Smooth iMovie/FCP HD HDV Workflow
 

Last night I was playing with the new iMovie 5 ($79, free on new Macs) and figured out a very nice HDV workflow for Mac users.

First of all, it is important to mention that when installing the new iMovie, the Apple Intermediate Codec shows up in the QuickTime codec list. This portion is key to this solution.

Here's the workflow:

1. Capture a whole HDV (1080i or 720p) tape in iMovie.

Features scene detection, capture, demux and auto encode to the Apple Intermediate Codec. Audio sync is perfect because it isn't using the buggy MPEG2 QuickTime Component.

2. Show package content and move the media to a dedicated FCP folder

CTRL-Click on the iMovie project file and all your captured clips will reside in the media folder in the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC).

3. Import all the mov (Apple Intermediate Codec) into FCP

You can simply import the AIC movs in FCP HD. They will play in realtime in full resolution (720p or 1080i). You will get a warning that the clips aren't optimized for FCP HD, ignore it for now.

4. Setup a sequence using the appropriate Apple Intermediate Codec format (1080i or 720p)

It is important to setup a proper sequence in FCP HD that matches the HDV specs. Clicking on 'Advance' for the compressor will allow you to set the codec to 720p or 1080i or other (more coming soon...)

5. Edit in realtime in FCP full res HD

At this point, you can edit your clips in full res and realtime. Even FX are realtime! It is a bit buggy but if you preferred the proxy approach you could always use media manager to make a DV or DVCPRO HD version of your project for true realtime.

6. Output timeline to Apple Intermediate Codec

Finsihed editing in realtime... simply render your timeline to the AIC in the proper resolution.

7. Import the final render in iMovie

Import that AIC file into iMovie. As long as it is the AIC, it'll import fine.

8. Output the imported final render from iMovie to the HDV camera (1080i or 720p)

Send it back to the camera (Sony or JVC) in full HDV resolution.

That's it, a perfectly workable workflow for Mac users. Not very much unlike the Cineform approach for PC users.

Frederic

Thanks Lumiere HD and Frederic...pioneers of HDV software!
 

Hey, thanks Frederic.

I'd like to point out to everyone that Frederic and Co. have provided a Mac solution for the longest time. He and his team have paved the way, and we should all thank them for being such great colleagues. Without Lumiere HD many of us would have been stuck in the mud.

Thanks Lumiere HD and Frederic...pioneers of HDV software!

Murph

Wow Frederic,

Thanks, I have to wonder, is it really in your commercial interests to post information like this.

I have a couple of Qs

What are the sizes of the AIC files compared to the original 25Mbs HDV files?

2 are the original HDV transport streams deleted on the fly as they're converted or are they kept?

Dylan,

Honestly, commercial interest has never been our priority. Commercial viability yes, but our primary focus has always been to solve a problem because we are editors ourselves. Especially since the only solutions available, at a time we decided to develop LHD, were less than adequate ($5,000 requiring rendering at each cut & $350 manual on how to use an unstable package of shareware).

We aren't getting rich with Lumiere HD but we have been able to operate and try to fill a gap without loosing money. We have kept the software at the lowest possible price ($179) in order to reinvest in R&D, advertising and operational costs.

Having said that, we always knew that native HDV support from Apple was the ultimate solution and frankly we have been looking forward to it. This new suggested workflow is the closest we've ever been to it and we feel it is the best solution to edit HDV on FCP HD today... so we are sharing it with everyone else.

To answer your question about AIC files compared to the original 25Mbps HDV files, I don't have the exact answer at this point. Anyone with an FX1 can import some footage and compare.

I can tell you that the AIC HDV 720p is 4.0 MB/sec (1:24:21 clip = 343.4 MB). Not bad at all.

Yes, the m2ts and m2vs are automatically deleted.

Frederic

Frederic is one of those guys who will succeed at just about anything he tries. Lumiere HD is but one small facet of Mr. Haubrich's business career. Long after Lumiere, you'll still find him doing many other commercially viable (and technologically impressive) ventures. I've met the man, and let me tell you, there is no stopping him.

Amen! Frederic has provided the utmost in customer service and is to be commended for helping early consumer HD camcorder adopters maintain their sanity by providing a much needed software path to FCP. Thanks, Frederic. DCS

Awesome stuff Frederic! Can I also add that Frederic is a pleasure to work with on a business level, and that he and his company are certainly one to watch for any future endeavours he undertakes.

Graeme

some more info on How To
 

Frederic was first up, he emailed me as I was working on my write up doing the same thing. I've posted my version (it's the same process, just my write-up on it), as well as some notes about how FCP responds to that imported HDV footage, and exact settings to use in Final Cut Pro HD to get your footage in and working right and working with realtime effects.

3way color corrector is pretty consistently realtime on 1080i60 footage on a dual 2.5 GHz G5, but transitions are NOT unless you drop from high to medium quality in the Video Preview window.

If you're into this stuff, has some stuff not mentioned in Frederic's (excellent) write-up.

The article is here:

http://www.hdforindies.com/2005/01/y...dv-in-fcp-with

Frederic is a great guy, and I know he'll do well, especially with Lumiere Media and his film career! Thanks for the head's up!

heath

ps-Call Apple and ask about buying iMovie HD seperate for $10.

hwm

MPEG2Works from Tosa Serbian
 

Thanks all for your kind remarks.

Great developers have been instrumental in developing the software. Graeme Nattress (http://www.nattresss.com), Srdjan Curcic, Eric Petit and others.

But I must point out that without Tosa Serbian, lumiere HD would never had seen the light of day. Tosa has been the best partner you could ever hope for. He is a one of a kind developer and a remarkable innovator. I just came up with the idea and general design, Tosa actually built the thing!

I highly recommend his shareware to anyone who works with video on a Mac. It is called "MPEG2Works". You can learn more here:

http://www.mpeg2works.com/

It will be the best $10 you'll ever spend!

Frederic

Frederic's awesome workflow procedure has now been immortalized as an article at our HDV Info Net main site. The link is http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/edit...dvworkflow.php.

I noticed if you transcode to Apple Intermeditate Codec footage from Quicktime, it is noncompatible with Final Cut Pro HD. Although the same files from iMovie import fine. I think something to do with how QT wraps up the video file.

Note: Apple took away the option to buy iMovie HD for $10.

heath

Additional info on the workflow -- Keep your Transport Stream
 

If you need your Transport Stream final output, you can get it before it gets deleted by iMovie.

You might want it for DVD backup, Film Festival movie transfer, etc...

First, to generate the transport stream, you need to File/Share and choose the HDV device (camera/deck) to share with.

While your movie gets encoded and multiplexed, a temporary Transport Stream or (RAW Mpeg file) is being created in the Cache folder in your iMovie project file. It is called "HDVExport.mpv". When iMovie asks you if you want to make another export so you don't have to re-encode, simply copy that file to another location.

You can rename the ext to .ts and read it in VLC.

This is how you can keep your Transport Stream if you need it.

Frederic

Hey all,

I'm having issues with the HD10, even with plugging and unplugging the firewire, I'm still getting snow on the iMovie HD screen. Any tips?

Thanx,

heath

Does everyone else's iMovie capture at 1/2 speed? What am I doing wrong?

heath

why HDV import is 1/2 speed
 

it's contingent upon processor speed, among other things.

It's having to convert HDV to AIC, that's a lot of math.

-mike

I figured it'll play back at normal speed.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this workflow...

heath

Update on Workflow for 1080i Footage
 

There seems to be an issue with vertical lines when viewing iMovie captured and generated AIC in the canvas.

My suggested solution is:

- Import the AIC in the FCp browser
- Set the sequence to 1920 X 1080 (Non anamorphic)
- Keep the rest of the settings the same (Square, Upper, 29.97, AIC 1080i)

- Use Media Manager to make an offline copy of your project in the codec of choice (DV, MJpeg, DVCPRO HD) by using the recompress feature
- Edit in that codec
- Rebuild the timeline online using the AIC clips

Also... Jerry Miles from Promax discovered that you can just Click and drag the footage from iMove right into FCP HD... Yes, from the app without having to show content from the iMovie project.

I did the 1080i test on the 5 Freeway yesterday... Took 4.5 Hours from Irvine to LA! (It's a 45 mile trip) Since we weren't moving at all for 1.5 hours, I decided to do some work.

Frederic

Frederic and everyone,

If I captured on Lumiere HD 1.5 (beta v. 8) and cut in the 1080i DVCPro HD codec, can I use iMovie HD to go back to the FX1 in native HD?

heath

Re: Smooth iMovie/FCP HD HDV Workflow
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Frederic Haubrich :

Clicking on 'Advance' for the compressor will allow you to set the codec to 720p or 1080i or other (more coming soon...) -->>>

Sounds like someone's working on making 1080p24 out of the Sony's 1080i60 footage. :)

Thank you Frederic!

The only question I have is what the new iMovie's timeline limit is. FCP's is 4 hours. What's iMovie 5's?

My findings
 

Hi all,

I'm currently posting a music vid I shot on Tues with 2 FX1s. I chose the FX1 over the DVX for two reasons (I''ve been shooting all my vids on the DVX since it became available)

1-Higher res after downconversion

2-I needed slow motion for this project. I decided to try (and then tested last week) shooting in 30i, and then slowing down and simultaneously downconverting in After Effects. The idea was to treat each HD field like an SD frame, thereby giving 60fps source material to work with.

So I'm post-processing and downconverting all my footage now before the edit. I was having trouble bringing my iMovie clips into FCP...I was seeing the weird right hand side vertical line problem, among other things. Here's what I've learned:

iMovie takes the 1440x1080 HDV and transcodes to a 1440x1080 AIC QT file. Then it sets a flag in the file to playback at 1920x1080. QT Player and FCP read this flag correctly.

When you place this clip in a 1920x1080 timeline, it's the QT library unsqueezing the clip before FCP can do anything to it. This causes problems in FCP (and also in After Effects, as I found out). I was getting ghost chroma lines every few frames, and other artifacts.

So here's how you fix it: Open your iMovie AIC clips in QT Player Pro, Apple-J to get movie track properties. Select Video Track on the left, and then Size on the right pulldown. Resize the clip from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080. Save, then close.

Bring the clip back into FCP...now the clip will be un-anamorphasized. Go into the clips properties and tell FCP it's an anamorphic clip. Then use a Fredric's 1440 AIC sequence settings. Sucess!

By the way, the normal-speed sections of my music video I shot in Cineframe30, because I needed a 24P look but didn't have time to do 30i to 24P tests. As it turns out, 30P FX1 footage converts to 24P MUCH nicer than I would have predicted. I'm going to convert all my 30P performance footage to 24P, adn then edit in a 24P SD timeline.

Cheers,
Nate Weaver

Hey Nate, can you post the link??

<<<-- Originally posted by Christopher C. Murphy : Hey Nate, can you post the link?? -->>>

Er, link to what?

Frederic,

Quick question: In my settings tab on the sequence, I've set it to DVCPro HD 1080i 1280x1080. Should I keep it like that, or customize it to 1440x1080?

Also, should the QuickTime settings also be on DVCPro HD 1080i60 or is regular DV (720x480) okay?

heath

<<<-- Originally posted by Heath McKnight : Frederic,

Quick question: In my settings tab on the sequence, I've set it to DVCPro HD 1080i 1280x1080. Should I keep it like that, or customize it to 1440x1080?

Also, should the QuickTime settings also be on DVCPro HD 1080i60 or is regular DV (720x480) okay?

heath -->>>

I'm not Fredric, but I'll re-iterate his published settings and also the settings that worked for me...

None of the DVCPRO HD sequences will work with AIC clips. Both the resolution and codec is wrong (that is, it's wrong unless you like rendering).

Sequence should look like this:

http://homepage.mac.com/nweaver/.Pictures/FCP_AIC.jpg

Okay, I did that, but the image is now stretched out horizontally and when I activate 16:9, it gets squashed down even more...

heath

time code issue
 

Frederic,

thank you for your nice method!

i have a question concerning timecode. is original timecode imported as in original? i meand each frame has exact TC as original one (on the hdv tape) - i know that FX1 has different approach than Z1 if we are talking about timecodes, but it's importand to know that.

if i need to do the following:

- going from HDV tape to disk using iMovie
- importing from iMovie, exporting to FCP
- editing on FCP HD
- recording back to HDV camera/rcorder

will the SOURCE timecode be exaxtly as on tapes?

thank you,

filip

<<<-- Originally posted by Heath McKnight : Okay, I did that, but the image is now stretched out horizontally and when I activate 16:9, it gets squashed down even more...

heath -->>>

There's lots of places to go wrong, as I found out when trying to get this to work. What are the properties on your clips?

In FCP, as you scan down the properties, each clip should be 1440x1080, square pixels, anamorphic. I also forgot to mention to define the upper field as dominant in clip properties. I can't remember if this makes a difference in aspect ratio in FCP, but it does in After Effects.

I didn't stress this in my first post, but it's very important to resize your iMovie clips in QT Player Pro. If FCP sees your clips as 1920x1080, none of this will work. Size them to 1440 in QT Player.

How do I do that in QuickTime?

Thanks, Nate!

heath

It's in the middle of my original, long post. You use Quicktime Player Pro.

Thanks. Of course, I'm going to have to figure out why every time I install FCP HD, QT Pro isn't in there...

heath

Quicktime Pro is just Quicktime with a serial number entered. It's printed on the sheet with the stickers for the FCP serial - just open Quicktime, go to the menu and enter the serial. QT Pro is very, very useful!

Graeme

Not to sound like a total moron, but I did just that and it's telling me I need to buy it...

heath

Many many thanks to Frederic to share his finding. Also, thank you Nate for your additional information.

In Japan, Apple Japan started selling the iLife today. I received it yesterday our staff were playing around, so I had to wait untill they finish to do my own.

My findings on top of Frederic and Nate's are as follows:

Decklink HD Pro seems to be trying to display AIC clips on its video out.
When setting the AIC clips and the sequence to 1440x1080 as Nate mentioned, the sequence indicate the clips to be played in realtime with normal amount of realtime features (it seems), and try to playback on DecklinkHD Pro's video out in realtime!! Bit buggy, but Frenderic and I discussed with Grant Petty (CEO of Blackmagic Design) in Tokyo, Grant was saying that could be done, so Blackmagic Design could have been working on it already.

When I compare clips between digitally converted with LumiereHD (m2t->demuxed->converted to 8-bit uncompressed Blackmagic codec) and AIC captured with iMacHD, I can't notice much difference. The brightness and sharpness are little different but that is about it. It is I think workable enough.


Anyway, I will do a lot more testing along with DecklinkHD Pro here, so if I find something else, I will post it and provide the comparison clips as usual.

Heath, I might have found what is happening with your problem.
When you open a AIC clip captured with iMovieHD by QuickTime Player, are you resizing the clip on your computer window because the file is quite big (opens as 1920 x 1080 pixels), so you are resizing (to just view) it on your computer window first then resizing (to 1440 x 1080) for good by how Nate explained? I found that the clips that I resize to display screws up the relation on "actual" and "displayed" sized for some reason.

So, make sure you open it, don't adjust the displaying size, then resize it. I'm going to swap the display to 30inch from another station to do the resizing work from now on to avoid this problem (so, I don't have to resize for more comfortable workflow).

AIC data rates
 

Just to add something. I spoke to some Apple representatives at the London VideoForum this week (on the Sony stand!) and they confidently estimated that AIC needed about one GB per minute, compared to DV25 (or native HDV) needing about one GB per four minutes.

Here's useful little tip when you are resizing the AIC files in QuickTime Player.

You first open the file and display the property, then when you choose the menu to change the size of the file, you can press "shift" key while you are dragging the mouse pointer side way which limits the movement vertically, then when you get the right horizantal size (1440), you can press "command" key addition to the "shift" key, then the vertical size would fall into 1080 pixel. Then you can release the mouse button first, then the keys next.

Does anyone know any application that you can do this resizing process in batch action?

Okay, I saved my clips as QT movies 1440x1080 and set my settings in the sequence to what's recommended, including the anamorphic flag checked. Sooo...Why am I not getting letterbox? I'm getting pillars (vertical letterboxing) and stretch...

heath