Hey guys, I've worked in post here in Hellywood for 7 years now, but I want to pick the camera back up and acquire some footage (again) for a change. I will be cutting the short on FCP 5. If anyone could help me out with the highest quality film-like setting is that can be handled on FCP. I would rather not spend the dough to rent 2 HD Decks (I will be doing a multi-cam shoot), so no SDI outputting for me. I will be mostly lowlight settings, using sharp contrasting between light and dark.

Also, I want to mix some miniDV footage from an older Sony DVCam. Any problems mixing DV and HDV on the same timeline? Sorry if these are obvious, but I've learned firsthand what happens when Production doesn't involve post early on.

Brad, right now handling with final cut pro is kinda wonky. I think the process I went through was capture through firewire in DVCPRHD, reconform in cinema tools, drop in time line, stand on one leg and clothes both eyes... So the FCP solution isn't an easy one. If you're shooting low light it may be best to avoid the cine gamma as that tends to make darks a little darker. nr2 seems like a really good option for most low light footage.

There are a lot of people who are noticing some chromatic aberration so if you're doing a lot of light and dark objects try to stear clear of full wide on the lens. (I haven't noticed the problem on my camera but just so you know) I'm curious as to why you're using 2 cams but I'll leave that to you as you're the editor.

I'm not an editor so i can't say whether or not mixing footage from dvcam will be a problem or not I think the only issue arrises if you're shooting 23.98 on the HDV camera and 59.97 on the dvcam. Short of that "film like" is kind of subjective- if you want film depth fo field it might be worth while to rent a mini 35 on the other hand if you just want the 24 frame cadence and don't care about shallow depth of field, then perhaps the f2 mode on the camera is enough. I would try to avoid saturating anything in camera, especially if it's something that can be done in post. Keep your setup on the higher side of 0 and maybe check your location a day early with a big screen so that you can really be sure that you're happy with the way that your camera "looks" before principle photography.

good luck, and be sure to post with your findings.

Forgive my question, but why does the footage need to reconformed, if FCP 5 claims to have the codecs for it. I'm not going to do a filmout, if that is a concern.

Brad,

I've got a clip up you might want to take a look at. It's from a PSA about gun safety. (don't worry, the gun's not real) It's called "Kid7.m2t"

www.homepage.mac.com/mrbarlowelton

If you're new to the .m2t thing, you need the VLC player on PC or Mac, or the latest WMP should be able to play it.

www.vlc.org

it needs to be reconformed because final cut pro does not claim to have the codec's for them. They claim to have the codec for the sony cam's and the panasonic but the JVC progressive and the Canon 24F and 30F are not officially supported yet. There's a couple of threads on it if you check out the search function.

Forgive my question, but why does the footage need to reconformed, if FCP 5 claims to have the codecs for it. I'm not going to do a filmout, if that is a concern.

I believe Nick meant that you can extract true 24p from 60i DVCPRO HD converted XL-H1 footage. You use Cinema Tools to do this. FCP at this time does not capture native 24F footage, so the alternative is to convert it to DVCPRO HD or Apple Intermediate Codec. I've had good success with DVCPRO HD, and it's easy to edit in FCP.

Hope that helps,

Barlow

Much appreciated fellas. Given everything I've learned here and elsewhere, I'm beginning to lean towards the Sony Z1. As I understand it, it's fully supported. If it's picture is on FCP's website, I would hope it is!

Thanks Again!

There's a plug-in called Lumiere that will let you edit JVC 24p. If the $5K range is your upper limit, you should really consider the JVC because it can deliver a spot-on film look. If your wanting a film look from the Sony, it'll be a lot more work, unless you shoot Cineframe25, but that loses a lot of vertical res, yet still looks pretty decent.