FCP Sony FCP7 Plugin - Why not Prores422?

[David Ethridge]

I have been importing my 1080p30 footage in to FCP7 and my preferences for the LOG AND TRANSFER is set to Prores422 but, when I check the clip it say the Compressor is 1080p30, not Prores422.

When I drop the clip to a sequence with the compressor setting of the sequence to 1080p30 it doesn't ask me to change the sequence settings to another compressor like Prores422.

[Hung Ton Quoc]

Don't use Sony log and transfer but ClipWrap. Drop the M2T files to ClipWrap window - select a destination - select Prores conversion. The conversion is fast and the quality in Proress is amazing.
Hung

[Zach Love]

Can you give us some more info? 1080p30 is a resolution & frame rate, while ProRes 422 is a codec. There is a chance that Log & Transfer is doing exactly what you want.

One quick thing is to look at the file sizes. There is a HUGE difference between Proress422 & HDV.

One big important question I have for you is: Why do you want to edit in Prores 422?

I love my Z7 & think it creates really amazing images, but I don't deny that it is still a "budget" camera when compared to the field of professional cameras. Thus I think that it is fine for many applications to get by editing in the "budget" HD format, HDV.

I know there are a lot of dedicated editors that will state to their death that no one should ever edit in HDV. But I take the wisdom that the best workflow is the workflow that is best for you. I have cut a bunch in HDV & I have yet to have someone have a problem with it.


-One more thought... I overheard a while ago about some guys talking about keeping the raw footage in HDV, but your sequence in ProRes422. This way you're not loosing any hard drive space by up-converting all of your raw footage to a larger codec, but when you render graphics & such FCP keeps everything in full raster 1920x1080 w/ much less compression.

[Lee Berger]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

-One more thought... I overheard a while ago about some guys talking about keeping the raw footage in HDV, but your sequence in ProRes422. This way you're not loosing any hard drive space by up-converting all of your raw footage to a larger codec, but when you render graphics & such FCP keeps everything in full raster 1920x1080 w/ much less compression.

If you want to stay in an HDV sequence, you can set FCP to render in ProRes422. It's in the Sequence Settings > Render Control Tab (HDV and XDCam only) BTW, I've done lots of successful native HDV editing in FCP. Most goes to SD DVD or to the web.