Hi Shaun.

I can see that I didn't explain point 4 properly (because I didn't want to go too far into Area 51 [forum] territory).

What I meant was Apple buys Adobe, reducing the field to two major players (Apple and Avid).

FCS and FCP will not be going anywhere. They'll be enhanced by the acquisition. (Look at how Motion and FCP have already been enhanced by the acquisition of Shake.) So don't worry.

I'll make a post shortly (explaining why) in the Area 51 forum and I'll provide the link in a separate post below.

Here's the link:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...351#post874351

Hi David. I knew of what you were referring with the Adobe/Apple issue but some have speculated that FCP would be phased out, not Premiere. I'm invested financially and intellectually with FCP. For the record, this isn't a platform "war" with me; I edit in FCP. I make money editing in FCP. If I need to relearn a new NLE, I lose money and I lose several significant parts of my skill set until I can get up to speed on a new editor.

I was under the impression that anyone looking to purchase FCP would essentially take it apart for the component pieces and leave the rest to rust, not continue to build upon it. I agree with Paolo that the integration of a Suite is its strength; Adobe has set up their suite to move components easily back and forth between FCP and AE (and others in the suite as well). Apple has made it easy for me to move from FCP to DVDSP and Motion easily. I seldom use AE right now (I plan on getting AE CS3 and LEARNING it this summer) and therefore FOR ME and ONLY me, the exporting of my FCP timeline into a QT file that I import into AE is good enough for me.

If your workflow requires tighter integration than mine, I have no interest in standing in your way. All I was doing is defending my need to continue to use the tool I am most comfortable with to continue to earn a living.

If my posts have in ANY way suggested that I disagreed in a way that was combative or antagonistic, I apologize. That was certainly not my intent. My sole reason for addressing this issue is to ensure that the voice of an FCP editor who hasn't YET experienced this issue (my HD200 arrives next week - I'm so excited/petrified) is heard.

In great admiration of the people on this forum,
Shaun

PS. When and if I start having my own issues next week I will be leaning very heavily on the support of those of you that have been facing this issue for 2 years now.

I have been observing this thread from afar with interest.

I don't use my HD100 that much anymore since I have access to an EX1 from my office.

I want to address the Adobe/Final Cut issue.

I am glad that Adobe has made their product better. But it still has some limitations when trying to integrate other hardware, etc.

I will give you an example. I don't use Premiere so I haven't even looked at it that much. A few weeks back I took my wife to a bed and breakfast just outside Yosemite National Park. On Sunday morning we went down to have breakfast with the other couples that were there. None of us had ever met before, so we started talking about what we do for our professions. When the guy next to me found out that I was a video producer, he started to ask all sorts of questions. What camera did I shoot with? What NLE did I use?
After a few minutes to told me that he was the Windows Product Manager for AJA video. We then had a long conversation about FCP vs. Premiere.

He said that AJA puts about 60% of it developers on it's FCP products. They sell Mac products over PC ones by a ratio of 10 to 1.

I asked him about the development cycle and he stated that it is much harder to write code and drivers for Premiere. He told me that Premiere is just an interface and that when they write code so that one of their boards can be used they have to re write a major of portion of the program. He also stated that Adobe is not real good about providing the API's. They will get an SDK from Adobe and use it to write code from and then they will receive the final version of Premiere and it has a whole bunch of new code that was not included in the SDK.

I asked him about Final Cut and he stated that it was easy to write for. Apple has made it easy to write code to implement new drivers. If you can make sure that it works with Quicktime, it will work with Final Cut.

Now this is just a simplification of the whole process.

As a user of and HD100 and Final Cut, I know that pain that lot's of you have felt. But I keep asking myself, how come anything I shoot with a Sony camera works fine, but the JVC stuff is such a pain.

I really think that there is a bigger difference between HDV1 and HDV2 than we think. Maybe Apple decided to support the company and format that had more users? I am not saying that is right, but maybe that's the way it is.

Again, I don't want to turn this into a FCP vs. Premiere thread. I know that Premiere does some things well that FCP doesn't. But for me, I have a lot of money and time invested in FCP. I have been a user since version 1.0.
It is what I am comfortable with.

Daniel Weber

Shaun, I personally took it as an attach to my... kidding, absolutely kidding :) I too have no interest in getting into a FCP/PPro diatribe, had my share of Vi vs Emacs and other flame wars in the past, I'm still hurting.
This is actually a form of "confession" since in the past I used to dismiss Premiere in favor of FCP without a serious examination of the program. In a way I want to be sure that other HD100 shooters on the Mac consider Premiere as a possible candidate. No confrontation meant, as always this forum is just a way of exchanging experiences and sharing knowledge.

This isn't going to happen. There is to large and powerful a community that relies on FCP to survive.

In my conversation with the guy from AJA this subject came up. He was laughing about it. He said that it is all based on rumors, some of which they even started (the one about AJA buying the Pro Apps) just to see how far they would go.

Daniel Weber

Daniel, I read your post with interest because it's really amazing how subjective our experiences are. AJA is having a great time with Apple. On the other hand every plugin developer that I talked to considered Apple one of the least cooperative companies. Same for a hardware developer that I know.

That seems a bit of an extreme. He cannot possibly mean that they are re-writing part of the NLE. That would be absurd. And the comment about "it's just an interface" doesn't make much sense either. I would like to hear it from a developer, product managers are not necessarily technical experts. BTW, Premiere shares the After Effects API for plugins, which is considered one of the best in the market.
When I talked with developers of plugins they told me that of the three "A"s of NLE, Avid is the easiest to deal with, Adobe a close second, Apple a distant third. As a beta tester for AE and AMP I can report directly that the Adobe is quite approachable. In fact the meetings of the SF Bay Area of SF Cutters, the FCP user group in San Francisco, are often held in the Adobe office :)

Thanks, Paolo. Just wanted to make sure my INTENT was understood. Without inflection that speech imparts upon a conversation (and the recognition that this truly is an INTERNATIONAL forum where many people congregate and speak in English, which may not be their first language) it is easy to misinterpret one's intentions. This happens frequently on another Forum I contribute to and I have no wish to be misunderstood here.

Again, I hold all of you in the highest regard and consider myself lucky to have found such a welcoming and resource filled group of people.

Ah! So you've been reading those "anonymous internet rumors".

"Sources say ... "
"An insider has revealed that ... "

There was a fairly recent comedy movie called "For Your Consideration" by Christopher Guest (of "This is Spinal Tap!" fame) where an anonymous internet rumor suggests that an actress on a current production might get nominated for an Oscar for that part (even though they're still filming it and the movie won't be released for months). And the whole thing just keeps growing and spiralling out of control until she even appears on national television concerning all of the overwhelming "Oscar buzz". All completely unfounded ("based" on that anonymous internet rumor). That sort of thing is funny in the movie. Not so funny in real life. Especially when used to damage a company's or individual's trade or reputation.

Here's a link to an official statement made last week by Richard Townhill, Apple's director of marketing for professional video applications.

http://tvbeurope.com/index.php?optio...=1269&Itemid=1

So they are NOT being sold.

Period.

And remember that your HD200 might have zero problems capturing with FCP (look at Justin Ferar's earlier post). Users of the HD100 series have had varying results, however. But your camera isn't in that category.

And you are very polite. I'm sure that no reasonable person could think otherwise. I'm just sorry that my earlier comments triggered off some FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) which had been planted there earlier by these unfounded rumors. Believe me, FCP and FCS are 100% stable platforms. Just because I perceived a current lack of adequate resources to keep them totally up to date for all users (and even speculated on ONE way that it might be solved [over in Area 51] - and there are also other options, such as hiring and training more staff) doesn't mean that things won't be reorganized and fixed. All companies, big and small, experience growing pains.

David, thanks for the post and the link.

I agree whole heartedly that Apple has dropped the ball a couple of times in releasing "updates" that have caused other aspects of the program to cease functioning, with a quick "oops, here's what we MEANT to release" update soon after.

Obviously, this is a much larger problem if it has remained unsolved this long.

And may I state for the record that I never would have considered JVC as a contender had it not been for the amazing dialog and support of this Forum. I have been a dyed in the wool Sony fan for the past 10 years. I never thought I would support the "4th" company (after Sony, Canon and Panasonic in that order in my market) but MAN, what a feature set at an incredible bargain while the others are trying to keep their lenses in focus!

I'll add that I also capture with my BR HD50u footage from a HD 100 and a HD110 on a pretty regular basis as well as my HD200. All has been updated to latest firmware. Current tapes have been simply working as they should. I haven't gone back to legacy tapes, which did have capture issues, but suspect that the camera firmware upgrades (as described) are part of the reason for improvement on recent material. Perhaps FCP has been tweaked a bit since then as well.
Mind you, in all respect, I do consider it still a fragile process on FCP, and drop-out I'm sure will cause a major gap. They should definitely make it more robust, and support native m2t files, and I'm real happy to know of the Premiere option should I have capture problems (and I prefer the DR-HD100 when I'm editing lately too!). Also good to know of its strengths. I will be tempted to try it when the time is right.

I can also say that I went through hell with the old workflow recently. DVHS-cap was fine (but still a bit tiresome to deal with). However Mpeg streamclip conversions to DVCHD-Pro (clients editing format of choice - not mine) were an incredible ordeal, and I had to abandon it. I kicked myself when fcp went through that process perfectly in a fraction of the time. Literally 13 tapes in a row without a hitch.

Mpeg streamclip, took ages to cue up and make clips, lost the timecode (which the editor wanted to order & track clips with), lost audio sync frequently, and worst of all, randomly got stuck in the middle of a clip dropping & repeating frames for an effective 12fps from the 24fps.

Ugly - a solid 3 days lost, and no one to kick but myself.

well if you have native HDv capture working, you are very lucky. I have a HD100, BRHD50 both on current firwmware and I'm watching a tape I shot yesterday give FCP an absolute hissy fit. 50% failure right now. 1hr tape, with takes that run 30 secs to 4 minutes each. used a panasonic consumer tape :( no visual problems, but something isn't perfect.

even worse is that FCP is completely braindead in capture. if there is an error, it doesn't go on to the next clip, it just puts up a dialog saying there was an error, continue ? WELL WHAT THE @#$@#$!!!! DO YOU THINK I WANT TO DO! the real reason apple didn't show up at NAB was they didn't want to meet me somewhere dark and lonely......

FCP has so many bugs its crazy. it falls down everyday for me and I am searching for another option. right now the only two I see is Prem Pro and smoke. forget Avid they don't have their act together, and their UI is archaic and slow. its extremely aggravating that FCP just doesn't work correctly with some many things.

Sorry, i still don't get it
 

Can someone upload a full tutorial step by step, what to do with HD101E 720p25 material?
I keep getting breaks no matter what i do.
thanks

Can I be part of the club too?
 

So add me to the list of people who can't get FCP to capture reliably. If I try to use ProRes, I lose Log & Capture. If I Log and Capture in HDV, I get Stream Errors and the capture stops. This is on my 2 week old HD200UB and FCP 6.0.3 (starting to regret doing the 6.0.2 to 6.0.3 upgrade...)

To make matters worse, if I search Apple's Knowledge Base, I end up reading about every OTHER version of FCP or some article about iMovie or Compressor. Why don't search engines actually search for the terms you've entered anymore?

I can't justify a VTR until this fall. Can I also throw my "please advise on anything that WILL work" hat into the ring as well? I need to post this project in FCP so PPro won't cut it (pardon the obvious pun). Do I back up (UGH!) to FCP 6.0.2? If so, where do I get the updater? Apple.com keeps giving me a link to the 6.0.3 updater that I already have. And yes, my copy is COMPLETELY legit. I bought FCS2 the week before it started shipping so I have install disks for 6.0.0

PS. I'm trying to import 720P60 material.

Well I tried the HDV to ProRes capture trick to night and it worked great!!!!

Better than anything else I've tried so far with my HD100.

I am impressed.

I did find a few dead pixels though!!!

This camera is always needing something fixed.

It is a love hate relationship.

Daniel Weber

you can use FW for device control and use the analog outs into a kona / BM card to ProRes. that works with camera or deck. you will also need a 1/8 stereo to RCA or XLR

I've started capturing my HD200U footage this way and I'm having issues with incorrect timecode. I can't recapture from tape anyway but it makes camera logs absolutely useless.

One possible solution for removed timecode
 

Shaun, the usual workaround for FCP's buggy capture for the ProHD cameras is to se the DVHSCap + MPEG Streamclip solution. Unfortunately this method removes the timecode which means that it will be impossible to re-capture the same tape at exactly the same point. Unless....you have a visual timecode for reference. In this article from my blog I explained how to use a timecode generator for multi-camera synchronization. If you use the generator for single-take tapes, even when you have only one camera, you can use the timecode to do an exact re-capture of the clip. Because of the pre-roll and other factors it will be impossible to match the frame exactly in DVHSCap but you will be able to set a frame-accurate inpoint in MPEG Streamclip and so re-generate the clip captured. You only need to make a note in your project of the timecode used originally.

Just be aware, that for long form work at least there are 2 known bugs (other people have been hobbled here too), that can turn up randomly.
Losing audio sync. This can happen in the middle of a transcode. You can cue up to where it happened, and hope it doesn't happen again.
frame repeat/skipping, synced with audio, but alternate frames are doubled, giving a very stuttering look (effectively 12fps if it's 24p).
Again, this can just start in the middle of a capture, and it can be hard to spot right away if there isn't much motion (like a talking head). Easy to confirm by stepping frame-by frame.
This is with version 1.9 and very careful attention to settings. Use presets, since otherwise there are multiple areas to reset each time.
My output was to DVCPROHD 720/24p. It wasn't until I went to lnger captures that these issues cropped up. Luckily, my FCP capture works quite well, with only the adjusted minimal loss of frames at pre-roll of a new camera take.