Archiving in Pro Res HQ

For DV and HDV source material, HQ is WAY overkill. In fact, the best format you can save them is in their original codec.

Since DV will only come in as DV and while HDV can be captured as ProRes, you lose all time code and there is no way to match back to the tape, capture it in native format as well.

Set your Scratch Capture to the drive where you want everything to reside.

In FCP, create a new project. Call it ARCHIVING or something that makes sense to you. This will create a new folder inside your FCP capture scratch with the same name.

Create two sequences, one DV one HDV.

Open up the DV sequence and the capture window, make sure the settings are for DV.

Pop in a tape and capture it.

Pop in another tape and capture it.

Rinse and repeat until all are captured.

Then, open up the HDV sequence and verify the capture settings are set for HDV.

Pop in a tape and capture it.

Pop in another tape and capture it

Rinse and repeat until all are captured.

You now have the material in the best format it can be saved in on the drive of your choice. It is identical to what is on the tape and will take considerably less space. You can delete the FCP project or not as you choose. It is irrelevant to future use of the clips.

If you need a file in the future for a project, convert it then.

Also, for this purpose, a program like CatDV would be much better than FCP as you can use it to build a catalog of the material as well.

x

You don't need to make a separate project for each tape. Many of us here often have projects that use multiple tapes. Simply set the Scratch disc to your new drive before you start ingesting them.

Transcoding to ProRes HQ won't bring any quality advantage, your tapes are what they are. ProRes LT is more than adequate. HQ will just take a lot more disk space.

A way of digitising direct to disk? FCP has been capable of that since the beginning, it's called Log & Capture.

There are some minor differences when working with HDV which you can familiarize yourself with here

Your SD tapes are 720x480 NTSC or 720x576 in PAL - don't go blowing them up to 1920x1080 on an archive copy, they will look terrible and there's no going back.

No, you do not understand. I fear you have a very limited understanding of how FCP works with media.

My assumption is the material does not exist on your hard drive already and you want to capture the material directly from tape. Is this the case?

You must understand that a FCP project file is nothing more than a data base that keeps track of where the media is located and how it is used. That's all.

What you need to do has nothing to do with material in a sequence.

When captured, the file goes to the hard drive specified in the Capture Scratch setting and is noted in the Browser in FCP.

Once the file is captured (saved) on the hard drive, what and how FCP notes in the particular project you used to capture it is irrelevant.

x

... for this purpose, a program like CatDV would be much better than FCP as you can use it to build a catalog of the material as well.

If you want a catalog of the tapes, Cat DV will do what you want. Either that, or Final Cut Server. Unfortunately, Final Cut Server has been discontinued.

Good luck,

x

From my reading of your post, it sounds like you are trying to set up your process so that you'll have a separate folder for each tape in your Capture Scratch folder. For this, yes, you'll create a separate project for each tape.

But you don't need to do that. All you would have to do is label each clip properly as you log it. This assigns the name you choose to each quicktime as it's generated on your media drive.

It sounds like each tape is a single, produced show? If so, wouldn't you want to capture each tape as one clip? That would certainly make your archiving simpler, wouldn't it?

As long as there are no timecode discontinuities, FCP will capture as one file.

If there are TC breaks (which are different than starts/stops), FCP will behave as you tell it to do in the Capture Setttings - abort capture, create new clip, etc.

You may run into sections of tape where FCP can not adjust to the TC problems and will not capture at all. In those circumstances you can either run the operation manually or copy the material to a new tape with continuous TC generated by the target machine. This requires two cameras/VTRs but creates a clean copy with uninterupted TC which should capture without issue.

Have fun.

x

>Maybe after each tape is injested, I must simply create a new folder on the new hard disc and drag and drop the files from the scratch folder into this folder and do this for every tape injested?

No. Create a new bin in the Browser. Name it Tape 1, or whatever.

Right click it and choose Set Logging Bin. Your captured tape will be stored there. A folder will be created on your Scratch disk with the exact same name.

Rewind and eject your tape. Load the next one.

Create a new bin in the Browser. Name it Tape 2, or whatever.

Right click it and choose Set Logging Bin. Your captured tape will be stored there. A folder will be created on your Scratch disk with the exact same name.

Rewind and eject your tape. Load the next one.

Create a new bin in the Browser. Name it Tape 3, or whatever.

Right click it and choose Set Logging Bin. Your captured tape will be stored there. A folder will be created on your Scratch disk with the exact same name.

Repeat, repeat, repeat...

Nick, I'm confused. I'm pretty sure a new folder in the capture scratch folder is created with a new PROJECT not a new bin. All material captured in a project are saved in a folder with the project name in the capture scratch folder. Unless of course you change your scratch disk in system preferences in the middle of a project