HD LOG experiences and opinions please.

[Paul Whishaw]

I'm looking into HD Log for my Mac. The last shoot I went on we shot 800 GB of footage on 4GB P2 cards (we were in Russia for 10 days and London for a week). So needless to say we had a lot of footage. I was a little dissapointed that I couldn't review footage before bringing it into FCP. Also, if we shot an 8 minute clip, and only wanted 30 seconds of it, I had to import the whole 8 minute clip. We were constantly downloaded, erasing and swapping cards so we couldn't preview off the cards or camera.

I have messed about with HD Log (demo version) but am not sure how usefull it is going to be. It looked like I could set in and out points on media to be exported to FCP but I have failed in my attempts to do so. Does anyone have any experience using this software yet or have an opinion on how usefull it will be?

[Robert Lane]

I downloaded the trial version but like you question it's viability since FCP already has the viewer built-in. I haven't had time to really play with the full features of HD Log so I'm not much help but in a few weeks I plan to do more testing.

[Robert Lane]

After much consideration I would not purchase the software. I have a hard time justifying the cost and don't plan to buy it because of its price point.

If it were say, $100 I'd be all over it, but at $700 it's the same price as the academic version of FCP, and more than half the price of the non-student version.

If I didn't own FCP or any other software that could view P2 files then it *might* make sense, but since FCP already has this functionality built-in it's hardly worth the $700.

[Robert Lane]

As mentioned before, in order to get the full P2 functionality from HD Log you have to spend $700, which is far from cost effective.

I sent an email to Imagine stating this fact with the request that if they produced a "P2" only version that had this P2 functionality:

- View
- Mark as "good"
- Rename clips
- Edit Metadata
- Convert to QT
- Export to FCP

... and it sold for no more than $100 that there'd be many of us that would jump on it.

If they respond with anything useful I'll let the forum know.

[David Saraceno]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

As mentioned before, in order to get the full P2 functionality from HD Log you have to spend $700, which is far from cost effective.

That Robert's view.

I have a different view. I value my time in a way that makes HD Log an essential part of my workflow, and feel that HD Log's functionality, and the developer's willingness to continue to add features makes this a must have utility.

Remember as well that it has an XML export and import into FCP. MXF metadata fields can be assigned to specific fields in FCP and this retains the metadata fields that are lost when you import into FCP.

Robert, and many others, may not need this, but others might find it useful. Also HD Log has tools that make is a clip management solution and datebase. This isn't provided elsewhere.

But to each their own.

[Gary L Childress]

It's a bit on the expensive side, but then it does quite a bit.
$100 is too low. Panasonic can give away software for nothing (P2 Viewer), they make it up otherways. P2 Genie is great but simpler, and with just one person writing the software is a different business model than HD Log.

I have mentioned in three other threads that it would add value to the "Gold" version if they included the ability to read timecode from the firewire stream. For those of us who frequently use firewire to laptop recording in studio situations this would really help. No one else has supported that idea so I supposed no one else finds that valuable. For me that would put it into the "must have" catagorie.

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

As mentioned before, in order to get the full P2 functionality from HD Log you have to spend $700, which is far from cost effective...

I recanting this statement:

My review of HD Log usefulness came from the all too limited demo and, advice taken from other digital media "experts" who supposedly had more experience than myself about this stuff. That was a bad mix of mis-information.

I had direct email discussions with Imagine about HD Log; the information from my "experts" seemed to be missing some key information that they either didn't understand or, missed completely.

So I took the plunge and purchased the Gold version (full P2 functionality). I can honestly say I recommend the software; it does make managing P2 much, much easier. I still think the pricepoint is high, but then again there are suites of visual plug-ins that are triple the cost of FC Studio.

If you're using the demo as a basis for a purchase decision it's not a fair estimation of it's true capabilities. Imagine should have made the demo more functional, but that's their decision.

Normally I give things a thorough test cycle myself before giving feedback about it; in this case I've been so swamped with work that I put my trust in people who claimed higher expertise than my own. Those "experts" don't contract for me anymore.

[David Saraceno]

I'm glad you had the opportunity to look at the full version.

I wish HD Log Gold was $500.00, but even at its price now I really believe this is a good, and will continue to improve, piece of software.