What is the best way to capture the footage from the XL-H1 to FCP

[Marlon Diaz]

I'm renting three Canon XL-H1 cameras to film a 4-hour live disco concert here in Miami this Saturday the 13th 2008 and edit at a later date the highlights of the show in a 10-15 DVD. I'm filming this event in HD at 29.97.

For post-production will it be best to use the H1 camera as a deck? or should I use any other external hardware? like a VTR deck or the AJA io HD hardware since it has SD-SDI and HD-SDI i/o ? also quick question with the AJA IO HD device I wont need one of their KONA cards right on my G5 Powermac?

another quick question: What is a better choice to shoot this live concert in 29.97 or 59.94i ?

ps: i posted this on the "Here's your $1300 playback deck 24F/ 30F Frame mode" thread and thought i mite of posted it in the wrong place so I made its own thread. Sorry.

thank you and i hope to get some advice.

[Marlon Diaz]

DVI Members: During my weekend I had the honor to run a video production shoot for a live disco concert with the actual hit performers from the 70's. I shot it with 4 Canon XL-H1 and 1 Canon XH-A1 in HD 1080/30F to tape (20 tapes total) . Now I'm ready to start my post-production and I want to capture my HD footage uncompressed at 1080 / 30F, 4:2:2, through HD SDI. I also need to clone my master tapes for my client.

I have a Powermac G5, 6 gigs of memory, lots of hard drive space, 30 inch cinema display monitor with Apple Final Cut Studio 2, Apple Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, Sorenson squeeze 4.5, and After Effects.

Will the following rental equipment do the job?
1 - Panasonic AJ-HD1400 DVCPRO HD VTR
2 - AJA Io HD or the Matrox MXO2 complete I/O
3 - Panasonic BT-LH1700 or the Panasonic TH-50PF10UK

Also some tips and advise on outputting my final render from FCP in True HD to Compressor/or Squeeze for a 15-20 minute highlight DVD from the 4-hour concert (this is the actual final product I'm handling over to my client).

Let me know of some advise or alternatives. Thank you in advance.

-Marlon
Miami, FL

[Louis Maddalena]

It was shot compressed because it was shot to tape. You could get by a lot cheaper and with the same exact quality by just getting a HDV firewire deck.

[Marlon Diaz]

UPDATE: SEPT 17, 08

I Can't find a HDV VTR with HD/SDI i/o for rental in the Miami area.

Will the following rental equipment do the job?

1 - Sony HVR-M10U 1080i HDV Recorder
2 - AJA Io HD or the Matrox MXO2 complete I/O
3 - Panasonic BT-LH1700 or the Panasonic TH-50PF10UK

Also some tips and advise on outputting my final render from FCP in True HD to Compressor/or Squeeze for a 15-20 minute highlight DVD from the 4-hour concert (this is the actual final product I'm handling over to my client).

Let me know of some advise or alternatives. Thank you in advance.

-Marlon
Miami, FL

[Curtis Rhoads]

Last I looked, there were no VTR's that could read the Canon 24F/30F recordings. Only Canon's camera's can read it. So, you'll need at least one of the camera's or an HV30 for capturing the footage.

And like was posted above, you're not going to be getting uncompressed HD in 4:2:2 out of the SDI port now, because you recorded to tape, thus compressing the signal. Sorry.


As for exporting "True HD" from FCP for a DVD, are you wanting an HD disc or an SD disc? If you want an HD disc, do you have the ability to burn to a BluRay disc?

[Marlon Diaz]

Curtis: Im renting the H1 camera to use as a VTR, can i capture my mini DV tapes recorded at 1080/30 to DVCPRO HD into Final Cut over firewire from the Camera? or do I need a capture card like Kona, Io HD, MXO2 ?

[Jacques Mersereau]

Since the signal recorded to tape is HDV, your best bet is to set FCP to whatever HDV format you shot in (hopefully all cameras the same) and do your edit.

In 90% of most cases, since your true resolution is already gone, you won't gain much except hassle and cost by trying to up-rez or transcode to another codec. The good news is you can actually also 'print to tape' and record your HDV edit to tape on the H1 you plan on
re-renting.

As always, YMMV

J.