FCP Settings

[Jason Boyette]

Any advice for settings in FCP

Camera
Sony HVR-V1U
set to 30p 1080i
Recording to HDR-DR60

Importing to FCP via the HDR-DR60 (shift-apple-8 capture) Can't preview just have to load


I am doing a daily newscast at school, we only have 90 min to video, edit and have ready to play at the end of the 90 min class.

I don't have time to convert to prores or anything like that, any advice on the best settings to use. We occasionally do green screen weather stuff, so quick render times are helpful

Using a Mac Pro (last year's) and the latest FCP

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Jason

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Jason Boyette

I don't have time to convert to prores or anything like that, any advice on the best settings to use. We occasionally do green screen weather stuff, so quick render times are helpful

Rendering long-GOP formats like HDV is going to take longer, so you need to make a decision as to whether you want to

A) capture in HDV and deal with long renders
B) capture in ProRes and deal with larger file sizes
C) capture in DV and work in a standard def format

If you're doing any chroma-keying work, I would likely go with B.

[Jason Boyette]

The only catch with "B" is that I can't capture in prores via the HDR-DR60...unless someone knows something that I haven't figured out yet...and if there is a way...please fill me in!

I will try prores tomorrow and see how it goes (i'll record to tape and capture that way)

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Jason Boyette

The only catch with "B" is that I can't capture in prores via the HDR-DR60...

Ah, you are acquiring on a drive instead of tape. Then you would have to transcode to ProRes afterwards. Either workflow A and B has a cost in time; one at the head, the other at the tail. If this is the case then go with A but have your HDV timeline settings changed to render using ProRes. This will give you the best trade-off. I would try this before changing to a tape-based acquisition, which will add ingest time.