Mac FCPS2 EX Workflow

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Mike Williams

So I plug in the card reader like a removeable storage device. Good

Then I import the files and if I don't rename each one the next batch will get totally mixed up?

Pictures usually have dates that can seperate them from each other as was mentioned above. I hope this is not as frustrating as it sounds. Sorry if I am a little thick but I am more of a hands on type.

You won't have any problems with getting things mixed up. The clips have metadata attached also. You have options for naming the clips in camera. Trust me Mike, once you get your hands on it, you'll realize what a piece of cake it is.

-gb-

[Alister Chapman]

You can plug the camera in via firewire and it too will behave as a card reader. As well as the sony transfer app there will also be a new "Log and Transfer" function in FCP that will allow you to import EX1 clips from within FCP. Log and Transfer dosn't allow you to view previews of the clips, make clip lists or partial clip import only import of selected clips.

[Andy Mees]

the new version of XDCAM Transfer that is due to be released either before or in conjunction with the EX1 promises to allow editing of the metadata in the transfer app ... i'm hoping this translates to an all round robust improvement to XDCAM Transfer that enables its latent logging capabilies

ok ... and here i'm about to veer off into la la land, but was there some info about resuming recoding of a previously recorded clip, so that it extends the long GOP structure of the original clip rather than creates a new clip on the disc? if that were the case one could record an entire disc as a single clip and allow muliple shots to be imported as single (sub)clips ... this may have been an altogether different camera or i may have just dreamt it.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

ok ... and here i'm about to veer off into la la land, but was there some info about resuming recoding of a previously recorded clip, so that it extends the long GOP structure of the original clip rather than creates a new clip on the disc? if that were the case one could record an entire disc as a single clip and allow muliple shots to be imported as single (sub)clips ... this may have been an altogether different camera or i may have just dreamt it.

No, it wasn't a dream. The newly announced F335 and F355 will have that feature.

-gb-

[Evan Donn]

Originally Posted by George Johnston

Ythe file sizes needed would be very restrictive unless you use an external FW800 drive, even then most people state SATA drives as the least technology needed to run HD in real time

If you are going to edit native XDCAM FW800 should be more than enough. 800 megabits = 100 Megabytes per second. I believe seagate's latest 750GB SATA drive can sustain almost 60 Megabytes/second - so a two disc array should be able to max out the FW800 bus. Even that may be overkill - 35 megabits per second works out to about 4.5 Mb/second, so five simultaneous streams is only about 23Mb/second - well within the speed limits of a single drive. At that point your processor becomes the limiting factor anyway, not your drive speed - it takes a lot of processing power to decode mpeg2 - so the main difference between a laptop and desktop will be in the number of real-time streams and effects they can play.

[Andy Mees]

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

No, it wasn't a dream. The newly announced F335 and F355 will have that feature.

-gb-

Thanks Greg.

I wonder if that will be something that can/will be enabled on the 330/350's. Would make a lot of folks not keen on hundereds of clips in their projects very happy! With a bit of a tweak to XDCAM Select (Edius), XDCAM Transfer (Mac) etc etc it would make for a killer workflow.

[Andrew Kimery]

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

I wonder if that will be something that can/will be enabled on the 330/350's. Would make a lot of folks not keen on hundereds of clips in their projects very happy!

That would just rock.

-A

[Alister Chapman]

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the F350/F330 have it added in a firmware update.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

With a bit of a tweak to XDCAM Select (Edius), XDCAM Transfer (Mac) etc etc it would make for a killer workflow.

All you really need is for the software to support importing a single clip via FAM built from a clip list. Since in a clip list, your in/out can span across clips. IMO, that would leave you with the best of both worlds. Personally, I don't want one huge clip so it all comes down to how you want/need to work.

There are some planned firmware upgrades to the F350, can't remember if this was one of them though.

-gb-

[Mike Williams]

Thanks guys. I thought I was conjuring up all kinds of frustration for no reason.

I really am looking forward to this cam. I feel like a little kid and wonder how emotion driven this purchase is for me sometimes.

I find I continually have to remind myself that it's a tool I use to make money.... as well as have fun and it can't get much better than that :)

I am looking forward to the DOF control and the more "organic look" as the ex picture has been desctibed. I really hope the low light is as good as that reviewer mentioned... major bonus.

All the best to all!

Mike

[Andy Mees]

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

All you really need is for the software to support importing a single clip via FAM built from a clip list. Since in a clip list, your in/out can span across clips. IMO, that would leave you with the best of both worlds. Personally, I don't want one huge clip so it all comes down to how you want/need to work.

There are some planned firmware upgrades to the F350, can't remember if this was one of them though.

-gb-

I'm not sure that would work .. or at least i'm not following you!
my think is simply that XDCAM Transfer "imports" clips ... its data transfer, nothing more (except some meta data manipulation and a bit of file rewrapping). if it were required to create a single clip from an arbitrary clip list then it would in have to conform that concatenated data to a single clip / Long GOP structure ... all of a sudden imports would take as long as exports!!

I don't necessarily always want a single clip in the NLE either. But if I have the option to set the camera to expand existing clips when recording, instead of creating a new one each time (preferably keeping mutiple essence marks for easy navigation), then on import i can subclip as I choose, just as i do now with long interview clips, or as I would if I was log and capturing from tape.

Currently XDCAM Transfer is limited in that it doesn't let you mark and import a single subclip or selection of subclips from a single clip where multiple subclips are marked, instead it imports all marked subclips from that clip everytime you press import ... if Sony allowed us to import single or selected subclips then we'd have a workflow we could use.

Just my thoughts ... and how I'd make it work for me if I could!

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

Currently XDCAM Transfer is limited in that it doesn't let you mark and import a single subclip or selection of subclips from a single clip where multiple subclips are marked, instead it imports all marked subclips from that clip everytime you press import ... if Sony allowed us to import single or selected subclips then we'd have a workflow we could use.

If I understand you correctly, the workaround for that (I just verified it) is when you select "Make subclips from essence marks", look over the batch import list at the right. Select the subclips you DON"T WANT and press delete. They will be removed from the list and won't be imported. When you select import, you'll get a warning message about movie selections not in the subclip list. Respond with 'Don't Add'. So, you can implicitly select the subclips you don't want rather than the ones you do want. Hopefully the don't want list is shorter than the want list. ;-)

-gb-