must recapture footage?

Hello,
My online editor told me that the footage for my film must be recaptured because I had it on my Final Cut timeline for a long time and rendered it a lot with effects, etc. My understanding was that regardless of what is done on the timeline, the original footage on the external hard drive remains untouched and does not need to be recaptured. Thoughts?

You are 100% correct. FCP is a non-destructive editor and it never ever touches or changes your source clips. The clips in your capture scratch folder are the same as the day you captured them.

--ken

Here was my editor's reply when I told him that:
The statement about FCP is correct. It is true of most editing systems today
(I can't think of one that doesn't work like that). What I was referring to
in terms of media degradation has to do with rendering which does cause
media to be re-encoded.
Is he right?

On the PR side of things, I would recommend not getting into a debate with him. If your media is already captured, continue with the project as you should and as needed.
Steve

Your editor is just plain wrong. When you render in FCP, new files are made ... aptly named render files. An FCP project file is essentially a database. It keeps up with the original media so when you execute a play command (or any other commend), it knows where to access the media. Once a section of a clip or clips is rendered, FCP plays back the render files - NOT the original media, which remains unchanged.

You can verify this for yourself by opening the render files folder for a project and playing the files.

-DH

I don't understand any of this but maybe you do? Here is my prospective editor's reply (I want to know whether I should hire him)

Media is altered when it is rendered – otherwise no render would be required. It is this aspect of an offline that calls for one to want to produce any effects which are applied in the film to online quality media and rendered only once. What is considered online quality media is a different conversation but suffice it to say that offlines, when consolidated for transfer to an online system (say FCP to FCP), typically will include pre-rendered files in the online’s system conform. If one does an offline to online conform in the proper way this can be avoided but all this is a bit of a moot point if one goes back to the basic issue of the best codec to use for an online given the source media in question. Of course, none of this matters when one considers what system will be used to produce the best possible online of the film.

It makes no sense at all. As mentioned before in this thread the original captured media is still the original media and does not need to be recaptured. I would look for another editor.

John

I didnt think it made sense either, but he is getting all indignant with me since he has been a professional editor and won awards etc. for years.

I need to jump in here too. It sounds to me like this editor does not understand what he is talking about. (and this could produce other problems along the way.)

First off, not all media gets rendered. If you have video and don't apply any filters or do any compositing (straight cuts), the video never gets rendered.

Second, every film out there, that was edited on a computer, has rendering. Every frame of a Pixar movie is rendered.

There is nothing wrong with rendering, it's what gives us the ability to do our magic. Working with ProRes 4x4, ProRes HQ, uncompressed 10 bit video, you can render till the cows come home and there will be no discernable quality loss at all.

What was pointed out before, if you render something and then make a change and re render, you are NOT rendering the rendered file. FCP will always go back to the source video and render from that.

My 2 cents.

--ken

Thank you. He is using so much technical jargon and is so incensed, it made me question whether I properly understood it, technical details not being my strong suit.

Offline editing used to be a regular part of the workflow due to the high cost of working with some formats. It made sense to offline edit at a lower cost post-house (or edit suite) to do the bulk of the work. Then you'd create an EDL and take that to the higher priced online post house (or suite) for the final tweaking. That way the bill for the online sessions is kept to a minimum.

With the advent of NLEs and cheap hard drives, offline editing is now predominantly only used when working with difficult formats (ie; processor intensive). But with the introduction of the various ProRes formats, there's not even a need for that now. Most video productions (excluding film and some high-end HD formats) never see an offline edit session. There's simply no need to do so. Everything can be done as a online session with no need to recapture at the original resolution since you can capture and edit that in one session.

Your prospective editor sounds like he's living way back in the past. He might have been on top of his game years ago. Yes, media is altered when its rendered, but that doesn't automatically equate to quality degradation. And as previously stated, the original media isn't altered at all. A new media file (in the form of a render file) is created to take the place of the original (which remains unaltered).

-DH

I did the "offline edit" for this film - which meant editing in low resolution in FCP. But then all the media was recaptured for the "online" in full resolution and placed on to an external hard drive. That is why I do not understand why he says we have to recapture all the footage again. First I thought it was because he wants to finish the film on an Avid system, but he says it is the same if we finish on FCP.

Maybe he wants to recapture in a different format than what you did. But I'd still be hesitant of this guy. He sounds way too pretentious to be taken seriously. I know you said he's won all kinds of awards, but keep in mind that to win awards, you must pay entry fees and award fees (if you win).. The ugly truth about most awards is that they seldom have any real credibility (regional Emmys included).

-DH

I'm just telling you what he told me, he was very defensive. But now that you have explained it all to me, I am thinking he meant footage should be recaptured to render, because when I was rendering the same clip over and over it changed its quality so we should return to the source again?