The newb has some information along with questions!
 

Hey folks,

I'm new here and haven't had the time to properly introduce myself, but I'm the proud new owner of a Canon XL H1 and I'm loving every moment of it!

Before I purchased, I came here for all my information and found most of my questions to be answered. The only issue I've noticed was the difficulties to bring 24F from the HDV into Final Cut without multiple processes.

For me, it's not much of an issue since I've always been the type of guy to tape in 60i and convert later, if need-be. I took some test shots with the XL in 24F, 60i and 30F and found something weird. I was on the road when I did the tests and I was using my MacBook Pro, which doesn't have FCP yet (it's in the mail!) so I decided to do a quick capture with iMovie (I know, GASP!) I noticed that iMovie had no problem capturing the 24F footage. I'm sure it converts it to 30F since that's the frame rate of the project (automatically given by iMovie.) But still, isn't that impossible to do with FCP? I'm not sure how much emphasis I need to put on the fact that I'm a newbie with HDV, but it's still a question that needs to be asked.

I'm doing a few tests since soon I'll be shooting a drifting series and would like to be ready for the shoots. I'll be shooting in 60i most of the time, maybe a little bit with 30F which shouldn't give much of a difference, and probably never in 24F, but it's still good to know!

Thanks again for the help.

Jon

so, how did it look?

iMovie is a pretty darn powerful program, actually.

Surprisingly well. I'm hoping the ability to pick and choose my own codecs will help out with the quality, but we'll see. There was, though, a little more grain that I would've expected, or is that because of the fact that it's coming from a DV tape?

Jon

Jonathan - what codec did iMovie capture the 24F footage with? You can find out by ctrl-clicking (right-clicking) on the iMovie project, choose 'Show Package Contents', open the 'Media' folder and open any of the clips in QT Player. Getting info on the clip in QT Player will tell you what codec is used (among other info).

Curiously,

Ron

Well it seems to be the same codec as the other video clips. "Apple Intermediate Codec, 1920 x 1080, Millions."

I hope that helps.

Jon