FCP Studio / DV Footage /Progressive..offline possibilities

we are getting huge footage shot in DV PAL with Pana 25P.. we cant offer to capture everything in online quality..so what are the chances and methods to do OFFLine AND THEN DO ONLINE ..is there any hitches in doing this method with DV footage ..TIA

What other format would you capture in? Panasonic DVC25 is DV quality. It is the smallest footprint per hour and is usually what is used for offline HD. Is you question about FCP dealing with 25p progressive PAL footage? Regular DV is the minimum necessary to edit from.

"regular DV is the minimum" Not quite true.

If you're REALLY tight on space you can use "Off-line RT" which can be smaller than DV by a factor of 10. Obviously, you're going to take a hit in quality, but the option is there if you need it.

Most people don't like using OFF-LINE RT 'cause it looks like crap. However, if you're in a shared storage environment with many users, the bandwith required for off-line RT is extremely low. Low enough to get away with multiple streams over gig ethernet.

Things to watch out for when going from off-line to on-line. Speed changes, specifically speed ramps will be problematic. Do a search on this formum, the topic has been covered many times. Still frames can be dicey, and the media management can be tricky if you've never done it before. Other than that... it's a walk in the park!

mark

Offline RT was intended as a way to use FCP on a Powerbook. The original intent from Apple was to allow an editor to take his/her footage on a Powerbook to do coarse editing before bringing it back to a more powerful MAC for Online.

That Offline-Online scenario is nothing like a real Off-Online usage in the edit world.

The original poster doesn't mention the host computer or much of any information that might clue us to the real intent of his question.

thanks for the responses . we have both iMAC 2Ghz and Powerbook . but we dont have huge space for about 100 minidv tape. and we dont have budget to buy that HDD . so we felt doing offline will be safer and saves money and then we can online with our HDD ..so we hope we gave the info too . i spoke about progreesive cause we would like to know is there any SPECIFIC issues while doing offline with 25P ...thanks again.



thanks for those who SHARE-gev

Gev,

I work in NTSC land, so I don't have much experience with PAL.

However, considering your situation, I would suggest doing a test and seeing if the Off-line/on line workflow is right for you. It sounds like this is exactly what you're looking for.

John,

I have to disagree with you about your comment "nothing like real Off-line usage in the edit world". We have almost one hundred FCP systems networked together with X-san using off-line RT as our primary off-line resolution. After picture is locked we then up res those timelines to full SD resolution. We've been doing it for two years now on literally hundreds of hours of network television shows. If that isn't "real off-line usage in the edit world" I don't know what is!

Mark

mark,

Glad it works for you!

i havent used any DV 25P media, yet.
i imagine that it would be the same as 50i, but do a quick test if you;re worried.

agree with Mark that speed changes still seem to be the most worrisome aspect of the media manage.

i have a workaround:
before you MM, go thru your show and find all the speed change shots.
matchframe them into the viewer,
you will get the UN EFFECTED shot there
edit that back into the timeline,
on a new, invisible track, imediatley above the original shot.

my original thinking with this was that if the effect gets screwed by MM, you stil have the frames you need to re-build the effect.
but the funny thing is that having those frames there, in an UN EFFECTED form makes all the speed affected shots come out fine.
of at least that;s been the case for me.

unfortunately you cant automate a search of the timeline for speed affected shots.
(even though the clip now has a % sign in the displayed name, the find tool cant see that)
to i open up the "clip keyframes" display.
that's the little button with green and blue lines bottom left of timeline, or OPTION T
speed changes are motion fx, so they will have a blue line displaying in the clip keyframes (green is for filters)

i'd aslo advise exporting a guide movie of your final cut.
you should up-res this to DV so you can use it in the same timeline as your new media.
you could also crop the timecode reader filter onto al the shots, so your guide has a burnt-in TC guide.
this might not be nesecary. i;d only do this if the online was being done else-where, where i didn't have access to my system.


i've a question for Mark:
given that you do this a LOT,
do you have a workflow devised for preparing for your on-line?
and do you leave in any filters that may have been added?
i try to remove any ham-fisted grades i may have done, hopping the tape-to-tape grader will do them better.

oops.. that's two questions.

thanks,
nick

Nick,

Our workflow for preparing an online is pretty straightforward. We identify the "problem" shots in advance and manually correct them. We also take the time to manually check each and every shot for frame accurracy. When up rezzing, we leave in 15 frame handles which takes care of most random slippage. If there's something worse than that, we investigate to identify the problem. Checking is done against a QT movie of the off-line that is imported into the on-line project on a higher track. This also gives a point of reference in the event that on-line moves forward and we "unlock" picture due to last minute changes.

As for filters,virtually all color correcting is done in the on-line phase unless there is some kind of specific FX used to tell the story (Flashback/GRFX, etc.) For us, the off-line process is all about story telling. Our on-line editors are primarily colorists, doing shot by shot color correcting within FCP.


We used to go out to a DaVinci for color, but after much research, practice, and refinements, we find that we can turn out equal results with FCP. I know I'll get flamed for making this statement by all of the "high end purists", but we've done our homework, actually doing split screen color tests and are quite happy with the results. Recent developments in color correction software like Silicon Color's "Final Touch" only strengthens my conviction that FCP is as capable of a "complete conform" system as a comparable Avid path.

mark

>>unfortunately you cant automate a search of the timeline for speed affected shots.
(even though the clip now has a % sign in the displayed name, the find tool cant see that)<<

Hearing this from Nick, maybe you could forarm yourself for this by colour coding speed affected clips as you do them - so - every time you change the speed of a clip, immediatley change the label to orange or something in the timeline so that you can spot them a mile off when you go to online.

THANKS ..that is the least i can say to u guys .



thanks for those who SHARE-gev