HG20 (or HG21) workflow in FCE or FCP?

Hi.
I'm considering ditching my HV30 for an HG20 or 21 and wanted to know if FCP or FCE can edit the native file format in the timeline without transcoding or having to change sequence settings. I did a keyword search on here for HG21 and HG20 with nothing that really gives me a work flow or can confirm.
I have a PS3 and know it will play the native format from the cam. Ideally, I'd like to Log and Capture the footage, edit it and export as "quicktime movie" (self contained) to keep the the compression cycles down to a minimum and dump to my PS3.
Currently, I capture uncompressed 8bit from HV30 via Blackmagic's Intensity card. I do this to keep the original video quality of my footage. But at 450gb per hour, my project can only be 2 hours max at a time.
My goal is to ditch the Intensity card in hopes of FCP or FCE being able to edit without transcoding first. If that's the case, then I'm where I need to be with only 1 compression cycle happening and that's just in the cam during recording
Thanks for any and all insight!

Thanks for your reply, I never thought about converting straight from the camera but it makes perfect sense.
you said about changing the field dominance to none. Do you mean in MPEG Streamclip? If so when I'm in the MPEG Streamclip - Movie Exporter window and I click on the Field Dominance tab I only get two opions which are 'Upper Field First' or 'Lower field First'.
There is a Deselect for progressive movies: with the options under is as follows:-
Interlaced Scaling
Reinterlace Chroma
Deinterlace Video
The top two are ticked as default, should I untick them and select Deinterlace Video?
Thanks again

Similar Messages

  • Is FCE or FCP the one for me?

    Hi,
    I'm new to the video editing world, and my main reason for getting into it at all is to prepare DVD demo reels of my film score work. All of my source material is QT movies.
    I recently assembled just such a reel using iMovie. Got quite the education in basic techniques of assembling footage, adding titles, transitions, etc. But I also quickly realized that I'm going to need a more "pro" program to do this kind of work more quickly and efficiently (also, once in iMovie, the picture quality went into the toilet for some reason). So I'm considering some version or other of FC.
    I'm a music composer first and foremost, and aside from the need to generate promotional materials like my demo reel, I can't make it my life's work to learn a whole new skill. But I do know I need a better tool to dot he job. So I'm looking for advice on what the best program would be for me: FCE or FCP.
    I'm going to assume (hopefully correctly) that anything I can do in iMovie can be done in some version of FC. So here's a list of what I'd be looking to achieve from FC. Which is best for me, and, are these things possible?
    1. when clips are imported that the picture quality remains identical to the source
    2. ability to mix QT clips at different frame rates (24 fps and 29.97)
    3. have multiple tracks of video and audio
    4. ability to add video clips and lock them to the timeline so that their placement is more or less permanent (unless I decide later to "unlock" them) and, that their position won't be moved or "rippled" when I edit other clips
    5. ability to maintain permanent lock between video and audio extracted from the video file (iMovie isn't predictable in this aspect)
    6. ability to edit audio with a high degree of precision (see proper waveform displays, maybe even a tempo grid?)
    Thanks to anyone who can share their thoughts.
    -=iS=-

    Hi Ian,
    That link was very helpful. Just one more question... from my original post, "when clips are imported [into the program] that the picture quality remains identical to the source", what feature of FC would indicate that characteristic?
    (To be more specific, all of my various footage is the output of various well-known animation houses, and is all top notch in appearance even in QT format. But when those QT's are imported into iMovie the appearance becomes grainy, backgrounds become splotchy and pixelated, and edges become aliased...)
    Cheers!
    -=iS=-

  • Maximum clip speed in FCE and FCP?

    I'm currently using iMovie '09, which allows a clip speed increase of up to 2000% (two thousand percent). I'm considering purchasing FCE or FCP but before I do, I'm hoping someone can tell me the maximum clip speed increase. Just FYI, In iMovie '09, the slider stops at 800%, but a value of 2000% can be manually entered. Thanks for any insight.
    Jon

    JonVdG wrote:
    Thanks Al. Just to clarify, that was FC Express (not Pro)?
    Yes, Express 4.0.1
    Al

  • Wanting to run FCE or FCP on iMac 2.4ghz CD2 with 4gig RAM. Enough Power??

    Considering what used Mac to buy to run FCE or FCP.
    Had considered a Power Mac G5 with 2+ghz dual processors and 2G+ of RAM.
    Thinking maybe an iMac with Intel and equivalent power would be better (because of the Intel rather than PowerPC)
    Thoughts?
    Advice?
    Thanks

    Al and Martin,
    Thanks for your responses. I bought a 2002 Quicksilver, not knowing what I was looking for, and the harddrive crashed immediately (message from God?). I was going to upgrade to a nice G5 but now I think there is no point and am trying to get something with an Intel. At this point, the budget has been reduced to 500 or less. I know there are some iMacs out there for less I just have to find the right one...
    I'd like Dual 2hz with at least 2G of RAM. You think 2G is enough? I'll mainly be editing simple projects like DOCS and short narratives. No special effects, etc

  • Long FCP user considering FCE or FCP on mackbook pro

    I've been using FCP on my PowerMacs for years, since version 3. Right now I'm still using FCP 5.1 on my Quad PowerMac G5. I work in broadcast cable and but use my own computer for freelance gigs or personal projects.
    I want to buy a new MacBook Pro, and am considering installing the Pro version or having FCE pre-installed.
    Is there a side-by-side list of what FCE can't do and FCP can? I consider myself an advanced user of FCP and would be annoyed if I needed to do something on my laptop that FCE just can't do.
    Also does anyone know, if I have Apple CAre and FCE is pre-installed and, say, the hard drive dies and must be replaced, they replace it with FCE pre-installed again at no charge? And will Apple Care try to resolve bugs/errors if FCE is pre-installed?

    While I agree with Ian, I'd like to mention a couple of features that I expect FCP pro users might miss in FCE: +Media Manager+ and +Log and Capture+ (about other missing features: Render Manager, probably you can do without, source timecode display, time remap, etc. there are some plugins filling the hole..., etc.). Personally I can easily live without them... but I'm not a pro.
    Another point: while you can easily migrate a project from FCE to FCP, you cannot do the reverse: you cannot edit an FCP project in FCE. So having FCP on one Mac and FCE on the other doesn't allow you to switch a project back and forth between Macs.
    Piero

  • FCE or FCP?

    Hello all,
    I'm a complete newbie when it comes to video editing so I wonder why I went and purchased a Canon HV-20 (it's still in the box in case I need/want to return it! LOL)... and an associate at Best Buy told me all I'd need is iMovie HD.
    However, there's a class available at a local community college that teaches Final Cut Pro and how to use a camera, etc.
    So, I'm thinking about taking the class, but afraid I may be over my head...
    I've heard that FCE is very much like FCP so I'm wondering that if I take the class, will I be able to come back on here and use FCE?
    Also, it seems an advantage of FCP over FCE is that FCP works with "native" HD while FCE works with AIC (whatever that is!) LOL I read in another forum that native HD will be edited faster than something with AIC? Or is there another advantage of working with native HD over AIC?
    Any tips on whether or not I should attempt FCE or FCP or just stick with iMovie HD..would be greatly appreciated.
    As I said, I'm quite a newbie and I don't mind reading a manual... I just don't want to get lost within Chapter 1!
    Thanks for any help/advice!

    Far be it from me to disagree with my fellow Brit Ian, (Eh up, si thi...) I believe you have 2 options.
    1) Learn iMovie on your own - As Ian says it's free and an excellent program for one who's new to video editing with a learning curve that's not as steep as FCP/FCE. You could then move up later.
    The problem with that is that a complete newbie, you have to learn this on your own (unless you are also privy to iMovie classes) and I believe that it's easier to
    2) learn the whole camera/FCP with tuition, than option 1.
    My judgement is coloured by the fact that this is how I learned FCP, albeit on a full-time college degree course and I found it the best way but, of course, it's horses for courses. (Incidentally, I also learned iMovie concurrently, but soon decided to focus more on FCP.)
    Your decision will be shaped by your requirements - How serious do you anticipate your interest being?
    Do you prefer and find it more suitable for you to learn on your own or do you prefer the first hand help of tuition?
    Are you prepared to make the additional investment to step up to FCE.
    My advice - take the course - get FCE - then upgrade to FCP if and when necessary.

  • Best camera workflow with FCE???

    I am in the market to buy a new camera. I really like the new Sony PMW EX3, but you need some sort of 3rd party software to trasnfer the files to Final Cut Express.
    My question is this...what is the best camera that you've found to do workflow with FCE HD? I would like something that doesn't take long to download (captures on hard drive) and is HD with preferably 1080. Any suggestions???

    If you want to keep things simple and get reasonable quality you need an HDV or AVCHD camera.
    Remember that if you want to make Hi-def DVDs you will need to buy a Blu-ray burner for hundreds of dollars and everyone who wants to view your DVDs will need a Blu-ray player or a PS3 (again hundreds of dollars) and an HDTV. Plus every disc will cost many dollars instead of a few cents.
    All this extra stuff will cost as much as many cameras.
    P.S. This was written over an hour ago before I knew what that camera was. (I couldn't send my reply then because my internet connection went down!)
    Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

  • Upgrade FCE to FCP Apple Prores etc

    Hi,
    I just purchased my first mac a few weeks ago. I was deciding between purchasing FCE and FCP, and ended up buying FCE. None of the specs I read mentioned the 1440x1080 resolution limit on importing AVCHD, nor did I read anywhere that the import codec was limited to a heavily compressed AIC codec rather than ProRes.
    I've only had FCE since July 1. Now that I realize that issue, I want to upgrade to FCP, but called an apple store in the area and they said there is no upgrade path from FCE 4 to FC Studio. Is there any way I can do this? I really like the software, but these limitations were not mentioned. It said AVCHD support and when I read about that further, there was no mention of the bad compression and resolution limits. The footage looks about as good as 720x480 DV.
    Is there any way that I could upgrade my FCE 4 to FC Studio and make use of the ProRes codec and I hope full 1920x1080 resolution?
    Thanks in advance!
    Adnan Hussain

    Adnan,
    I am very interested in your post as a new user of FCE and a AVCHD camera user for awhile now. Can you tell us what your camera records in? Is is 1920 x 1080 i60, something else? Also what is the output you wish to use...SD DVD, Blu-ray DVD, Apple TV or internet.
    My experience has been that with AVCHD, and most other formats I suspect, some loss of quality is to be expected during the editing process. Comparing clips from the camera to clips that have been imported to editing software and then exported to some other format is not an apple to apples comparison. ( no pun intended ). How the clips are imported and in particular how they are exported have a huge impact on the final result. The Pro res codec in FCP may offer some higher quality output, but at a much higher price and depending on what you want to view this on......it may not matter. So bottom line, as Ian has responded, in your case switching to FCP may not help.
    One final question is how have you tried to export the movie, what was the work flow you used? There might be some settings that you can change to get closer to the results you desire.

  • FCE and FCP will not recognize LiveType files

    I have FCE 3.0, also recently upgraded to FCP 4.5 (I work on both) Also upgraded to QT 7.4 from 7.0. The first time I tried to import a livetype file to either FCE or FCP, they would not recognize the files. They appear in the list of files, but are grayed out. I have livetype 1.2.1
    Any ideas? Thanks.

    I notice no one is able to answer this...doesn't anyone have any ideas?
    Thanks,
    C

  • HG20 (& HG21) Workflow in FCP

    Hi.
    I'm considering ditching my HV30 for an HG20 or 21 and wanted to know if FCP or FCE can edit the native file format in the timeline without transcoding or having to change sequence settings. I did a keyword search on here for HG21 and HG20 with nothing that really gives me a work flow or can confirm.
    I have a PS3 and know it will play the native format from the cam. Ideally, I'd like to Log and Capture the footage, edit it and export as "quicktime movie" (self contained) to keep the the compression cycles down to a minimum and dump to my PS3.
    Currently, I capture uncompressed 8bit from HV30 via Blackmagic's Intensity card. I do this to keep the original video quality of my footage. But at 450gb per hour, my project can only be 2 hours max at a time.
    My goal is to ditch the Intensity card in hopes of FCP or FCE being able to edit without transcoding first. If that's the case, then I'm where I need to be with only 1 compression cycle happening and that's just in the cam during recording
    Thanks for any and all insight!

    I appreciate your patience. I just didn't want to make $1k mistake.
    Everything is crystal clear.
    I'm going to mark this as "answered", but would really like to hear someone's take on the quality after transcode. As you can see from the thread, I'm a stickler for image quality.
    I can't seem to find a place to post an image on here of a screen capture I took when comparing 3 exported mpg2's from 3 timeline's (uncompressed, PRHQ and hdv). There is too much magenta in the HDV and PRHQ capture.
    Does anyone have other insight?

  • FCE to FCP project transition

    Basically, just looking at transferring all data from my vidcam's HDD using FCE and later wanting to use FCP to edit. this should be peice of cake right?
    The only reason i'm concerned is earlier i started a project in FCP and finished in FCE and it WASN'T that pretty. all my cuts became one massive cut on the timeline :S
    thanks for any help!

    well thanks for all your responses.. kind of a long story what i have going on.
    right now all im running is a 2 year old macbook with 4GB ram. i'm purchasing a iMac i7 in the next week or two. in the meantime however, i have my canon hg20 that has a bunch of footage that needs to be transferred as there is an important project coming up immediately. so my dilemma is that i don't currently own a machine to do a transfer via final cut pro (i need dedicated video card)..... :S

  • Can FCE Open FCP files?

    My friend and I will soon be collaborating on a project. I have Final Cut Express 3.0 and he will be getting Final Cut Studio. I know he'll be able to open my files, but will I be able to open his?

    Not directly. FCE3 is based on a version of FCP that's earlier than the current version of FCP. Final Cut projects are not backwards compatible. You might be able to use XML to get around this. Exporting it from FCP, brining the XML file into FCE and then after you're done opening the FCE file in FCP. This does work in theory, but I don't think it's a good plan for a workflow. There is too much that can go wrong in the process of exporting and constantly upgrading projects, especially when you throw in the mix of things you can do in FCP that will be lost because they can't be translated into an FCE project.

  • Importing FCE to FCP and G5 iMac to Duo Core iMac issues

    I mainly film & edit weddings, but work on a number of other things as well. Someone told me to try hitting escape when I get the error message window, which worked good enough on a few of the projects, but not on most. Have been using FCP 5.1.4 for about a year now and opened plenty of my old FCE 3.0 files without trouble. Switched from an iMac G5 without a Duo Core to a new one (iMac 7.1) with a Duo core in Jan, and now having all kinds of problems opening old FCE and sometimes even FCP projects started before I got the Duo Core.
    There's a project I created abt 8 mos ago in FCP 5.1.4 I'm trying to open and touch up a bit in the same version of FCP, but the cursor goes into a multi-color spin and essentially freezes up. I've also tried to open the capture scratch files from this project in a new Final Cut project, but they won't open and I get this message: "File error: 1 file recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown." Finally, try to open the capture scratch files in Quicktime, but get this message: "an invalid public atom movie was found in the movie". This makes me wonder if the captured video files might have gotten corrupted...any idea how or what to do now?
    Looks like my current system has an ATI Radeon HD2600 card. I'm not super technical when it comes to most of this. Any ideas why it won't open or what I can do to get it to work around these issues? Having to re-load footage and start completely over on these sure would be a huge pain. Please say NO
    Any thoughts are appreciated and welcomed.

    I mainly film & edit weddings, but work on a number of other things as well. Someone told me to try hitting escape when I get the error message window, which worked good enough on a few of the projects, but not on most. Have been using FCP 5.1.4 for about a year now and opened plenty of my old FCE 3.0 files without trouble. Switched from an iMac G5 without a Duo Core to a new one (iMac 7.1) with a Duo core in Jan, and now having all kinds of problems opening old FCE and sometimes even FCP projects started before I got the Duo Core.
    There's a project I created abt 8 mos ago in FCP 5.1.4 I'm trying to open and touch up a bit in the same version of FCP, but the cursor goes into a multi-color spin and essentially freezes up. I've also tried to open the capture scratch files from this project in a new Final Cut project, but they won't open and I get this message: "File error: 1 file recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown." Finally, try to open the capture scratch files in Quicktime, but get this message: "an invalid public atom movie was found in the movie". This makes me wonder if the captured video files might have gotten corrupted...any idea how or what to do now?
    Looks like my current system has an ATI Radeon HD2600 card. I'm not super technical when it comes to most of this. Any ideas why it won't open or what I can do to get it to work around these issues? Having to re-load footage and start completely over on these sure would be a huge pain. Please say NO
    Any thoughts are appreciated and welcomed.

  • Upgrading from FCE to FCP

    Is there any way to upgrade from FCE to FC studio or do I have to buy the whole studio suite?
    Im running Final Cut Express 2 btw.
    -Mads Meskalin

    Hi
    No as Ian R. Brown writes there are non. But sell Your FCE then You get something.
    Why FCP ?
    There are most probably many individual reasons. Mine was
    • Ability to share a project with others haveing FCP
    • The Multi Camera editing is avesome - but only if You got more than one Camera recordings.
    • Color corrector - three ways with - white, black and mid tone drop tools
    I really like this one.
    Then there are so much more in the bundle
    • DVD Studio Pro WITH HD
    • Motion
    • Color
    • Soundtravk Pro
    • Compressor
    So much new to learn - AND STILL SO Familiar miljoe.
    Yours Bengt W

  • General workflow between FCS and FCP question....

    Hey all.
    I'm totally new to FCS, and while in a few hours I've figured out a lot about how it works, what is totally eluding me is how to establish an efficient work flow back and forth between FCS and FCP...it's really driving me crazy.
    Yeah, I know, read the manual...but nothing I'm finding anywhere seems to be a really direct, straight-up description of how to get a FCP project up and running.
    Specifically I am dealing with the whole "checking out" a project thing, creating proxies, etc., it just feels very awkward. The test project I'm working with has 1 (ONE!) clip (granted a 28GB HD clip)...but FCS is not allowing me to make a proxy into the cache, this is after I already took that clip into FCP, cut it, saved it, checked it back into FCS just to make sure I got the basics of flowing back and forth down.
    I wish I could be more specific, but I really really really just want a basic explanation of how to use the FCS as, you know, a server.
    Anyone who can point me in that direction is a GOD!
    thanks,
    Mark

    Hi Mark,
    Here are the specific sections of the manual that should give you the best explanation regarding the Check out/in workflow for FCP projects in Final Cut Server:
    Check out:
    http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutserver/usermanual/#chapter=7%26section =5
    Editing:
    http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutserver/usermanual/#chapter=7%26section =6
    Check in:
    http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutserver/usermanual/#chapter=7%26section =7
    -Daniel

Maybe you are looking for