Edius.



Wow. I wouldn't have guessed that was the case.

I'm going to set up a test on my machine doing both with LE7 to see how much of a performance difference is really there. From just working with the program I can't seem to tell a difference.

I'm not trying to sell anyone on Avid. Its just what I use.

Chris

DSE,
Are you saying that in Vegas or Edius you can render FROM AN HDV TIMELINE an SD 4x3 LTBX version faster than real time? WOW. If that is true then maybe it's time I really do consider moving to one of those programs. I like FCP for alot of things but it's speed at rendering is definately NOT one of them!

I guess I'll have to look into using the Memory card, only thing, the memory cards I have are the older "large" ones. Sigh.

Chris, I'd be interested in hearing what your test shows too.

Sorry, missed the words "real time" in your sentence. Vegas and Edius are both faster renderers than FCP with HDV, but not faster than real time, unless you've converted to a 4:2:2 intermediary first.
Using an uncompressed or lightly compressed 4:2:2 intermediary in either of those two apps, you'll get a faster than real-time conversion, but of course, the conversion to one of those two formats is added time, unless you capture using CineForm's real-time capture app. Premiere is much the same.
Outside of that, hardware is your only option, and that's real-time, not faster than...

I'm with you on this one. It's easy to say just forget ilink but if you need a lossless transfer then what else?
I typically shoot presentations on a Z1 (although I own a Canon A1). I shoot in HDV. Instead of injesting to Final Cut in HDV, I simply transfer out of the camera via ilink to a DVCAM tape and bring that in for editing. It's then letterboxed but, it's DV not HDV. As you say, HDV is nice but it falls apart in post. Let alone the cost for an HD monitor and possibly a deck. In Sony's defense, their deck is nice. It will do HDV as well as DV, so if your in the market for a deck anyway (for DV) I'd buy the HDV deck. I edit in DV and finish the same. Out it goes. The client still has the original in HDV for future, that is, if and when HDV becomes a more robust format for editing and not just shooting.

thx for the warning. I was about to buy a V1 but chose the Canon for other reasons.

From what I've read the incamera / VCR downconvert does not produce the best conversion possible. Secondly there's a minor annoyance with the centre cutout downconvert on the Sony cameras and VCRs that do have it, the top few lines are black / grey depending on the content of the following lines. That can cause some issues down the track.

If you need to produce both 16:9 and 4:3 masters for broadcast then surely the quickest and best approach is to use a hardware box with ARC capability, you could then record both a 16:9 and a 4:3 master to two decks at once. This would give the fastest and highest quality result. Most broadcasters seem to have these tools on hand anyway however for artistic reasons may not choose to do the conversion themselves. One warning though, very little of the pro broadcast kit will accept firewire so you might have to be running SDI to use these boxes.

Quite frankly, I don't know what Sony were thinking not allowing me to record to video8 tapes on my V1e. Now that's a missing feature if there ever was one.

Who needs all this newfangled HD digital wide-screen nonsense? If Video8 was good enough for my father it's good enough for the rest of us.

Douglas, next time you speak to the Sony designers don't let them forget about us!!! TIA

TT

As you say, HDV is nice but it falls apart in post. Let alone the cost for an HD monitor and possibly a deck. In Sony's defense, their deck is nice. It will do HDV as well as DV, so if your in the market for a deck anyway (for DV) I'd buy the HDV deck. I edit in DV and finish the same. .

So you're saying DV holds up better in post than does HDV? That is simply not so. On a scale of less than optimal, they both fall apart or hold together equally well. HDV that has been converted to a DI such as a CineForm DI or other similar, holds together wonderfully for editing. Your comment leaves me to believe that either:
a- you read more than you attempt
b- something is mismanaged in your workflow.

It's quite easy to demonstrate.

Yes, HDV falls apart if your render several times from the subsequent file. So does DV. HDV is more lossy, but that's like saying Britney Spears is more attractive than Paris Hilton, or Tammi Faye Bakker is more unattractive than Phyllis Diller. It's an argument of such miniscule proportion that it's not one worth having.

Create a file of generated media in any application such as Photoshop. Render to M2t. Render same to DV. Now re-render the subsequent files 10 times and compare to original. Both suck. HDV slightly more so than DV, but then again, it's significantly greater resolution.
On the flip side, shooting, capturing, and editing HDV yields a significantly greater quality image than capturing DV and editing from there.
Search the threads, you'll find a WMV file in which I did exactly this, to prove the point.

The guy posting this thread had a working method he could count on. Besides, if one's distribution (another practical consideration) is DVD, then a few years down the road might be a better opportunity to take advantage of the higher res. of HDV. Computers will be faster, HD-DVD should be more mature and one of the 18 HD formats might be more of a "standard". As a matter of fact, P2 technology could make HDV a dead format. Till' then, I'm stickin' to what works.
If Sony isn't careful, they're liable to inherit Panasonic's crown for taking the most idiotic shortcuts. The lack of letterbox over firewire is important. But thats just this man's opinion.

I agree: the guy posting this thread as a workflow he can count on. Therefore, this might not be the optimal option for him to work with, and that has to be taken into consideration.
DVD distribution might be better served currently, but the fact is, working with full resolution from acquisition until the last moment is the optimal workflow, regardless of which NLE you're using. It's not theory if it's been demonstrated in multiple situations with various NLE's. There is a reason HDI's exist, and quality of delivery, speed of render to HD master or SD master are one of them, the value of archiving not withstanding.

Ok, here is what I did.

I shot some video of Christmas packages being opened with V1U. I selected a 1m30s section and downloaded it in 16:9 HDV and then downloaded the same section using the downconvert function in the camera to get 16:9 DV.

I selected the same 1m of video from the center of each video file and dropped them each onto a 4:3 timeline which was configured to use the DV25 codec.

I started the background rendering and timed it with a stopwatch from start to finish.

The results:

RAW HDV 16:9 to DV 4:3 took 3m 21s to render

Downconvereted from the camera DV 16:9 TO DV 4:3 Took 1m 6s to render

The computer is a HP with AMD 4200 processor. The render drive is a 2 drive RAID0 array. The processor showed about 60% utilization during the render. Liquids render is a single threading application but it will render two items at the same time if you have a dual core CPU or dual CPUs.

I'll let you each draw your own conclusions based on your individual applications. For my application missing the letterbox over iLink is not an issue.

Chris

I'll let you each draw your own conclusions based on your individual applications. For my application missing the letterbox over iLink is not an issue.

Chris

In my HDV@Work series I had Sequence with mixed 720p30, 1080i60, DV 4:3, DV 16:9 and cell phone MPEG-1. From it I made 720p, 1080i60, DV 4:3 anamorphic, DV letterboxed, and even PAL letterboxed.

Now I'll admit this is not a typical work load as it was an experiment, but I found it very EZ to create the Timeline and then let the software auto-create each output I wanted.

I understand that most posters use FCP and that's not likely to change. But, there are NLEs (Xpress Pro, EDIUS, Liquid, Vegas) that are ahead of FCP in handling mixed resolutions and aspect ratios. So I agree that for the FCP user who must deliver 4:3 this is an ommision. But, if you move past the Premiere/FCP model -- it isn't so terrible.

If read my series, I desribe how simple it is to do a key-framed Pan & Scan which is far better than a center cut.

In my HDV@Work series I had Sequence with mixed 720p30, 1080i60, DV 4:3, DV 16:9 and cell phone MPEG-1. From it I made 720p, 1080i60, DV 4:3 anamorphic, DV letterboxed, and even PAL letterboxed.

Now I'll admit this is not a typical work load as it was an experiment, but I found it very EZ to create the Timeline and then let the software auto-create each output I wanted.

I understand that most posters use FCP and that's not likely to change. But, there are NLEs (Xpress Pro, EDIUS, Liquid, Vegas) that are ahead of FCP in handling mixed resolutions and aspect ratios. So I agree that for the FCP user who must deliver 4:3 this is an ommision. But, if you move past the Premiere/FCP model -- it isn't so terrible.

If read my series, I desribe how simple it is to do a key-framed Pan & Scan which is far better than a center cut.


Ok. My friends brand new system is up and running correctly now AND I got a big snoot full of FCP. It took a while to get it all configured and running smoothly.

I ended up creating several profiles or "Easy Setups" as its called so he could quickly move from one video format to the next. He does betaSP and DV depending on whats required. I also made a HDV setup because I'm sure he will be renting my V1U from me after last night. ;)

This was a very different experience from Pinnacle/Avid or Adobe.

I know its all in what you learned on but FCP 5 has got to be one of the least efficent and non-intuative interfaces I've ever seen in my life. Even the owner was having issues with it and he has been a FCP user for several years. I'm not saying that its a piece of junk or anything like that but WOW.. The learning curve I think is a lot steeper than it should be for an application like this. Capturing several different video clips in different formats is not fun. You have to change the system setup before you can change formats.

Anyway, on a side note he loved the VU1 and the footage looked great on his huge HD computer monitor. :)

Chris