Re: Editing a Multiclip in HDV vs. Pro Res

Hi All,

I have posted before concerning using HDV or Pro Res. I am working on a multiclip (3 camera angles) of a wedding ceremony. The footage was shot in HDV (Sony Z1U's 1080i), captured as HDV and now I'm starting to edit. I changed my render settings from HDV to Pro-Res and rendered the sequence. Although their is a "blue" status bar on top of the video, if I make a change to the multiclip, the entire timeline turns to a "green" status bar, letting me play the video, but looking very choppy and pixelated. In the past, I have worked many times with DV widescreen anamorphic footage and was able to cut between the cameras without the video looking choppy. But HDV video unrendered in a multiclip does not look good at all.

When I rendered the sequence to Po Res (before I starting editing the multiclip) the video file took up an additional 55 gigs for about 50 minutes of footage. Am I best to work in HDV, not render at all till the end, and when I'm ready to do so, then change to Pro Res for rendering? Ken, you mentioned about batch exporting my clips as Pro Res? Someone mentioned to me I shouldn't use HDV footage in a multiclip, but rather as three separate video tracks? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose and advantage of being bale to "cut" quickly between different camera angles in a multiclip?

I am running FCP 6.0.4 on an 8 core Mac 2.8 gig processor, 10 gigs of RAM with 3 terabytes of internal storage in addition to the 1/2 terabyte drive for my operating sytem. I am running 10.5.4 I am also using aBlack Magic Intensity Pro Card; I'm viewing my footage on an external HDTV via firewire through the Intensity Pro Card. I thought working with HDV on a newer 8 core Mac would be easy (from all that I read and heard about), but I haven't seen the advantages just yet as I'm early in the process of just starting to work with HDV video.

Any advise or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Scott

Hi Scott,

You know what they say. "Unless you are going back out to HDV tape, get out of HDV as soon as possible.

Did you change your render setting to ProRes in Sequence setting 'Render Control'? This okay for renders but you are still cutting HDV, so you have mixed formats.

ProRes is such a better format than HDV. It is full raster and has a 4:2:2 color space, that's why the files are so big. You don't need to use HQ, the regular ProRes 422 is fine for HDV.

My advice to you would be to Batch export as ProRes and work with that. Maybe next time consider capturing in ProRes in the first place, but you are going to have to update your FCP.

My 2 cents.

HI Ken,

How do you properly batch export? I have about 20 or so clips in the browser. I selected them all, chose a destination folder and chose Apple Pro Res for my setting. But when I go to export, I get a message saying this file name already exists. Do I have to rename all my clips?

Thanks,

Scott

Scott,

Select the clips in the Browser and from the File menu > Batch export.

This should open up the Export Queue window.

Select the Batch in the window. At the bottom of the window is a button > Settings

Select your deistination and your format. Click Okay

Then click on the Export button bottom left of the window.

This will take awhile.

--ken

HI Ken,

Okay I'm trying to batch export now. I'll let you know my results. I tried to recapture the project from scratch last night as Pro Res. I did this just as a trial and error; I didn't capture all the tapes, just one. I captured the first tape fine, but I see I have a new clip for every time I start and stop the camera. Where can I change this in FCP to capture the whole tape (when I capture HDV via firewire as Pro Res) instead of getting numerous clips. I must have had 40 or so clips from tape 1. I'd probably end up with around 400-500 with all the tape I shot. I remember reading and or seeing a start/stop detection button somewhere. Can you direct me on this one?

Thanks,

Scott

Hi Ken,

I did the batch export as you recommended. My clips seem to be fine. I saved them to a new folder. Do I need to move them to my capture scratch folder too? Will they be offline if I don't? Lastly, is the quality of batch exporting from HDV to Pro Res as good as if I had captured as Pro Res to begin with? Did I lose any quality in the conversion process?

Thanks again,

Scott

Hi Ken,

I must have screwed up somewhere. My clips are still HDV. I'll trash these duplicate clips and batch export again, making sure I selected Pro Res.

Thanks,

Scott

Hi Scott,

Just wondering what is RT Extreme set at? If it is set to dynamic bring it down lower. Also try editing your multiclip without your 2nd monitor. I multiclip with HDV all the time and I don't have the 2nd monitor or the horsepower your computer has and I don't have the problems your having. I am using quad though. Anyways just a thought.

Good luck!

Jason

Hi Scott,

HDV is not a good format for native multiclip editing. Because of its intraframe compression HDV puts a lot of strain on your CPU and graphics card. Multiclip is very processor-intensive as well, so if you combine the two you are left with hardly any RT functionality no matter how fast your system is. And once you get below basic RT the dynamic RT setting will automatically start dropping frames and lowering resolution in its efforts to play your clips real-time. You won't notice this very much in the FCP Canvas as this only shows you a lower-res image anyway, but you surely will notice it on an HDTV monitor. That is what you have experienced.

I see many people now have reached a consensus to capture HDV to ProRes, or to convert already captured HDV footage to ProRes, instead of working with HDV natively. I think that is indeed the best workflow, especially if you need to do more than basic editing.

Ken has explained the correct workflow to convert already captured HDV clips to ProRes. Just make sure your destination folder for the ProRes files is not the same as the folder that contains your captured footage.

When you batch export from within FCP you will get many different options for your ProRes format. Choose the right format that matches your HDV footage: for HDV 1080i60 footage this would be Apple ProRes 422 1440x1080 60i 48KHz. You will end up with bigger files for your footage, but for the system you run this will not be a big issue, and you will have the advantage of working with a much better and faster codec and in 4:2:2 color space.

When you import these files in FCP, make sure your sequence settings match exactly the settings you have chosen for your export and you will have no trouble with a 3-source multiclip. To give you an idea: I am running a three-source Apple ProRes 1080 50i multiclip sequence smoothly on my home dual G5 as I'm writing this!

If you have any further problems with your batch export, drop me a mail and I will give you a step-by-step workflow.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Ken & Ronny,

I tried the batch export method and you're right it takes a very long time. I hit escape after about two and a half hours and saw it captured about 20% of my total files. Ken, I also experimented recapturing the tapes as Pro Res. That works fine, but it creates a clip every time I stopped the camera. Is there a setting when capturing to Pro Res that I change it form making a new clip. Between 10 tapes, I'll have probably have more than 500 clips! I also am experimenting with capturing via HDMI and my Intensity Pro Card. I captured a whole tape just now and saw it captured as one entire clip, not 30 clips, which is nice. But it captures the video as 1920x1080i in Pro Res HQ which takes up about 90 gigs per hr of video. Wow! But the video does look sharp.

If anyone else is familiar with capturing via HDMI and the Intesnity Pro card I'd like to hear your opinions on this too. I just don't want to have to rename 500 or so clips for every project I edit.

Thanks,

Scott

Hi Scott,

When I Batch export, first I create a new folder on myn scratch drive and in Batch export I select that folder as the destination. After export, I import the folder into my project.

I don't think that there would be any quailty difference between going to ProRes on capture or using Batch.

--ken

Hi Scott,

If you are converting entire captured tapes it may indeed take a very long time to convert them to ProRes. Best thing you can do in such cases is to convert a very small clip first to make sure everything is OK, then start the real conversion process in the evening and let your system work overnight.

When you capture HDV to ProRes, FCP automatically activates the "DV Start/Stop Detect" function (this is what you have seen when capturing HDV). You can switch this option on after having captured an entire tape so FCP makes automatic subclips for you. This usually is a good thing, except for multiclip editing. Unfortunately, AFAIK there is no way to switch the option of when capturing HDV to ProRes over FireWire.

Renaming clips is easy. Just give an appropriate name to each clip in the Browser. Then select all your clips, R-click on the selection and choose Rename > File to match clip from the list. Now your media files will have the same name as your Browser clips.

Capturing via hdmi is like capturing uncompressed over SDI. This is always full raster, so that's why the Intensity only gives your the ProRes HQ (1920 x 1080) full raster option instead of the native HDV 1440 x 1080 frame size. These files are much bigger (10-bit) but unfortunaltely you won't notice much difference in quality if your original footage is HDV (8-bit).

I agree that editing HD is becoming a major pain, especially in the prosumer maket. We all hoped that with the coming of HD we would finally get just one or maybe a couple of different standards and formats. But now every manufacturor is making his own little flavors of "HD" and they are surely creating one big mess this way! That's why I like the Apple ProRes workflow so much. Convert all that rubbish in your edit bay to one superior, transparent and edit-friendly format and way you go. Avid has done this from the very start, converting everything internally to their native codec. And this has made Avid so great. FCP is going the same way now, and even better: it lets you choose wether you edit natively or using their ProPres. Way to go!

Best wishes,

Ronny

Thanks again Ronny,

That workflow we discussed of capturing in HDV, batch exporting to Pro Res will allow me to recapture my HDV tapes (if need be) once I trash all my files from a completed projected. Ken, your advise to batch export as Pro Res is the right workflow for em. Yes, it's an extra step of having to batch export every time, but I think the fact you can reference your HDV and or Pro Res clips is a major plus. Capturing straight as Pro Res (capture now) does not allow you to do this. And I agree working in Pro Res for multiclip editing is the way to go.

I also tried capturing via HDMI (Black Magic Intensity Pro) at Pro Res HQ, but that is I agree, unnessary and takes up way to much space. Plus, I can't log and capture that way anyhow.

I hope everyone trying to work thorugh the struggles and trial and errors reads this thread.

Thanks,

Scott