Archive and Workflow

I know the archive issue has been beaten to death but I would like to ask a slightly different question:

Using the transfer tool in FCP, it looks like it defaults to putting all your media into a single folder which is specified in the prefs of the transfer utility.

Assuming you work on many projects at once, at what point in the process are you finding the best time to archive your footage? How are you keeping a library of where that project is stored for future retrieval?

Are you throwing all your footage for every project into that single folder and making incremental backups to a large format backup like LTO and once that tape fills up, starting a new one and remembering that project X is on LTO tape 5?

Or are you archiving individual projects as soon as the footage gets loaded - maybe on a DL DVD-R. That way, when it comes time to make revisions to that project - you can get that DVD-R off the shelf and reload the footage. So this way you have an archive library which is labeled by project name.

To me, the second way makes more sense but is that because I'm so used to FCP keeping media seperated into folders that match the project name?

Any other workflow ideas I'm missing?

I posted a similar question on the post forum but got no hits. I am building a new MacPro system to go with my new EX-1 and plan to get an HD card (for FCP). But which card to get? Looking to spend around 1500(ish) but then I saw the Blackmagic Intensity which is a steal for 300-400 bucks. My main concern is output monitoring on a NTSC CRT or a HDMI equipped HD monitor. I see that some of the cards offer hardware acceleration for DVCPROHD or HDV but I don't know if that will offer anything for editing EX files natively.

My main concern is output, but I may run into situations where I want to ingest via the HD-SDI port. Currently I am editing on a MacBook Pro, which works great, but I want a second system and the ability to properly monitor my signal.

Just want to know what you EX-1 cutters are using?

Thanks,
B

Is anyone bothered by the stiffness of the DC power cable? I would like to replace it, found two screws under the bottom, but these do not open the case, has any one taken apart the charger?

If my footage is shot at 1080 30p and I'm editing for distribution on miniDV (at standard def, naturally) what are best settings to use to minimize the progressive frame stutter? Not that I terribly mind that look, I'm just wondering if there's a way to minimize it.

I'm editing to a the NTSC DV sequence setting preset. and resizing and reframing my footage to fit 4:3 full frame. (cause that's what the client wanted)

using the mac book pro... clip browsers plays clips choppy at times... did anyone experience this? when I play in tye browser frame by frame it looks ok... no bad frames...

Has sony released any information on their lens remote for the ex1. What functions will it control, will it be wireless, are there 3rd parties involved?

Thanks

Hello All,

New here (and to the EX 1), and I'm loving the forum and the cam.

I have been using MPEG PRO HD 3 for editing in Premiere CS3 and am interested to see if others are using this plugin, and if so what their experiences have been.

Best,
Randy

The most basic matte box costs $500+ so I'm thinking why not add some sort of carrousel to the front end of the EX1's sunshade to take filters. IE convert the included sunshade into a matte box. Anyone ever considered or tried this?

Mike

What is the best connection to monitor the ex1 on a mac intel dual power book. Software sony XDCAM EX Clip Browser and FCP 6.02. USB or Firewire and what software.

Thanks

Hi guys, I have a Chroziel matte box atttahced on 15 mm rails

Does anyone know if the "RedRock Follow focus" will work ok with this ok. Any watchouts?

Link:
http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.472981/it.A/id.184/.f?sc=2&category=11
Based on the website I need the 'D' ring as well.

I know Petroff, Cavision and Chroziel have one two. Anyone using any of those with the EX1

Cheers
Paul

Hi folks,

Just filled out the online rebate page for the 8gb card and wanted to see if that qualifies as the product registration.

In the stack of papers I see before me now, I don't see a product registration card...

After submitting the rebate, do I also need to go here:
https://productregistration.sony.com/Default.aspx

Thanks again!

Available for Mac & Windows.

For those of you having issues with 7.4, perhaps this is a fix.

Mac G5 using XDCAM Xfer tool 2.1, one spanned clip doesn't play video.

I shot a long interview. One segment was over 30 minutes which spanned two files on one card and onto a 2nd card (for a total of 3 clip segments).

I hooked camera usb to computer and opened XDCAM Xfer tool. Other clips played. Spanned clip was ghosted and in the view window was video was black although the Time Code was there.

The clips would not import.

I selected the 2 ghosted clips on one card and used Fetch Meta Data command. I did the same with the 3rd part on the other card. The clips still did no show video but were no longer ghosted and imported without issue.

In Final Cut Pro the imported clips played without issue.

Odd that Xfer tool couldn't play clips and needed the meta data fetched though. I'm wondering if the fact that the clip had 2 parts on one card and the 3rd on another might have been the issue.

Again
Part 1 & Part 2 on one card spanned.
Part 3 on second card continuing span.

Hi,

I have shot XDCAM footage on the EX-1, and have it in FCP, however I need to export it so an editor can edit it on Premiere Pro 3..... I have tried straight AVI, but it looks soft, and I can't seem to find a Quicktime lossless format the PP will open in.....

Does anyone know the best way to export from Final Cut in a lossless format so that it can be cut in PP?

Thanks,
Luke

I am shooting a short travel piece in the Caribbean next week. I would like to shoot 30p or 24p. For underwater footage we will be using a Sony A1U in a dive housing.

My question is what format mix will be optimal for editing in FCP 2?

Any advise is greatly appreciated.

Dasher

Withe V1E, I avoided hooking it directly to a HDTV (using compenent or HDMI), because in the 25PsF mode I used almost exclusively, it was unwatchable due to the heavy line twittering, caused by the HDTV circuitry unnecessarily deinterlacing the signal. Instead, I captured everything straight to my PC, and either watched using a software MPEG player with deinterlacing off (like VLC, Nero Showtime), or - after having edited in Vegas - burned BD's. Not having a stationary BD player though, even the BD's I made ended up being watched using the PC, anyway...

Now, I just tried to hook my EX1 up to the HDTV using component, and here it was again - the "wow" factor! In fact, playing directly gives not only much more punchy and dynamic picture than using a PC graphics card; it also is much more noise free - no single trace of the mosquito noise! And the most imprtant thing: the same displays that couldn't play the V1E's 25PsF correctly, do not twitter at all when fed the EX1's native 24, 25 or 30p :)

My question to those having tried the video from EX1 played back from a stationary BD or HD DVD player: not using a PC graphics card, does it offer a similar experience as direct watching from camera?

No better place to ask than actual EX-1 users. All files that were larger than 2gb's would not convert properly, my entire system is NTFS. I even took an mxf file that was 8gb's, plays perfectly, but won't convert. Can someone download a trial version and convert something larger than 2gb's to see if I am the only one with the problem? Appreciate the help. I would have posted this in the Cineform forum, but there are some here who could download the trial and let me know if it works that don't go to the Cineform forum. I have PC and PPro CS3.

Thanks
Mike

Hey guys!

Have a few questions after my first day out with the ex1 (http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114492)

I tried doing some slow shutter footage of a waterfall (16 in the EX slow shutter menu). Of course the footage turned out all choppy but figured i could fix this in post.. Just could figure out what speed.. Is there an undercrank speed that makes the 16 shutter speed play with one frame for each shutter step? Anybody tried this?

Second Question (may be posted before).
What is the best way to downconvert the footage to SD? Demoing the camera to the other guys at work tomorrow and they are skeptic on replacing our sdx-900 with xdcam 355 or pdw-700 when it comes because of poor downconverting quality..

Hope someone has some answers!

please delete this post

In the thread about the Sony wide angle adaptor, Paul Joy posted a link to a Sky news video about the recent Broadcast show in London (you can see Philip Bloom in the background demo-ing the EX1) -http://www.schneideroptics.com/century/dv/ex/ex.htm

If you stop the clip at the 01:12 mark, you see a picture of what looks like a new EX deck of some sort. I post the screen grab here. Anyone have any news about this device? Is it simply a playback machine? There is clearly a record button - could it be an archive machine with a built in hard drive - not unlike the P2 store that Panny make? What do you think....?

Forgive me if someone has already posted about this and I missed it.

Edit: My bad - someone has already discussed this a while back. Apologies.http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=106583

Hi
has anybody tried to use an external usb copier (Belkin for instance) for transferring data from the cards in the camera via usb to a diskdrive.
So that you don´t have to carry a laptop with you?

Thanks for any hints
Holger

I am interested in testing my workflow with my AVID Express Pro HD and a raw file from an EX1. Is anyone willing to send me a 10 sec file from their SxS card?
If so, studio@lenzstudio.com is my email address

When i put SQ 1080/50i mxf files in the vegas timeline,there's no audio peaks,is this normal ? The audio and video plays fine.
1080/50i HQ does show audio peaks.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/ex1_sd_output_young.html

This is a great article on how to get an excellent and proper HD to SD in Final Cut Pro. Good clear step by step with pictures.

I hope I'm not breaking a DVInfo policy by posting a link to another site but when someone writes an excellent workflow article I'd rather point to the original author than paraphrase.

Edius 4.6 upgrade is now online, and Broadcast version handles EX-1 files natively.

You can open the tools options in the bin window, select and open the Sony browser software, (acts as a plugin), select all the clips you want and just drag them into the Edius bin. Close the browser software! Add to timeline! Done! Start editing!

Terrific.

Cheers Vaughan

I just purchased and installed B+W SLIM 77mm (MC) Kaessemann Circular Polarizer Filter on my EX1. It fits fine under the supplied lens hood. I can see however, that a standard thickness filter would be too thick.
Just thought I'd post my findings as it is a tight fit.
Best, Craig Hollenback
www.keystv.com

Discovered a strange and disheartening problem with the downconversion in the pdw-f70. It appears to only support "squeeze" mode while recording to disc. It downconverts fine while in record/pause mode, but when recording to disc it will only squeeze. This is very strange... am I smoking crack or something? Anyone know if there's a firmware update to address this?

I had some time to get the job I just shot loaded, so after i transferred the data files, I decided to capture all three cards over SDI into FC via Kona Lhe.

I'm taking the 1080i HQ files and capturing them as uncompressed 10bit SD. they look really great, but all of the audio is 7 frames out of sync. It's perfect on the cards and plays back in sync from those files.

Has anyone else tried this? What was the result?

Thanks,

Vince

Hi there, I have been reading these posts since early December and now finally my camera has arrived this afternoon. First tests show no sign of vignetting or stuttering zoom control and back focus looks to be fine. Too soon to tackle the browser to download files, will wait until I feel strong. HD-SDI into a Sony HDW-D1800 recorder looks good. Monitoring on Panasonic 17" LCD in HD-SDI. Will ingest HDCAM transfers into Avid Adrenaline for editing in the short term. Doug Jensen's Vortex Media DVD has been great to get moving quickly. The EX1 already feels like an old friend - the vibes are good.

Hi,

I have the possibility of getting Sony PVM-2130 for quite cheap. Problem is I dont anything about this monitor (its definately SD though). But would it be relatively good for monitoring my EX1 material via Vegas 8? I have a miniDV so i could use that to feed the monitor. Does anyone have any knowledge about this monitor?

-EDIT-
Sorry, realised this is slightly off topic, please move if need be.
-EDIT-

Sami

I have had an issue come up while where the audio signal cuts out completely when headphones are plugged in. Channel 1 is set to external with a shotgun and channel 2 is set to internal.

Suddenly the meters show nothing and no audio is recorded. We were shooting a golf pro the other day and when it came time to focus on capturing a few clips especially for audio I plugged in my headphones and the audio signal disappeared completely. So there is the golf pro from the 4 Seasons Nevis all ready to go and I am trying to figure out where my audio signal went. I shut the camera down and fired back up and there it was back to normal.

This happened on an interview last week. The audio guy was running a line in from the mixer and asked pointed out the problem.

It seems to have something to do with the headphone jack shorting something out. We tried different headsets and still the same.

Anyone else experiencing anything like this?

Original Japanese:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20080227/zooma347.htm

English Translated:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ja_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fav%2Fdocs%2F20080227%2Fzooma347.htm

Or at least, that's what I've always called them. Anyway, I've been wondering what the situation is with these type of high speed zooms with the rolling shutter? ( don't suppose anyone could toss their lense into manual and a snap zoom for me real fast just so i could see how it looks? )

TIA :)

Dave

I am getting a MacBook pro today. Am very excited.

Until now I had an old G4 that was not really fast enough for HD editing. However I will be configuring my new computer with Final Cut Studio 6 - FCP 6, compressor DVD studio pro etc.

I own an Sony EX-1 and an HVX 200 so I want to be able to edit my own stuff now. That means some of the footage will be DVCPro100 (the HVX200) and some will be Sony EX-1 files (XDCAM EX format)

My question is what do I need to use for my media drives. I have an assortment of 250G firewire 400/ USB drives , 250G eSATA drives (I'm getting an expresscard to eSATA adapter) and portable 2.5" firewire 800 drives to use for media.

Can I cut at all with my media on single drives or do I need to make some kind of a raid. If I am able to get by without a raid how will that limit me?

What differences will I have with the Panasonic vs the Sony files and can I cut them into the same timeline?

Thanks,

Lenny Levy

Hi,

I just started a new thread here about grading with color or magic bullet looks :
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=116345

While writing it, I just got a thought about what I did yesterday.
I was looking at my EX1 footage, then I imported the HDV footage to FCP. Then I recompressed the HDV footage in prores HQ 422 1080@25p.

I was wondering if this is the right way to go to have something in progressive and full HD to match the EX1 footage.
As FCP knows how to import any format in the timeline, wouldn't it be simpler (or better) to simply have a XDcam-EX (1080@25p) sequence, then put the HDV footage (1440x1080@50i) inside ?

Anybody have any experience ?

Thanks.

Hello all,

Sorry for the bold question but: are there any freelancers/camera ops with an EX1 who can edit on FCP here in the Netherlands?
I am trying to make myself a small list of people I can call in case of extra hands needed. A personal msg is ok. Thanks a lot!


regards,
Erwin

Hi
We are about to shoot 4 TV programs and we use mainly H1 and A1s. We now have a EX1 as well and would like to combine footage all cameras.
(It´s a freeride tour for skiers, so we will use 4 or 5 cameras)

We need the EX1 for slo-mo (and we have one, so it´s cheaper than renting another Canon)

We will end up in a SD format for broadcast, not decided what yet.
Ideally we would like to use PremierePro because that is the most powerfull workstation we have.
We have Final Cut as well, but only a Intel Imac for hardware.

Any suggestions to a good workflow here?
We will start testing tomorrow, but any pointers in the right direction will be appreciated.

PS We have to shoot in HDV to future proof the material for the sponsors

Somebody started a thread here a while ago about this still/movie Camera being a possible B Camera for the EX1. Couldnt find the thread so started a new one. Its shoots HD 60fps and some other awesome overcrank -although at lower resolution. I got some specs if any one's interested. It should be out this month. I wonder if shots from this could be intercut with a HD camera. Id put up with some digital grain for some cool slow-mo.

Here are some specs.


HD video
1920 × 1080 (FHD HQ / FHD Normal, 60 fields / s)
1280 × 720 (HD LP, 30 fps)

Movie HiSpeed
512 × 384 (300 fps)
432 × 192 (600 fps)
96 × 336 (1200 fps)

Does anyone know if the PMW-EX1 outputs a live MPEG2 stream through the USB port, like HDV camcorders do through the firewire port (while on standby or recording)?

Hello,
Looking ahead to a running the HD-Analog to a Panny 1700 and the HD-SDI to the Flash XDR...
So, are both outputs live simultaneously?

Thanks,
Lonnie

Can anybody help.

Filmed a music drama today and having problems exporting two clips (1 on card A and the second spans to Card B).

Copied both clips to hard drive using XDCAM ECX clip browser software.
When I asked to export to MXF got this message:

Condition failure - assertion failure: acheivable padded length.


The upshot is I can't convert to MXF files fore editing in Vegas.

So now that the attention is focused on other branded SxS cards. I'm curious. What is the $$ number to go with a differnet brand? If an off brand is only 5% cheaper, I'm likely to just stick with Sony.

What would the opening price have to be to switch for everyone?

8gig?
16gig?

Hello all,

I know it has been asked before, but can someone transfer the footage from an EX1 to an external hard drive without the use of a laptop? I found an article on how the HVX-200 does it (http://www.noladoc.com/?p=29). I was just wondering if the EX1 had a similar feature.
Thanks.

Hi Folks,

I've rented my camera out to an indie shooting in the San Francisco Bay Area next week and they're desperate for a SxS Card reader. Is there anyone in the Bay Area that would be interested in renting there card reader out for the week? It would be out on the 24th and back in on the 29th.

Let me know if anyone's interested.

Thanks!

I have been following the Picture Profile threads very closely.

I have been unable to learn one thing: What do the individual adjustments mean? R-G, R-B, etc. What does each one change? And what does the phase adjustment change?

Thanks.
Pete

Hey guys!

Did a lot of skiing footage this easter. Needed to get sound AND slow motion so shot in 50p. To get the footage to play at half speed in a 25p timeline i need to export with prores 422 and conform with cinema tools. Is there a faster way to do this? Maybe a plugin?

I'm not sure whether anybody had written about this phenomenum-

I connected the EX1 via composite to both a 21' and a 36' CRT TV and I played around the downconvert options from squeeze to letterbox to edge crop. I was focusing on a back focus test chart and I was on the extreme tele position. When I choose letterbox, the picture looks soft but when I choose any of the other 2, the resolution seems to increase by 1.5x to 2x more (this being subjectively to my eye). The lines of the test chart stand out much sharper!

Incidentally this softness and lack of detail/resolution that I'm seeing in the downconvert to letterbox option is the same type that I have been experiencing when trying to convert from HD to SD in any way and means, i.e both via software or hardware. I wonder whether there could be any correlation.

I also wonder whether other HD or HDV camera owners, such as the Z1, can see this issue, or whether this is only an EX1 issue.

I am a great fan of the Sony LBEACHC scene file on my F330. Does anyone know if this can be matched on an EX1 and if so how to do it. Thanks.

I know that Blu-ray delivery is of interest to this forum--see this thread for my experience.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114552

I spoke with a well-informed techician at Sony Professional Broadcast service center in Cologne about Prime support and possible alternatives for European users:

If Europeans decide to buy otside Europe (much lower price but no Prime support) they WILL get full repair/service/support for their EX1 at Sony Professional Broadcast service centers. Payment will be on a time and material basis, after cost estimate. Quality and speed of service will equal that of Sony Prime support, but no free loan units given.

Since one can save up to EUR 1,500.00 when not buying in Europe I find this worth a consideration!