Gypsy-rigging a fast, "fake" XDCAM timeline export

I work in a training environment of a production facility where we currently shoot and edit XDCAM 1080/60i 35VBR footage. We started out shooting on DV and editing on Final Cut Pro G4 laptops, and gradually upgraded to XDCAM footage over a few years, and are now editing on macbook pro's, which are designed to handle XDCAM.
As a training department, I don't always have access to the newest equipment and have inherited alot of the older, retired, G4 powerbooks to use as training vehicles to bring staff up to speed on Final Cut Pro editing. While I start staff on standard definition DV material, we gradually work our way up to XDCAM, as that's the format they'll encounter when shooting real material.
Although it's a given that the G4's were never meant to edit HD XDCAM footage, when installed with FCP6, the G4's can handle the editing of XDCAM timelines fine, as long as you're doing mostly cuts. Any rendering is obviously extremely slow.
The big problem is exporting the timeline out as a quicktime file. That takes FOREVER on a G4. However, I suspect that if I change the paramaters of the export so that I'm not trying to export a 1440 x 1080 XDCAM file, I hope I can speed up the time it takes for the G4's to export that timeline. The end product they're exporting will never be used...it's just a practice package timeline, therefore, it doesn't really matter what the end format and size dimensions of that exported timeline are. I'm just trying to get them familiar with the export workflow.
So here is my question...can anyone recommend a particular spec I can use for exporting that XDCAM timeline that will speed up the export? I need to try to do the same thing for exporting XDCAM via COMPRESSOR...finding a droplet / codec or creating one, that will export a 2 minute XDCAM timeline in around 5-10 minutes, instead of the 30-45 minutes it would take to actually export it full size. Again, I'm not trying to make it end up as an XDCAM exported file. Any format and size will do...I just want the export to go faster on these older machines.
Any input or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

If you haven't already, you might want to post this question in the FCP discussion at http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=939

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Hi, all.
First, I want to construct a fast transfer stream by programming not using the export item's stream and to import the stream to the folder by posting import request in EWS.
So, I export the item by EWS and investigate the exporting stream's struct by reading the [MS-OXCFXICS].pdf. And I can parse each MAPI property, marker, meta-property from the stream.
I find that the stream is made of many pages, most page's length is 0x7BC0, some are less then 0x7BC0. And in the previous section of the stream, there are some configurations. So the questions are:
1. What is the paging rule? or What is the principle of the paging? Whether a complete propvalue/marker(ref from [MS-OXCFXICS].pdf) must be contained in a page except some binary type?
2. Why the page's binary length is 0x7BC0? Or where is the configuation about paging length?
3. The stream is made of the FXOpcodes and the subbuffer about the FXOpcodes, and I find the mean of the FXOpcodes:
internal enum FxOpcodes
None = 0,
Config = 1,
TransferBuffer = 2,
IsInterfaceOk = 3,
TellPartnerVersion = 4,
StartMdbEventsImport = 11,
FinishMdbEventsImport = 12,
AddMdbEvents = 13,
SetWatermarks = 14,
SetReceiveFolder = 15,
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A. OpCode:Config, value:0000000001000000
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D and follows is: OpCode:TransferBuffer, Count:31680
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a. What is the OpCode:Config value meaning?
b. Some parts of The OpCode:IsInterfaceOk' value is the IID_IMessage("00020307-0000-0000-C000-000000000046"), What is other parts meaning?
Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Hi Haiyang,
Your questions are not covered by the Open Specification documentation and this is documented in [MS-OXWSBTRF] — v20141018 section “1.3 Overview”.
The upload and export data stream is an opaque format that only needs to be understood by a server implementation. The client only serves as a repository for the opaque data stream so that it can be uploaded to the server at
a later time.
You made good progress in interpreting the buffer using other documents. Why do you need to be able to parse the data? Please describe your project in details and I might submit a suggestion to document the layout of the data stream,
if your project justifies it. You can send the description directly to me.
Thanks, Vilmos

[EWS][FastTransfer] Question about paging in the Fast Transfer Stream after exporting message and the meaning of the config in the previous section of the stream.

Hi, all.
First, I want to construct a fast transfer stream by programming not using the export item's stream and to import the stream to the folder by posting import request in EWS.
So, I export the item by EWS and investigate the exporting stream's struct by reading the [MS-OXCFXICS].pdf. And I can parse each MAPI property, marker, meta-property from the stream.
I find that the stream is made of many pages, most page's length is 0x7BC0, some are less then 0x7BC0. And in the previous section of the stream, there are some configurations. So the questions are:
1. What is the paging rule? or What is the principle of the paging? Whether a complete propvalue/marker(ref from [MS-OXCFXICS].pdf) must be contained in a page except some binary type?
2. Why the page's binary length is 0x7BC0? Or where is the configuation about paging length?
3. The stream is made of the FXOpcodes and the subbuffer about the FXOpcodes, and I find the mean of the FXOpcodes:
internal enum FxOpcodes
None = 0,
Config = 1,
TransferBuffer = 2,
IsInterfaceOk = 3,
TellPartnerVersion = 4,
StartMdbEventsImport = 11,
FinishMdbEventsImport = 12,
AddMdbEvents = 13,
SetWatermarks = 14,
SetReceiveFolder = 15,
SetPerUser = 0x10,
SetProps = 0x11
and in the stream there are 4 part(after I parse the stream):
A. OpCode:Config, value:0000000001000000
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C. OpCode:TellPartnerVersion, value:000F91838417
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So
a. What is the OpCode:Config value meaning?
b. Some parts of The OpCode:IsInterfaceOk' value is the IID_IMessage("00020307-0000-0000-C000-000000000046"), What is other parts meaning?
Thanks in advance for any ideas.

OK. Thank you.
Today I build a stream with a paging rule as below:
1. Keep each page's byte length is 31680.
2. Make sure a complete property value in a page except binary type property whose value length is larger
than 31680.
And it can work very well when import the stream to the folder by EWS.

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Hey Guys:
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Thanks so much for your time,
D

What version of FCP are you using .. I thought this was addressed in FCP7.
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Open the clip in *Quicktime Player 7*, then press Cmd-I to show the *Movie Inspector* window.
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Best
Andy

Premiere freezes when rendering in timeline (exporting is working fine). After crash, project seems corrupted.

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Hi everyone, I'm trying to find a faster HDSLR workflow.
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On my HV30 I would export my HDV footage with File: Export: QuickTime movie with 'Current settings' selected. The export would take 1-5 minutes and give me fantastic quality because it would only render the edits and effects..
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I don't think the Epic I software will do anything to help with the matter because from what it says on the website FCP still renders from the original H.264 files when using this software.
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(www.nitsan.info)

From Wikipedia:
Film: A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a story conveyed with moving images..
Filmmaking: Filmmaking (often referred to in an academic context as film production) is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, shooting, editing, directing and distribution to an audience..
Sorry if my original post was mileading. I was not about to just copy people's answers and post them as an article. but simply write a tutorial on what I found to be the fastest workflow and thank the contributors with links.
If you look at my blogs and guest articles you would see that I post information I think will be useful to fellow (insert job description here).
I have no sponsors or adverts running on my blog or website. so i'm not "gaining" anything.

XDCam footage exported from FCP to After Effects and back to FCP stutters

I need help. Here is the situation:
XDCam footage imported into Final Cut with the Sony Import Software 25 mpbs. Final Cut sequence is set up to match all settings. The footage is placed into the sequence fine, I can edit with no problems everything works great. The problems start when I export from Final Cut to bring it into After Effects 7.0.
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any suggestions?

Hi,
I was having the same problem. After studying the mov as rendered by AE it would seem that there's something odd about the framsize. It would seem that AE's HDV preset is incompatible with FCP for some reason. There's probably a perfectly reason tech explanation for this but I don't know it.
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As a short-term measure just run the files through Compressor, that did the trick for me.

ProRes timeline/export on mac in Premiere CC

I've posted about this earlier but thought it was worth another try.
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In Premiere CS6, "use previews" never worked with ProRes, but you could still export to ProRes - it just didn't use the preview files. Now with CC, you can't do either - at least not if you are using any graphics files or titles. If you're just using video clips in the timeline, then it works fine (using previews or not). I've tried this on 2 systems and have found other users on these boards as well as the Creative Cow forums that are experiencing the same issues.
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Since this is an export problem, you'll probably get more response on the AME forum. At the very least, staff members who visit that forum are more likely to know if this is a known issue.
What are the dimensions of your still images and, for that matter, of the PPRO titles?
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Can my Mac/FCP rig work faster?

Hey guys, I'm trying to get the best performance out of my Mac set up for FCP and After Effects. I don't have a monster computer so my render times are tough. I wanna make sure I am set up to work as fast as possible with my gear.
On a MacBookPro (10.4.11), I have 4 gigs of ram but learned after the purchase only 3 gigs are available, 2.4 Intel Duo Core, GeForce 8600M GT Vid Card and my external HD is a Simpletech 7200rpm 8mb cache through Firewire.
I have FCP on my C Drive and all my media, project files and scratch disks are on my External HD.
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-Monty

I don't have a monster computer so my render times are tough. I wanna make sure I am set up to work as fast as possible with my gear.
Ten years ago, CoSA (AEv1) took a weekend to render ten seconds of one layer with one effect. I have no sympathy with perceived render issues. You buy the gear you need to do the job or you patiently wait for your economic condition to change.
Rendering shortcuts are numerous, they take experience and testing. There are things in FCP, Motion, and AE that you must not try to do until your project is golden. You work in draft, at low rez, and at 15 fps. You use proxies, you pre-render, you use a workflow that compensates for every shortcoming you have inflicted upon yourself.
You carefully test your system, adding one effect or one particle system at a time, till you understand at a gut level where and when your system will start to choke and then you manage your processes. You find out exactly what services and effects your card supports and try not to use any it doesn't until the very ned of the project's rendering pipeline.
Working exclusively from the external drive is not always best. If your render and capture folders are on the same drive, your system must make endless and really fast calls to read and then to write back to the same platters, you can hear the chatter. With After Effects, you may want to place your render files on the internal to maximize your drive traffic. The results can be spectacular in AE, cutting your drive access times in half (which has NOTHING to do with rendering time). Dunno about Motion and FCP, but it also diminishes the wear and tear on the one drive.
bogiesan

XDCAM footage EXPORT CRASHES

Im using XDCAM HD footage in the project. Everything renders as it should, but FCP will not let me export the sequence. Halfway through the export, it crashes and quits the application.
There is 1 clip that is slowed to a speed of 50% , but that should not make any difference.
All of my software+hardware is up to date.
Thank you for your answers- C

How are you exporting? Via Sony XDCAM or via Quicktime?

AME and Calibrated XDCAM to Export XDCAM QTs?

Hi all,
I am workign on a PC with Adobe Production Premium CS6 suite.
I have recently installed and registered my license for the Calibrated codec suite for PC, including the XDCAM application. I have a client working on Mac that would like their weekly product delivered in a 720p Quicktime with XDCAMEX codec. The Calibrated software was purchased for integration wtih CatDV, but I was hoping it would solve our client's issue as well.
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/351/223
http://www.calibratedsoftware.com/ProductInfoAdobe.asp
However, based on the links above, it appears that PC's are incapable of exporting the QT file with XDCAMEX codec and only decode. Is this correct?
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Thanks!
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http://code.google.com/p/ffmbc/
Also here is a link to the page where they show you the command line for encoding to xdcam 422 in the .mov container. If you do it this way you could export to a uncompressed or another lossless format and then use ffmbc to encode it to xdcam in the Quicktime container if you wanted.
http://code.google.com/p/ffmbc/wiki/XDCAMHD422Encoding

XDCAM 1080p25 Export Pixelation

i have edited a 5 minute video in FCP using ProRes422 footage in a ProRes422 sequence. my client wants an XDCAM EX file. The "Video Processing" settings of my project and sequence are set to "Render in 8-bit YUV", once the render is done i have made the XDCAM EX 1080p25 export, i look at the finished export and i find a lot of pixelated parts in the video.
What could be causing this? i know that XDCAM is not a great codec, but that is what my client wants and there is no way around that.

+>Why is this?+
Because XDCAM HD is natively a 1440x1080 format (non square pixels).

HDV or XDCAM timeline - graphics 1440x1080 or 1920x1080?

If I am creating graphics in Photoshop for an HDV or XDCAM 1080p timeline, both which are 1440x1080, does it matter if the graphics are 1440x1080(1.33) or 1920x1080(square)? Which size creates the highest quality?
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Hey Andy
FCP X will handle the realtime transcode of the native XDCAM source footage (to ProRes) for playback and effect handling, thereafter any render files will be physically created in the ProRes format, so technically you'd be fine sticking with XDCAM ... in FCP 7 lingo the FCP X workflow is akin to editng your native XDCAM footage in a ProRes timeline (with Umlimited RT turned on), which was often the preferred workflow for that format. That said, others preferred to get out of the XDCAM format altogether as quickly as possible, and transcoding to ProRes (or Optimizing Media as FCP X likes to call it) will certainly provide you with better timeline, playback and effect handling performance.
Given what you've told us about the project, Id be inclined to stick with the former method and forgo the probably unecessary transcode.
Just my opinion of course, others may have good reason for suggesting otherwise.
Cherers
Andy

Gypsy-rigging a fast, "fake" XDCAM timeline export

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