Post-production workflow for use in Final Cut Pro

[jonfrewin]

Hi there, i'd be really grateful for any recommendations for using long videos shot on a 550D at 0.5 quality in ML, when combined in FCP with SD material shot on my work-issued Sony Z5 SD video camera, that I use to make a short SD film for a tv programme each week.

The problem I have is that I tend to use the Canon plugin for Final Cut Pro to import, which first of all, takes forever to bring in material.  I set it to Apple ProRes medium quality to make it easier to edit (the native H.264 files are no use for editing in FCP, as they need rendering before they can be viewed in the timeline), but even then, the ProRes 422 files are 3 or 4 times bigger than the EOS 550d files at 0.5 compression rate.

Any top tips / ideas / experiences you can share?

THANKS!

Jonathan

[3pointedit]

The camera files are heavily compressed, but you cannot edit with them on older apps like FCP 6 or 7 (not easily). I believe that Premier or FCP X can handle the native camera files in real time. If you can't upgrade then I suggest using the converted files to edit BUT keep the camera files -h264- for archiving. I guess you could even just convert a scene at a time if you are really pressed for space.

Just remember that you may not need all the de-compressed footage after producing the cut master.

[juantrueno]

Sorry if my english is confusing, But here is my experience:

You should think about migrate to Premiere 5.5 or 6.  it handles the H264 Codec and allows you to work in post with it. FCP 7 goes really crazy when you put a H264 clip in a timeline, eve if you render it. And render takes a lot of time.

I'm working in some microdocus.  record at least 220 min for each, own a macbook from 2008 series, core 2 duo, very small video card, and 6GB of ram (yes you can do that 1 slot with 2GB and 4 on the other).

I can edit in premiere 5.5 with no recompress process. Just the H264 .mov HD material from my camera. Some times it get slow, but in general works fine.  You can do also an "offline" edition and at the end reconnect raw footage and export from source material.

Put all the raw footage inside a folder called RAW, then do a batch export wit MPEG Streamclip to sd with DV-NTSC codec into a Folder called OFFLINE. All the new files must have the exact name and extension as the originals. Edit, and before export make offline and reconnect the files to the raw footage and export.

Hope it works for you.

[1%]

You have a choice:
1 Upgrade FCP
2. Move to Vegas (crashy) or Premiere (don't like timeline/audio)
3. Mass convert to Prores/DnxHD/Cineform

I do basic cuts first so I'm not working on 20 minute clip when I need 40 seconds > render into intermediate > color grade + composite > final recut for timing and audio > deliverables.
What do you think, too much work?

FCP always supported too few formats for me and I had to reboot to OSX.