Panasonic GH3 .mov files: can these be ingested FCP7 without transcoding?

Hello all,

I am considering adding a GH3 to the stable; one of the attractions is that it records in .mov as an option; here's the relevant detail from the menu:

1920k1080/24p [72 Mbps (ALL-Intra)]/
1920k1080/24p [50 Mbps (IPB)]/

Can these files be edited in FCP7 without transcoding? I have been using ClipWrap for the transcoding of the Sony NEX 6 AVCHD files, but when on the road this is a time-consuming activity on a MacBook Air.

TIA, KL

It's H.264. Not in FCP.

If I were you, I'd give it a shot on Premiere CC. That would probably be your best shot at native editing.



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks Gerard,

I have a US-sourced GH3 on its way here; let me play with it, and come back here. By all reports on www.personal-view, the 50Mb/sec .mov option produces the best files, it can be re-wrapped quickly (vs. transcoding) using MPEG Streamclip. I definitely do not want to learn a new NLE, if I can avoid it; taken too long to learn FCP 7! I may consider FCPX, though.

Kit L Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> By all reports
> on www.personal-view, the 50Mb/sec .mov option
> produces the best files, it can be re-wrapped
> quickly (vs. transcoding) using MPEG Streamclip.

Ah, the power of the internet where a 12 year old kid can pretend to be an expert. (*insert sarcasm) I took a glance at the forum, spotted a discussion of soccer player Gareth Bale and wondered if I wandered onto Espnfc.com.

The camera can shoot AVCHD/H.264 Movs. What would you rewrap to? MXF?

This is what is listed on the specs, so by definition, you can't do what you want, and you're better off editing it in FCP X if you so desire:

Motion Image: AVCHD Ver 2.0 compliant (AVCHD Progressive),
MPEG4-AVC (H.264). (MOV, MP4)

[panasonic.net]



www.strypesinpost.com

Seconding strypes, rewrap is inappropriate when the camera already outputs in the Quicktime (.mov) wrapper.
Codec H.264 is the problem with FCP7. Even with all-intra H.264, which the camera can produce and which any NLE software should tolerate, FCP7 is balky. It's red bar city, where every tiny effect demands rendering.

Kit L's solution, if he wishes to stick with FCP7, is to carry an extra kilogram. Replace the MacBook Air with the fastest MacBook Pro for transcoding the H.264 to ProRes HQ. (I'd guess it can do it in real time.)

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Thanks Gerard—oh, dear. Internet gurus, indeed.

OK—advice to a basic/intermediate-level FCP7 user—how hard is it to make the transition to FCP X? My programs are very simple to what many do here: we shoot two cameras, sometimes with second system sound, syncing video and sound on the Timeline, and editing consists of a simple opening title (type on of website name with typing FX); and then liberal use of the razor blade tool to cut between the angles. I mean, these are instructional videos only! Then I output using QT conversion, and at 1280 x 720p for Youtube, or to whichever mpeg is used for DVDs.

Here's the link to a recent 13' clip, if you want to get an idea of what I need to do:

[youtu.be]

As well, I do have last year's quad-core MacBook Pro, too, running FCP7; I could take it on the road if I had to, but the MBA is 75% of the speed (and I have FCP 7 on it, too) so much prefer to take it.

Is FCPX the way to go, I wonder?

Try the free trial download of Premiere CC. Just change the keyboard settings to the FCP7 set and you'll hardly notice you're in another program. Plus, no transcoding, or rendering to view your cut.

with the latest MacPro so far (Westmere) I experienced editing h.264 in an Apple ProRes Proxy sequence, switching to Fully 422 ProRes when editing done. and rendering.

worked good for basic cutting and dissolving job with some jittering.

you can begin like this if you don't need fancy FXs, animated graphs

in the meantime take the 10 days to learn FcpX with proper training and...

start a new life !

Jude: interesting idea. By

Quote
change the keyboard settings to the FCP7 set

, do you mean that the FCP7 keyboard shortcuts are available as an option in Premiere CC, or that I will need to make these (no problem if the latter)?

And looking at their tutorials suggests that APCC works more like FCP7 that FCPX does—is that how you see it?

Another way of asking the same question: which do you feel would be easier—learning FCPX or APCC?

Thanks for all the ideas, folks.

Premiere does work a LOT like FCP7 and in quite a few ways it holds its own. If that's what you're used to, you can get up to speed and very easily in Premiere. FCP X is different, the only thing similar about it is the name.



www.strypesinpost.com

Yes, there's an option to turn on the FCP keys in Premiere. I've moved to Premiere now, so I have to admit bias, because I tried FCPX and hated it. This doesn't mean you won't like it though.

Learning Premiere for a well versed FCP editor is pretty simple. I've had guys in their mid fifties (traditionally not happy to learn new software) who are not super pro editors up and running cutting a new project independently on Premiere in a few hours.

And like I said, there's a free trial, so you can see for yourself. The latest version is CC 7.0.1 (105)

Also, there are free tutorials at Adobe here : [tv.adobe.com]

Premiere CC7 is somehow what Fcp 8 could have been. Yes you could be up and firing sooner.

Good reliable solution issued from last century. ( I don't like the editing tools and their lack of subtlety, but that's just me)


FcpX is more like... Represent yourself in Europe around 1453, ok.

Some guy just invented a new way to release books ! Gutenberg was his name...
Of course those "hand writing " copying monks weren't so happy ...

Jude and Gerard: thank you. I feel that the transition to Premiere will be the simplest; and getting the keyboard to work in a similar way is great.

And Jude, the fact that you are using P yourself for me is not bias: it's gold!

I had a look at the titling capacity too; just what I need. Thanks and over and out from me.

Francois, that cracked me up!

I only need the equivalent of a typewriter (to continue the analogy with the copyists) in comparison to what FCPX can do (cuts on a two-camera shoot, supers, dissolves sometimes, and very little post).

Not all the FCP7 commands are in PPRO -- after all, FCP7 contains 450 default key commands and other 450 unwired! But they come mighty darn close-- the effort given to creating FCP8 in PPRO is impressive!

- lsm

Loren, hi—I have one of your key guides in my desk at all times!

Good to hear about PP in this regard, too.

But I have been studying many of the tutorials available on FCPX... if combined with sparse bundles, I feel a lot of the media management problems that people spoke about when FCPX was released can be avoided.

And I have been re-reading folk's comments here, too; I was particularly impressed with FCPX's approach to multicam cutting (and most of my projects have two cameras and I usually record second system sound, too), so that looks very useful.

I have been recommended Steve Martin's Ripple Training series; if I were to move to FCPX, I would want to learn it well—any other suggestions?

Thanks everyone!

Premiere Pro now comes with built in audio synchronization which you may find quite handy with second system sound workflows. And you can use this to sync up multiple bins of rushes. Here's a 10 minute video that shows off the function:






>Not all the FCP7 commands are in PPRO

I fully disagree with that. Find me one useful shortcut in FCP7 that is not in Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro has all the keys I use in FCP7 on a regular basis and much more.

Premiere Pro has FAR more useful keyboard shortcuts than FCP7. Let's take trimming for example.. In Premiere Pro, hold cmd and marquee drag over all your edit points. Done. You now have multiple edit points ready for a roll edit. Need to ripple? Hit a shortcut to switch to ripple in/out and ripple trim as many tracks of video and audio as you want at the same time. Before CS6, Premiere couldn't do trimming on the fly during playback. Now, it does trimming lightyears better than FCP7. Whenever I find myself cutting on FCP7, I find myself hating the trim tools in FCP7, because trimming in FCP7 is so primitive, partly because Apple has, for quite a few years, focused on developing the finishing tools in the suite.

Take another shortcut that has been in Premiere for years - ripple in or out point to playhead. Hit play and hit one key. Boom. Done. Ripple trimmed to playhead and while playback is still going on. In FCP, it takes me 5 shortcut keys just to do that and it can't do it in the middle of playback.

Ever tried to slow down or speed up a clip to a specific length? There's a tool called the rate stretch tool, which works like a ripple trim tool except that it changes the speed of the clip while preserving in and out points. Premiere does fit to fill edit as well, and it has a speed change dialog box similar to FCP7, but I've not used these half as much as I do in FCP7 because the most intuitive way of slowing down a clip is by dragging the ends of the clip in the timeline.

Slow motion is too stuttery? Need the slow mo to look better? Right click, send to After Effects, click a button to enable pixel motion, done. Need to do fancier stuff like warp stabilize or remove a pedestrian walking in the background? There's a whole load of useful features in After Effects for touching up shots and it integrates very nicely with Premiere. After Effects is also pretty much the industry standard for graphics, and it comes with Premiere with the Creative Cloud.

Need to do a quick and dirty audio mix for screening? Select all the clips, hit the shortcut for audio gain, and you can choose to normalize overall volume based on the loudest clip, which is a function that exists in FCP7, or normalize all peaks in the cut to a certain level, which does not exist in FCP7. And the gain tool also recalculates the waveforms, which is quite a useful feature if you are working with interviews that have been recorded very softly and you can't see it on the waveforms to know when the subject is speaking.


I won't give metaphors like "it's what the nuclear bomb was to World War II", or it's the future of book publishing prices, or that this is the next Apple Newton (remember Newton? The iPad that never took off?). I won't talk about horses and carriages or cars or aeroplanes and fanciful stuff like that. Everything since 1995 has been a game changer and billed as "THE FUTURE" if the marketing team is boring enough.

But let's talk about built-in features that are unique to Premiere Pro. Stuff that is here and now. Let's say you shot a video and have a script. Save the script as a text file and run speech analysis, and watch your video become searchable text synced up to your video. If you have a transcription of an interview, sync it up and start searching for text instead of scrubbing through each clip to find a word or sentence.

Here is a demo of the feature showed off alongside Adobe Story, although you don't need Adobe Story to use this feature:

[tv.adobe.com]

Riding a horse with wheels on it? Technology of the future? I don't know. All I know is I can export an OMF and send that to the audio house and without 3rd party plugins too. No budget for the audio house and you want to do it yourself? There's Adobe Audition that comes with Creative Cloud. Right click and send. Need to conform to broadcast specs? There's the built-in TC Loudness meters that is now integrated into both Premiere Pro and Audition. That's the same meters that many broadcast stations use today.

We can talk about FCP 8 or 9 or 11, just like we can talk about iMovie Pro. But again, metaphors.

As for how easy it is to pick up if you are coming from FCP7? I just passed the Premiere ACE exam, and I've only gotten onto Premiere since CS6 which is about a year ago. I'm largely self taught on it, used it for work after fiddling around with it for a weekend, and I found that most of the things I have learnt in FCP7 is interchangeable (along with the keyboard shortcuts). It doesn't beckon you to use it till you love it, and then you will love it, or tell you that you have to unlearn editing and relearn and all that gunk. It simply works.



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks Gerard: what you write and both videos are very helpful. I was surprised to see that the footage the editor used in the first video all had different timebases—I came back from a shoot in Spain last year with just this scenario, and most of this footage remains unused for this reason. To be able to shoot the GH3 as ACam and another camera shooting a different format as emergency cover is something I'm not skilled enough to do in FCP7, but with PP seems to be a piece of cake.

I may even be able to use the Spain footage after all (the Spain problem came about as a result of me forgetting that the EU zone still has the PAL/NTSC division, in respect of 50/60Hz; I had brought a hacked 60Hz GH2 with me, and the Italian cameraman was shooting an EU 5DMkII); I could not find a simple way to use both footages at the time).

I will look into PP's output options this morning, too (on another thread I am trying to find the best compression method for these instructional programs).

Thank you sincerely for posting this, KL

>I was surprised to see that the footage the editor used in the first video all had different
>timebases

I will say for sure, that going to production and shooting mixed frame rates is not the best thing you can do. But yes, in Premiere, you can mix them just by dropping them in the timeline, and that's what I will do if I didn't have time or budget to send the footage through a Teranex for real time conversion. Try it and see how it looks. The frame rate conversion is fairly intelligent. If you shot 23.976 fps (or commonly known as 24p), and when you drop that into a 60i timeline, Premiere will automatically add a 2:3 pulldown.

Now, I'm not saying that Premiere is a magic box and it will let you edit 60fps 5K RED footage on a 2008 Macbook Air off a thumbdrive with real time down scaling to 1080p slowed down to 24fps, and still play through a blur and dissolve without rendering. But I have edited AvcHD, DVD vob files on my MacBook Pro and on a PC, and on a MacPro, 4 and 5K RED footage, DSLR, amongst many other sinful codecs such as H.264 flv, Mpeg4, ProRes, XDCAM EX... Quite a garden variety, and I didn't transcode or re-wrap any of that. But I have VERY little experience working off a MacBook Air.

Just download the trial and run it and see how it works for you. There's zero commitment in a trial, and if you are proficient in FCP7, you will probably be up and editing in no time. Nothing to re-learn or wrap your head around before you start. And there are loads of video tutorials and books out there if you want to learn more about some of the tips and tricks in Premiere. Josh from Retooled.net has a bunch of videos on the new features in Premiere Pro CC.



www.strypesinpost.com

strypes wrote:

Quote
Now, I'm not saying that Premiere is a magic box and it will let you edit 60fps 5K RED footage on a 2008 Macbook Air off a thumbdrive with real time down scaling to 1080p slowed down to 24fps, and still play through a blur and dissolve without rendering.

Why not?



That just cracked me up, Gerard: perfect. I use a quad-core i7 15" MBP for all my editing and photo imaging work—I only use the Air when on the road (I sync them using Chronsync and Dropbox; excellent if you have to use two machines), and would only use the Air on the road for the lightest duties, like a short YouTube clip.

But if I can use the GH2 as the Acam, and (say) a Nikon V1 as the occasional Bcam for occasionally needed cutaways, then I'm in heaven. I will download the trial, and have already started watching a number of the tutorials on Adobe-tv (and will add the ReTooled ones, too).

Sincere thanks, KL