Another imovie 08 thread

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Richard Thompson

What does this mean for using the HD7 in future? If I want to shoot for longer than 18 minutes, I need to import using firewire? Or is there some other way of having the HD7 split files shorter so that iMovie can handle it? Or is iMovie incapable of handling files which the HD7 has split itself?

My GUESS is that ViualHub can't join clips that the HD7 has split.

I've heard that there are utilities that can join files, but I don't know if it works with the TOD files. So assuming split files can't be put together easily, I would advise not shooting more than about 15 minutes at a time. That is a very very long shot.

The good thing is that if you do shoot really long clips -- you likely won't have many clips. That makes it really EZ to create a PLAYLIST and capture via FireWire. But, remember to shoot 1440CBR. (You'll not really lose any detail.)

So you'll need to make a choice. If you plan to shoot long -- switch to 1440CBR.

I'll work on this and see if I can figure out an EZ solution.

[Richard Thompson]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

My GUESS is that ViualHub can't join clips that the HD7 has split.
I've heard that there are utilities that can join files, but I don't know if it works with the TOD files So assuming split files can't be put together easily, I would advise not shooting more than about 15 minutes at a time. That is a very very long shot.

This just keeps getting more and more ridiculous... This technology is so poorly tested on Macs, it's scary.

We just leave the camera running when we are giving presentations, some of which can go for 40mins+... so having a camera whose software can't easily import these length sucks.

So this means that at this point, we have purchased Visualhub for no apparent reason, as it doesn't solve our problem, which is very long import times into iMovie. I'll search for a way to join the files, but this introduces increased complexity to the workflow which, for the kind of people that will be using this process eventually, is very unfortunate.

Any additional help to simplify this process would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much for your input thus far, Steve; very valuable.

[Richard Thompson]

Originally Posted by Richard Thompson

So this means that at this point, we have purchased Visualhub for no apparent reason, as it doesn't solve our problem, which is very long import times into iMovie. I'll search for a way to join the files, but this introduces increased complexity to the workflow which, for the kind of people that will be using this process eventually, is very unfortunate.

it looks like Visualhub has an option to join files, which means that for each "stretch" of split files, we will have to separately import, join them into 1, then import the next batch, which is an arduous process for a 3 day conference.

As I said, any other suggestions would be welcomed. this *may* mean that it's not quite so bad as I had originally thought though.

[Kieran Steele]

Richard,

I am really excited about this potentially new workflow too. I have this feeling that the AIC conversion is loosing quality, and even though a bit of a cludge, its a huge timesaver (and space saver) going via imovie 08.

I'm with you. I am shooting film look weddings with 2 hd7's as bcameras with dof adapters, and they are left on the whole time during the ceremony.

I am about to kit up with a whole bunch of timecode gear to lay down audio tc onto cams 2nd channels to combat multicam fun (since neither the hd200u or gz7 do tc) (which the auto audio gain not being able to be turned off on the hd7 messes with, but might be ok) but If I wasn't the easiest way to avoid tc issues is clap (not too much at wedding), then leave them running for as long as possible. Change bats, clap, leave on.. Plenty of hdd space, so makes for a good timecode workflow...

I was about to change my workflow from mpeg steamclip aic to imovie 08 for import to fcp, but

short clips is a dealbreaker.

1440 via firewire would be realtime yes? Whats the point in having a hdd disk system if you have to firewire in at realtime ...

Also Steve made a statement that since he's been going from firewire import to hdd instead, he stopped shooting 1440 and started with fullhd as better quality and mentions it scales nicely to 720 as its square pixel. Sounds great! So was just about to swap to fullhd shooting, but then just saw in this thread,

"But, remember to shoot 1440CBR. (You'll not really lose any detail.)"

So.. Steve... help us out there... How much detail are we talking. Not as much as we would loose from compressing aic with steamclip? Therefore stick with that and go 1440? You would be saying then that the combination of shooting a vbr instead of straight 27mbps and not using all of the image sensor, really doesn't change things much, but aic conversion (and subsequent mpeg conversion again for dvd output etc) would affect it far more?

I tried using visual hub's option to "stitch videos together", it did it, but a funky green frame in the front end of it. Again, viewable in import in imovie, but same error at end of import process, and then no files.

I was trying it only with files it had already converted, as it described stitching them together at the end, which is what it looked like doing.

I might try again using raw import, I am just running out of space to keep creating big dmg's on my macbook pro boot drive. Thats another deal breaker. I read of ppl using fat32 usb drives to do the imports with visual hub and imovie 08, (different camera I think), so not sure what the limitation of it needing to be on the boot drive is really about? Maybe I missed it in another thread or Steve can shed some light.

No way I can do a same day edit if I have to suck it all onto my laptop boot volume, I would have to replace my superdrive with another hdd, and even then I have no idea wether it would work being another internal drive, but not the "boot" volume...

One thing I cannot work yet is once I get into FCP, Steve mentions you wont have to render if you get your sequence and render settings right (xdcam ex or pro res), but mine still want to render... That might be one for another thread, but I'll mention it here in case someone else is using this new workflow with fcp and has had a similiar issue.
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edit

for some reason this is working now unlimited rt in pro res... Maybe I only tried xdcam ex and the 1440 clip through it off? Thought I tested the 1920 and 1440... Both imported fine...
more testing I guess
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I also did have success in my first test importing 1440 in via the imovie process alongside fullhd... So can't remember if in the book or a thread, it was said you couldn't do the imovie import with 1440 (only 1920) as it was expecting a certain mpeg type... Well, it does work with 1440 on the one test that i did...

So maybe pending quality, I'll stick with 1440 so a have a fallback to firewire (yuk) for large files.... But I was so there with imovie, fullhd, and external drive for the dmg...

Process is not quite there yet... :)

If you want to stop creation of thumbnails as well, use activity monitor and force quit imovie 08 when it starts making them. I can confirm that works fine. If you then want to stop it picking up where it left off (eg, start making them again next time you start imovie, you need to move the files it created somewhere else). I for one currently am using imovie only for import into fcp, so after it starts making thumbnails, I force quit it, move the files to another folder, and then its a happy chappy next time I start it for another import.

Looks like some more testing... These things seem like the sort of issues that will get sorted out.

I applaud you Steve for bringing us HD7 campers more workflow options. I bought another one last week (getting hard to find), on the basis that the work you have done with this camera, gives me confidence I can use it as a bcam, get it matched, and use it far beyond the capabilities it was possibly intended for :)

Cheers,

Kieran

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Kieran Steele

1440 via firewire would be realtime yes? Whats the point in having a hdd disk system if you have to firewire in at realtime ...

Also Steve made a statement that since he's been going from firewire import to hdd instead, he stopped shooting 1440 and started with fullhd as better quality and mentions it scales nicely to 720 as its square pixel. Sounds great! So was just about to swap to fullhd shooting, but then just saw in this thread,

"But, remember to shoot 1440CBR. (You'll not really lose any detail.)"

The point of HDD is that one can record 1-hour and 15-minutes. :) Remember how one always has to worry with miniDV tapes about running-out of tape. If you do a wedding, you'll like have only a couple of clips to put into a Playlist. Then have dinner while the HDD feeds your compute via FW. Of course, no matter what you do iMovie will take time to make thumbnails, :)

I have never been able to SEE any more detail in 1920x1080. Why? Because detail is chip limited with the HD7. It's about 700x700 no matter what format you record.

The reason I used FullHD is that originally I was using FCP to make HD DVDs. Why not, I reasoned, go from camera to HDTV without scaling. And, it was easy to mix with my HD1's 720p -- which I no longer have.

So if you need to shoot long clips, you're really not losing detail by shooting 1440CBR. You are shooting HDV. I imported into iMovie using the LARGE option because it saves a ton of space and results in Square Pixels.

The FCP workflow is described in Chapter 7 --- Indirect File Workflow.

[Kieran Steele]

Thanks Steve, I'll try that out, sounds like I'll just stick with 1440cbr unless this is overcome. Nice not to scale though...

I still really like the non-aic non-firewire route, so I will still look for a way around the size limit.

If you've elaborated on the disk image needing to be on boot volume, and not external thing anywhere else, or any other threads, that would be great, could give me a head start?

If you mean imovie to fcp and renders is covered in more detail in "Chapter 7 --- Indirect File Workflow", I just received the new appendix from you, but maybe this was an update to chapters in the book? If that is the case, could I get the new version please?

Cheers,

Kieran