Editing HDCAM Movie in FCP

NO one...or very few people...edit HDCAM at full uncompressed resolution. Best to capture it at a lower resolution. But no need to go as low as DV. OH my no...capture the footage as DVCPRO HD. That is the offline HD codec of choice. Doesn't take up that much space...720p at 23.98 takes up twice as much space as DV...and the drive requirements are low. I edit DVCPRO HD with firewire 800 drives. But it would be good to go either the INTERNAL SATA drive route, or eSATA RAID route. And 20-30 hours wouldn't even use up 1TB.

Then you can take your project file to a post facility that does HD with FCP and capture the full res there, and color correct, and output.

Shane

I am in a similar situation.

Has anyone used a DVCPRO HD Camcorder or deck as a passthrough device to capture HDCAM footage in the DVCPRO HD format? Is this possible?

The cheapest thing would be to dub the tapes to DVCPRO HD, rent a deck and capture. A capture card is an investment that you spread across many projects, so the initial cost will be more. HOWEVER...with this method, you cannot MONITOR your footage on an external monitor at all. The capture card allow you to capture, then monitor your footage on an external HD monitor...but then you'd need an external HD monitor. Ooof...this is getting expensive.

HD is expensive, especially if you are working with HDCAM. But, depending on how much work this machine will see in the future, an HD capture card would be a wise investment, then rent a J-30 HDCAM deck and capture. If you only have a limitied budget on this show, dub to DVCPRO HD, rent a deck and then capture via firewire.


Has anyone used a DVCPRO HD Camcorder or deck as a passthrough device to capture HDCAM footage in the DVCPRO HD format? Is this possible?

Not possible, as far as I know. If you did get an image, what about timecode? THAT is very important.

If you are going to have the budget to shoot HDCAM, you'd better have a budget to properly deal with it in post. Cutting corners may SEEM like a cost saving feature, but bites you in end.

Shane

You don't need an HD monitor to edit HD, especially if you're just doing the offline and going to a facility for the online. With the KonaLH, Kona3, or a Decklink card (and there are other options as well), you can downconvert to SD in realtime. The advantage here is that you can use an SD monitor for your offline edit.

If you get your footage converted to DVCProHD 1080p24 you will be able to work with the native image size throughout your edit, but in a much more efficient file size. There are facilities that will even capture your dailies for you to firewire drives saving you from having to pay for downconverts (or crossconverts) and saving you the time of having to capture it yourself.

Offlining this way will also make your online easier because any effects you create will not have to be rebuilt for 1080 during the online.

And that is a VERY good point Dan. That you can at least MONITOR your footage on an SD monitor and see what you have. It won't be a true broadcast HD image that you can color correct to, but that is the post houses job, right? You just want to see it on a reference monitor.

I'll throw out the Matrox MXO as a monitoring option as well.

Dan, is your new show HD or SD?

Shane

Sadly it is SD. It covers too many parts of the world to have been done in HD at a reasonable price. Also, I imagine that on some of the shoots the crew needed to look like tourists and not a TV crew. But hey, at least it's 16:9. I suppose they could always upconvert the whole thing, should the network ever decide that they need it in HD.