Premiere or Vegas will happily do this.

You never really explained your application, but it would seem that normal MPEG2 would be more readable than M2t files. Try using the Export options within your NLE.

David - My NLE - Premiere Pro - doesn't let you export clips that are not in a timeline. With thousands of clips I cannot drag each one to a timeline, Export, clear timeline, drap another clip, Export, etc. Need some way to batch convert to mpeg2. Just like the Cineform's HDLink converts a list of .mt2 file to avi.

Cheers,

Sasha

<<<-- Originally posted by Sasha Froyland : I think that MAC & PC both use Firewire and if the external drive was formatted FAT32 then I think that would work. -->>>

Macs can mount PC formatted drives, but my experience is that performance suffers. I bought a PC formatted Firewire drive and tried editing some SD DV on it awhile ago. It dropped frames and wouldn't work properly. After reformatting the drive for MacOS X it worked fine.

So your plan should be fine for mounting a disk and copying the data to a Mac formatted drive, but I'm not sure that you could edit the video directly on the PC formatted drive.

I do not have a CFHD codec, therefore cannot read the video. I could import it and get audio though ;)

Liquid Edition 6.

<<<-- Originally posted by Sasha Froyland : David - My NLE - Premiere Pro - doesn't let you export clips that are not in a timeline
<snip> -->>>

Is this True? that's bizarre, as Premiere 6.5 can export from clips. Are you sure you've checked this out. I don't mean to impune you information but if true that's just plain mad.

Boyd - Do you know how I can format a drive for a MAC from a PC? (I only have a PC).

George - Thanks for trying. You satisfied the skeptic in me.

Dylan - It is. Premier can export to a many differnt formats but you must drag each clip onto the timeline and then export either all the clips on the timeline as one big long clip or export each clip one at a time which would take me weeks. Unless, there is some kind of macro or API interface that I can program Premiere to perform these steps automatically: take file from Bin to timeline, export timeling in mpeg2 format, clear timeline, remove clip from Bin, (and continue to first step). Which NLE do you use? Can it export directly from the Bin?

Cheers,

Sasha

I'm on FCP 4.5 (Mac) and premiere 6.5 (both Mac and PC) and in both of these you can export from the bin, which is why I'm flabbergasted that PPro doesn't allow you to do that.

Dylan - I am flabbergasted! Maybe I am mistaken but …. if I don't have clips in the timeline then the File, Export option is disabled. Note: Don't have Premiere at my current day job so will have to wait to this evening to check it out again. This would be GREAT news!

Actually you can export from the bin in Premiere Pro 1.5.

Select the clip in the bin. Go the File menu and select Export Movie (ctrl-M). Will render out the selected clip in whatever format you choose.

Phil - Thanks! I will take the .AVI clip I've posted on the website (http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/) into Premiere Pro and export back out as mpeg2 and re-post on the website and then maybe a few DVInfo Members can download the new mpeg2 file and try to edit in their NLE and let me know how it goes.

Cheers,
Sasha

Hey!
From Premiere I can export from the Bin but only one file at a time, but yet I can export from the Bin.

Phil - Know any way to export multiple clips at once from the Bin?

I exported one file from Cineform's .avi format to mpeg.

Please download the 22 meg file and try and edit it and let me know how the quality looks.

http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/


Cheers,

Sasha

SUMMARY
 

Summary:

Want to thank everyone for their support with this topic.

Lessons Learned:

1) How to exchange data from PC to MAC?
Answer: External Firewire hard-drive, format from the PC NTFS, MAC OS 10 can read but not write but data access will be fast and not-corruptible. Seek
FW800 is better then FW400, Oxford 911 Chipset or better, 7200 RPM with 8 MB cache or better.
Connection: Can daisy-chain hard-drives but having separate firewire ports will be slightly faster.


2) How to make my HDTV footage from Cineform's .avi files available for most editors?
Answer: Convert to MPEG-2. Use Freeware program avi2mpg2_vfw.
Available at: http://members.cox.net/beyeler/bbmpeg.html
Program converts .AVI files produced by Cineform into the following:

Video:
Resolution: 1280x720
Bits per Pixel: 24
Frame Rate: 29.97

Audio:
Channels: Stereo
Sample Rate: 48.0 kHz
Bits per Sample: 16

And the best part of the program is that it allows you to BATCH process multiple files into Multiple output files. All of the other programs I tried only performed conversions from many files to ONE output file. This program gives you the option for both.


The output plays well and appears to me to retain all the quality BUT I would respectfully request/plead that you please download some of the footage I have converted and see if you can edit the footage and if the quality looks good.

File Size Before/After Conversion:
233,033 => 101,909
40,640 => 5,469
42,969 => 17,715

Greater then 50% file size reduction. But at what cost? Editing performance? Quality?


The converted clips are located at:
http://sashafroyland.home.comcast.net/

Both AVI and MPEG-2 files are now available on a new site that can support larger files.

www.sashafroyland.strategicenterprisesolution.com

The files are currently uploading and should be complete in two houre or 6:25PM MST Saturday Night 11/13/2004.

Cheers,

Sasha