Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP over FireWire

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A Creative COW Final Cut Pro Tutorial

Capture HDV to ProRes over FireWire in FCP 6

Chris Poisson
Phoenix Arizona USA
© 2007, CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
One of the features that snuck into the new edition of Final Cut Studio is that you can now capture HDV directly to ProRes over FireWire! There are a couple of issues you'll want to consider, but Chris Poisson, a Cow member since 2001, takes you step by step through a process that can make a big difference to the way you edit HDV in Final Cut Pro from now on.

This was a pleasant surprise coming with the latest update to Final Cut Studio. I've played around with it a bit and have invented my own workflow for it that's fast, easy and efficient. So I thought I’d share.

NOTE: This process gets you out of the MPEG 2 GOP world, and unlike capturing with dedicated hardware, leaves your footage at 1440x1080 instead of bringing it to full raster.But, it still works great.

I am capturing from a Canon XH-A1, with which I nearly always shoot 30p. That way, even if the material is going into an SD timeline, fields don’t come into play.

This workflow assumes you want to capture a bunch of things off a tape. If you only need to grab one or two things, just cue up your tape and capture it.

This workflow also makes up for the lack of a full capture window when capturing multiple clips.

Capture set-up
Make sure your camera or deck is properly set up for FireWire capture. In the case of my Canon, it must be set to HDV playback standard and plugged in and turned on before going to log and capture.

(You'll need an LCD monitor if you’re using a camera or a monitor hooked up if you’re using a deck, since capturing is going to lag way behind the camera or deck.)

You need not use a ProRes project setting to capture this way. What’s important is that you open up the audio/video settings and select HDV FireWire for control and HDV-Apple ProRes for your capture setting.

FCP6 HDV and ProRes capture window

Cue up your tape to the place where you want to start capture. Go to File>log and capture and a little window will come up.

HDV capture window

Type in a general name for the material. In this case, I spent about 20 minutes shooting footage of a Mission South of Tucson, so I just called it that, and let it rip.

Shortly after capture starts, you will see an alert at the bottom of the window,

HDV ProRes capture warning

It will be around 30% or so behind the camera, but this is normal.

Organizing the results
Let it go until your material is done, at which point you can manually turn off the camera, and the capture window will continue doing its thing for a few minutes.

You will then see several clips in your browser, numbered consecutively.

HDV ProRes browser 1

FCP makes a new clip at every camera start/stop. Toss all the master clips from the browser.

Now open the capture scratch folder, and go through each clip in the finder and re-name or toss them. This only takes a couple of minutes. When done, drag your clips to the browser, and you’re done.

( HDV ProRes browser 2

You now have beautiful ProRes 1080 clips with audio and timecode!

Feel free to add your comments here.

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View 78 Comment(s)

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Comments

•

Re: Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP over FireWire
by cory wright

referring to the article above everything seemed to go fine capturing , however when i go to play the clip its captured as a doc file and cannot play it . Can anyone help me with this it would be greatly appreciated .

•

@cory wright
by David Callow

Cory, did you ever sort this out.
Am experiencing the same problem.
(the doc files won't export into Motion)
Many thanks.

•

Re: Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP over FireWire
by tom stretton

Hi Chris
after trawling through lot of reasons why my jvc gy hd 110u wouldnt connect to fcp i came across your explanation that solved it,although i set it the sequence and video presets to the apple preset ones and it was conected
thank you Tom

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Re: Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP over FireWire
by christina rule

Awesome! Thanks! Would this work if you were capturing live via firewire in FCP?

http://www.christinarule.com

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Re: Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP over FireWire
by stephen thomas

Hi all, just got some thoughts on how this would work with an offline/online edit workflow. We've got a Canon XH-A1 and footage is shot 1080f25.

We shoot quite a bit of footage for projects where I work and so have implemented an offline/online edit workflow as follows:

- Capture in HDV
- Use media encoder to transcode footage into ProRes proxy
- Trash original HDV footage
- Create offline edit using ProRes footage files
- Once the client is happy with the edit, footage is brought online with the media encoder
- Only footage used in the edit is re-captured and I recapture into HDV.

Does this seem sensible for an online/offline edit workflow without using hardware to transcode on capture?

Also, considering the Canon XH-A1 records footage onto the tape in HDV, I thought the quality would be the best you'd be able to get if you just captured in HDV. This is going down the thought process of "you can't add detail which isn't there in the first place". Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Would it be possible/worth me taking the project online using ProRes? I'm thinking not as the process doesn't use the log and capture window...

•

@stephen thomas
by Andy Mees

Hi Stephen
Bear in mind that HDV has a fixed data ate of 25 Mbs ... about 50% less than the data rate of ProRes Proxy (up to 36 Mbs) ... so your workflow gains you nothing but a more complicated life and maybe marginally easier offline editing experience, depending on the nature of your edits.
Best
Andy

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@Andy Mees
by stephen thomas

Hi Andy, thanks for you quick reply.

When I said proxy, I meant to say ProRes 442 PAL 48kHz Anamorphic, slip of the tongue. I did look into using proxy, but as you said, there was no benefit at all. I find that using ProRes 442 PAL cuts the file size down by about half. I did also look into using OfflineRT PAL Anamorphic, which gave huge savings in space, but I didn't think the quality was good enough to show clients an offline edit.

I'm still looking into how capturing into ProRes would be better than capturing in HDV. I know that you'll avoid the whole temporal compression GOP thing, but I'm not too concerned about render/playback speeds when I'm onlining a film. My main aim is getting the best quality in the finishing process...

•

Thanks great article. Was just wondering
by Carl Rohumaa

Thanks great article. Was just wondering how much an issue the 1440 x 1080 instead of 1920 x 1080 is. What things do I have to take into consideration. I have always edited in HDV and am thinking to do my next project in Pro Res

•

HDV Start/Stop time
by Jonathan Buiel

When we first started capturing to ProRes, FCP would capture to one long file. Then after a few days, seemingly out of the blue, it switched to recognizing stop/start points. I'd like to switch it back but can't figure out what changed. This happened on two different machines. No software updates were applied

I had the same issue but went under "clip settings" and un-checked "create cut at Start/Stop time" and I no longer had the issue. The default seems to be that it will come back on after you close out your capture settings but that should work.

•

Any way to turn off recognition of start/stop points for ProRes capture?
by David Hempling

Using FCP 6.0.6 and capturing from both the Sony HDR-M150 and the Canon XH-A1S...

When we first started capturing to ProRes, FCP would capture to one long file. Then after a few days, seemingly out of the blue, it switched to recognizing stop/start points. I'd like to switch it back but can't figure out what changed. This happened on two different machines. No software updates were applied.

Have tried loading another preset which gave access to the regular Log & Capture window where I saw that the "recognize start/stop" checkbox was set, so I unset it and then went back to my ProRes preset and did some capture. Still got start/stop clip creation.

Can't seem to figure out how to turn start/stop recognition off for ProRes.

Any ideas?

•

Your deck
by Chris Poisson

I'm sorry, but I don't know that deck. I capture from my camera.

•

hdv to prores
by Robert Norman

when using my Sony HDV deck to FCP I get the usual small window to name file and hit capture now. When I hit capture now, all I see is a black screen, and under it says cueing tape. However; it has already started my tape playing, but does not record anything.
any help?

•

Renaming clips and reel #'s
by Burk Finley

Forgot to mention, B camera can be 200's, C camera 300's etc. Sorry to the pros out there for being so rudimentary.

Burk

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Renaming clips and reel #'s
by Burk Finley

I may be late to the game, but I had a suggestion for Peter who sounded like he needed help with renaming his clips and reel #s after re-importing his ProRes clips from the finder window into FCP.

If each clip starts with a reference #, and perhaps some project initials, it's really easy to track that source clip all the way through post.

For instance, say your film is called Marley and Me. You can start the clip name of all the "A" camera QT's with "MM" followed by reel #'s 101, 102, and so forth.

Example:

A Camera, Tape 1, Clip 1: MM101.01_description of clip
A Camera, Tape 1, Clip 2, MM101.02_description of clip
A Camera, Tape 2, Clip 1: MM102.01_description of clip

This helps when editing multiple shows at a time, or having a scratch disk with clips from various projects. It also helps to name reel #'s with the date included as well. Example: MM101_20090615 (A camera, tape 1, shot on June 15, 2009). All the reel #'s can be renamed after the ProRes renamed clips are brought back into the FCP browser from the Finder window, or both clip and QT files are renamed right in Final Cut.

Further, once you've done all this, you can easily batch export all your clip info from the FCP brower by clicking in the browser window, choosing File--Export--Batch List, which will put out a tabbed text file. Once you do that, open up Excel, go to Data--Get External Data--Import Text File, select the recently exported FCP batch list text, and then just keep hitting Next until you are able to hit Finish. This will keep all your data in its proper column, and you will always have ALL information on every clip backed up in case your FCP project gets corrupted, lost, etc.

Good luck,

Burk Finley
FCP 6.0.5
Mac G5 Dual 2.3
4.5 GB ram

•

DATA FILES?
by Shawn Pinner

Hey Chris.
I tried this and the image is great. The only thing is, the files are saved as DATA FILES to my scratch and cannot be imported to FCP or played on QT.
But the file in the project browser plays beautifully in the project that I captured it to.

This is done on a Mac Book Pro on FCP 7.
Capturing from a JVC HD7U through firewire.

Because of this, I cannot use the Smooth Cam plug in to smooth out some of the shots, due to it not being a QT file, and I cannot import files from capture scratch to any other project, but I can copy and paste a clip from one project to another.

I tried a regular HDV project and it created QT files. It is just the HDV APPLE PRO RES 422.

I tried this before I read your tutorial, so I will go back and see if it is a setting issue or something.

Anyone else having this issue?

Shawn

•

Apple Intermediate Codec instead pro-res
by Luke middlemiss

Hi Alvaro

You said "why not use Apple Intermediate Codec instead pro-res....? It seems to be faster and light...anybody experienced ? "

Well Im with you. Its working fine with me as well.

thanks

Alvaro

•

One long clip
by Chris Poisson

Chad,

In the log and capture settings there's a check box for "create new clip on timecode break," or something like that. See if that helps.

•

When I capture in FCP, it
by Chad Miller

When I capture in FCP, it doesn't recognizing start/stop points and just creates one large clip, I'm using a XH-A1 1080i 24f

My FCP settings are,

sequence preset: HDV - 1080p24
capture preset: HDV - Apple ProRes 422
Device Control Preset: HDV FireWire

Video Playback: None
Audio Playback: Default

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

Chad

•

100 one hour tapes to capture from HDV to ProRes
by peter dunphy

Hi guys

I'm a little confused - I'd really appreciate any clarification you can offer me on any of the following numbered questions:

I have 100 one hour tapes to capture from HDV to ProRes 422. I have just set up a Raid 5 (8TB Sonnet D800) and that will act as my FCP Scratch Disk.

Couple of questions:

1. When I rename my clips, should I perhaps include a code such as 'B' to correspond with, say, the 2nd tape/hour of footage I capture (could also physically mark the tape with a 'B') - to help me find the right tape should I need to recapture?

Proposed examples of renamed clip?: E Closeup Dog Drinks Water

(this clip description one would correspond with the single Reel/Physical Tape clearly labelled with the letter E)

2. When capturing small segments from each of all my 100 tapes, will the time code simply rise and rise throughout the 100 tapes? I'm not sure how FCP will 'know' which physical tape contains the clips it needs should a re-import be required.

3. If I have already captured a clip, and then watch the clip again and decide I will have no use for it in my project whatsoever and want to delete it to save space, what is the best 'safest' way to delete the clip from my hard drives? I was thinking that I could just go directly into the Scratch Disk captured footage and delete the clip, but I'm afraid this might cause problems in FCP.

Any thoughts or criticism about the above would be dearly welcomed.

Thanks in advance

Peter

•

HI Chris Thanks for the advice
by peter dunphy

HI Chris

Thanks for the advice - excellent stuff. While I capture and log I'm thinking of copying and pasting each of my clip descriptions into a document/spreadsheet to aid me with editing. Should be a pretty clear guide as to which useful clips are on which of my many tapes!

Thanks again

Peter

•

Reel #s
by Chris Poisson

Since you can't enter a reel number in the capture window, I suggest adding the number in your clip name, or just having a bullet-proof clip naming system with perhaps a written log. But you can type in notes in the Label column in the browser, which won't do any harm.

•

With that many tapes, you might
by peter dunphy

With that many tapes, you might want to include the reel # in the name or at least in the browser info.

Hi Chris

Wow - thanks so much for your prompt feedback I really appreciate it.

Sorry to sound absolutely stupid but could you quickly show an example of how you would rename the name of a clip to include a reel number?

I'm assuming I should write a unique reel number/tape number on the cases of my physical tapes, to match the unique reel number/tape number I've included in my renamed clip name?

Peter

•

1. When I rename my clips,
by Chris Poisson

1. When I rename my clips, should I perhaps include a code such as 'B' to correspond with, say, the 2nd tape/hour of footage I capture (could also physically mark the tape with a 'B') - to help me find the right tape should I need to recapture?

With that many tapes, you might want to include the reel # in the name or at least in the browser info.
Proposed examples of renamed clip?: E Closeup Dog Drinks Water

(this clip description one would correspond with the single Reel/Physical Tape clearly labelled with the letter E)

2. When capturing small segments from each of all my 100 tapes, will the time code simply rise and rise throughout the 100 tapes? I'm not sure how FCP will 'know' which physical tape contains the clips it needs should a re-import be required.

The time code will be actual from each tape, so there will be duplicate time code all over the place, but that's okay if you name your clips properly.

3. If I have already captured a clip, and then watch the clip again and decide I will have no use for it in my project whatsoever and want to delete it to save space, what is the best 'safest' way to delete the clip from my hard drives? I was thinking that I could just go directly into the Scratch Disk captured footage and delete the clip, but I'm afraid this might cause problems in FCP.

When capturing to ProRes from HDV, each camera start = a new clip, I just have my capture scratch folder open and as I re-name the clips I toss the ones I don't want. Just delete it, no danger at all.

•

ProRes
by Chris Poisson

Philip,

The timecode will be correct if you capture more in the future. You don't need an HDV project as a backup, you have your tapes. Also, I would think Apple is at least thinking about making this a batch process, so in the future you could batch capture from your original edit. But then who knows...

•

prores here I come !
by Philip Van Dyck

You got a good point there Chris.
I calculated the cost of it and yes It would be cheaper to archieve the project.

still one question and then I'm sold to prores:

if I Back up for example 1h timeline footage /project (consolidated) then I can get approx. 19 project on a 1TB drive.
And then if the client comes back and wants other footage from that shooting day. Can I capture these footage with prores and have the security that all the timecodes are the same on tape as in clipfiles?

I guess I could always create a HDV off-line project incase the drive goes bust. so that I always have that as safety net for when the HDD would fail.

Actually while writing this I feel like it is indeed the best choice to go prores.

Thanx Chris You help me over the last stones of the prores mountain.

•

Transcode to ProRes
by Chris Poisson

The whole point of capturing to ProRes, (which is not a batch capture operation) is to get rid of the HDV format, so why in the world would you want to go back to it for archiving? ProRes takes up a lot less disc space than uncompressed, and with storage so cheap, just keep your ProRes footage archived and when your client wants a change, just go for it.

•

transcode HDV to prores
by Philip Van Dyck

Hi all
I had a idee while reading the cooments about batch capture. For me this is highly important, because clients always have the need to change something in about a year after production.
But prores is great (so I heard) for color grading (422) and rendering.
So here it goes:

Could you for example:

1) Capture the footage to HDV clips
2) Transcode them to prores using media library.
3) Import the prores clips in FCP.
4) Edit using the prores clips
5) Finish the project and export them to DVD, BD-internet, ...

6) after the project is done and client is happy (for now) recompress the project to HDV (offline clips)
7) then Back up all the files (project other logo media etc.)
8) and then when the client comes back to make changes to the original a year later, batch capture the HDV project timeline (recompressed from step 6) and then edit from there to make the changes.

Could this work?

- I think the extra time needed to recompress the footage is equal to that of the capture offset when capturing prores (30% aka 20 minutes)

- Now (in FCP 5) I do this workflow in a project with apple intermediate codec HDV. I 'll test it next week if I could recapture a sequence this way. so AIC to HDV offline => batch capture => HDV project

Can you trascode to prores in FCP 6 ?

•

Confused
by Nick Falangas

Hi I also use the XH-A1 and shoot in 30fps. Um I see that your sequence preset is AJA KONA LH. Just wondering what is that?? Second off what is Apple Pro Res 422? What is the image size of that? You know what I have been doing to create a better workflow is I have been exporting my 1440x1080i to 720HDV and it does not seem like the most efficient way so I am researching and Shane sent me this link. Could you use a Apple Pro Res 720 30fps?

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Hey Burk,

Well, I have not encountered this, but maybe it's because I have been re-naming the clips one by one. But good to know, thanks.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Burk Finley

Hey Chris,

One more thing I've come across in relation to Paul Hawke-Williams' comment on renaming original source files to match clip names in the browser.

The process is to right click on a clip in FCP browser, scroll down to Rename, then select File to Match Clip, and rename the source QT file on your scratch disc. (Select yes when window pops up asking if you want to change the name of the source file).

I have found naming in this direction to be a little buggy. It seems to work when renaming 20 or less clips at a time. But if I try to rename more than 20 or so at a time, the source file has the new clip name plus a bunch of old jibberish attached to the end of the new name. It's as though FCP has hidden information attached to the end of the clip name in the browser.

The only way I've found to clean up such a mess is to rename the clips in Finder, and drag them into FCP like you (Chris) originally suggested, which can lose color coding, etc. But renaming less clips at a time seems to work to avoid such a step. Just thought I'd share.

Final Cut reminds me of an old Volkswagen sometimes.

Burk Finley

FCP 6.0.5
Mac G5 Dual 2.3
4.5 GB ram

•

Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Hey Burk,

Yeah, I haven't tried the dubbing route, but it should work.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Hi Burk,

The workaround would be A. shoot more pre and post roll or B. dub the tape to a new one.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Burk Finley

In capturing HDV off my Z1U to ProRes over firewire with the setup Chris explains in this article, I am having the same problem Sam Zimman noted a while back. Each clip captured excludes EXACTLY 17 frames between shots (on the start and stop of each new shot).

The loss is mostly in the form of 15 frames (or so) of pre-roll at the beginning of each clip, as opposed to the end of the previous clip.

Is there a workaround for this to include all frames shot when capturing ProRes via firewire?

Thanks,

Burk

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Burk Finley

Thanks Chris,

That's sorta what I thought.

This article has served the community well--lots of mileage on this one.

Burk

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Samuel Hall

Thanks Chris. I can't wait to start using this.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Samuel,

All of my captures have been shot in Canon's 30f format, FCP seems to sense and set the frame rate to whatever it was shot at. In an earlier HDV via FW capture test I did I shot 3 scenes in a row on one tape in 60i, 30f and 24f and when captured all at once FCP set the right frame rate for each clip, and cut them up as individual clips.

HTH

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Samuel Hall

Has anyone tried using this method with footage shot in Canon's 24f mode? If so, should any of the capture settings change?

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

A comparison of ProRes to AIC will show you the obvious answer. Start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProRes_422

Then Google Wiki for AIC and see the difference. AIC is 4:2:0 and ProRes is 4:2:2 for starters. AIC was Apple's first attempt to make sense of HDV in an editing environment, and was geared to non-professional uses. I have never used, nor know any professional who has used AIC in their workflows. Size of files and bandwidth pale in consideration of quality and reliability so we just buy fast enough and big enough hardware to make it work.

If AIC works for what you're doing, rock on.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Alvaro Lanciai

hi to everybody...
why not use Apple Intermediate Codec instead pro-res....? It seems to be faster and light...anybody experienced ?
I've been using it since 2 moths and it's working fine...

thanks

Alvaro

•

Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Hey Andy,

If you go back and look, (and it was 8 months ago, my bad) at the time I answered you kind of smugly, which I regret, because the renaming does work really well. But when I do this I still rely on the part of my article which involves keeping the browser and the capture scratch windows open, so I can toss any of the clips I don't need or want. Saves space and cleans up the browser!

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Andy Mees

Gee Chris, Thanks for the vote of confidence mate! Glad to see you've finally discovered this just 4 months after I noted it 8 moths ago in the very first comment on your article! He he, just joshing with you mate. Have a great day. Andy

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Paul,

Yes, I discovered this feature about 4 months ago, now use it all the time. I should really update my article, but thanks.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Paul Hawke-Williams

Hi Chris
Just to go back a bit to the comment Andy made about not trashing your clips from the browser, there is a function in FCP 6 (new for this version) that does allow you to rename the original media in your capture scratch to match the new names you've renamed your clips in your browser (and also to rename the clips in browser to match file names in capture scratch if you want to)
Right or control click on the clip you've just renamed in your browser and there at the bottom of the contextual menu you'll find a rename menu item - choose the one you want!
Sorry if you've already found this!
Cheers
Paul

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by chris gorman

I just did a short test capture of hdv to ProRes std (8 bit yuv) using my dual 2.3 PowerMac G5 and FCP 6.0.3.

How nice that the screen told me to watch my vtr"s lcd for correct progress. It also displayed what % lag time. On this short 48 sec.clip the lag was approx. 18%.

I pushed stop on the cam vtr at the end of what I wanted to caputure. Worked great.

The numbers on the 48 sec sample clip comparing an hdv capture vs ProRes Std capture: hdv 3.2 MB/sec. vs. ProRes 795 MB/sec. File size: hdv 155.2 MB vs ProRes 795 MB when I view "item properties" for each clip.

However, when I look at file sizes of the QT files in the capture folder, the hdv clip is 258.6 MB, and the ProRes clip is 795.8 MB I don't know why the hdv file was smaller in the TL than in the capture folder - the clip was not trimmed.

Anyway, I'm more concerned with the large file size of the ProRes. At that size it seems I could not capture and work in ProRes for this project.

So far, I can't really see any difference in quality between the ProRes cap and the hdv captured clip.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Julian,

There's no difference in quality between native HDV and ProRes captured via FireWire that I can see. ProRes is just a better format to edit with and for compositing etc. than native HDV. Regarding ProRes HQ, I don't think that would buy you anything quality-wise on ingest, and I don't know if FCP can do it anyway. Never tried it.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Nick Meyers

" don't see my system being the problem for this freeze"

could be your drives aren't up to the extra bandwidth.
don't sweat it.
it's almost impossible to see the difference between them anyway.

nick

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Julian Pinder

...And is there a difference between ProRes and ProRes(HQ) capture? When I try to capture in ProRes (HQ) the preview screen freezes halfway through the tape and FCP seems to crash / freeze. Any ideas why???
Working with a dual core intel - 5g RAM -external drives etc... I don't see my system being the problem for this freeze -it should be able to handle it?

Thanks again.. J

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Julian Pinder

Does anyone know what the quality difference is capturing from HDV ProRes as opposed to a full quality HDV capture (I'm using JVC HDV 720 24p format)?
And if there is a quality difference, how significant is it?

Many thanks.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Jay Grey

My settings are the same, with the exception of the Sequence Preset. But for some reason, it's not working for me.

It was working for me, but I had to force quit FCP, and now all my setting are lost.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, all

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Erik N

This is really cool. I tried it out and worked great. I do have the same concerns about not batching in case a media drive dies but I see timecode is listed for each clip. I want to do a test and delate the material the see if I can batch capture the lost footage. Has anyone tried this yet?

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Tony, if you're using FCP 6.0.2 it should be in there.

Scott,

I don't think it can do HQ, never tried that.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by scott blass

does it work for Proress HQ? everytime i try it FCP closes/shuts down and quits with no error message showing......

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Anthony Wood

Lee;

I don't have the ProRes capture preset in my menu. problem?

Tony Wood

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Lee Berger

Derek,
You are quite welcome.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Derek Haager

Hey Lee Berger,

Thanks so much for posting your update. It was my first time capturing HDV and not my camera, I would have never figured that out by myself. Thanks again!

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Kevin Boyd

I encoded a second tape with ProRes 422 and HDV codec and agin the ProRes 422 was out by several seconds!

My settings are:

Camera: Sony HVR-V1E
Video source 1080 50i PAL

Sequence preset: Apple ProRes 422 1440x1080 50i 48Khz
Capture Preset HDV-Apple ProRes 422
Device Control Sony HDV 1080i50 FireWire

Have reported this issue to Apple UK and am awaiting a response.

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ProRes422 time code out by 5 seconds
by Kevin Boyd

Just had a rather disturbing experience with the proRes422 codec. I firstly captured my tape as a standard HDV and then as ProRes422 as described in this article. I wanted to do a quality comparison so I grabed two clips with the same timecode and found the time code was out by 5 seconds on the proRes422 clip! So my claperboad claped at 01:02:10:18 on my HDV capture (and on the original tape) and the proRes had it at 01:02:06:05

What on earth would cause that?

Kevin

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Nick, thanks.

Shane, no bad blood, you only made it better.

This clip name thing is something that DV Monitor does automatically, change the clip name in the capture window and it changes it on the scratch media.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Shane Ross

Yup..right under the MODIFY menu. And Choose FILE to match CLIP. The FILE is the QT file on the scratch disk, and the CLIP is the clip name in the Browser.

Sorry Chris, I didn't mean to knock this tutorial. I think it is really cool that I can capture HDV as ProRes via firewire. And I was having fun doing it. I just get a bit scared when it comes to the ability to recapture media if it is lost.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by NickM

Shane, you wrote:

"FCP has a new feature that when you rename a clip in the Browser, you can have the master clip name on the Scratch Disk change to match that name."

I tried this but it doesn't seem to work. How do you do it?

it doesn't happen as a matter of course,
you have to ask for it.
go to Modify Menu > Rename
or right click on the clips in the browser.
(cant be done from the timeline)

Nick

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Shane, you wrote:

"FCP has a new feature that when you rename a clip in the Browser, you can have the master clip name on the Scratch Disk change to match that name."

I tried this but it doesn't seem to work. How do you do it?

Kevin,

That's really strange, maybe you should run another test and see if it's the same.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Kevin Boyd

Hi Steve,
"In the log and capture settings window you can uncheck the stop start function which I hate in the log and capture process."

Except you can't "uncheck the stop start function" option in the log and capture screen as it does not appear when you use the ProRes422 codec!

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Stevesteve

In the log and capture settings window you can uncheck the stop start function which I hate in the log and capture process.
Steve

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Thanks Tim.

Kevin,

No lag, huh? Must be my G5. By tossing the clips I mean the clips in the browser after you capture, but only if you want to re-name them. Turning off the make new clip feature is not an option I can see.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Tim Wilson

Or we can just leave the clarifications here for all to see. :-)

With Shane's safety tip in hand, coming up with a solution that SHOULDN'T work but DOES work is definitely worthy of 5 Cows.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Kevin Boyd

I captured using your advice Chriss on my new Intel Mac Pro with two Xeon 2.6Ghz processors 9GB RAM and got no lag at all. Though I did loose some frames (around 12) between each take from a PAL 1080i50 HDV tape on my Sony V1

1. Is there anyway to turn off the "New Clip on each camera stop" feature with ProRes422?

2. Chris, what do you mean by "Toss all the master clips from the browser"?

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Hey Shane,

That's a very good point, thanks. I'll send a note on that to Tim.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Shane Ross

OK...more on this, as I am using the tip now to capture.

FIRST OFF...you needn't delete the clips from the Browser, rename in the finder, then re-import into FCP. FCP has a new feature that when you rename a clip in the Browser, you can have the master clip name on the Scratch Disk change to match that name. I forgot about that handy feature.

Now, onto my big issues with this tip. I blogged about my experiences on my main blog and cow blog (which is a copy of my main blog), and I have this to say:

"When you do this capture, you do it pretty much as a CAPTURE NOW. Roll the tape and let it go. There is no LOG AND CAPTURE, no place to add REEL numbers. So let's say that you lose a drive, and your footage is lost. How will you get it back? With logging and capturing, simply BATCH CAPTURE your footage and it will reconnect in the Browser and timeline. But with this method, CAN you batch capture? Because of the camera starts and stops will the recapture start on the exact same first frame and last frame? If you have to recapture the footage and try to reconnect it that way, how can you assure that you get the same TC start and end times...and the same clip names?"

"I think if I have the time, I will also capture the footage (only 8 tapes) via HD SDI as DVCPRO HD 1080i 29.97 and see how things look. At least with this format, I can log and capture, label my clips, assign reel numbers as I capture, have the ability to capture the b-roll as one long clip. And piece of mind that I can re-capture via "batch capture" in case footage is lost."

-Shane

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Shane Ross

Chris, you need to add that when you capture this way, no REEL information is placed on the clip...so you have no way to tell what tape the clips came from. After you re-import you need to add the reel name to the clip (click yes when it says you are changing the time code information on the master clip). Otherwise if you lose a clip, you have no clue what tape it came from.

And BTW, I am capturing tonight from a Sony HVR-1500 via firewire to ProRes on my Dual 2.0 Ghz G5. No problem whatsoever.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Chris Poisson

Hey all, been away for the Holiday, will try to address all of these here.

Lee B.

There must be a menu setting in the V1U that needs to be tweaked. Sorry, I don't know that camera.

Michael E.

I have not had a multi-tape capture session using this workflow, but I will report back if I have the same or a different problem when I do. Hope you got this sorted out.

Nick,

I captured a 45 minute tape the other day, and it was always around 30% behind the camera. When the tape is done, it will take a few minutes for the capture to finish, I suppose it could be as long as 20 minutes for a 1 hour tape.

Arti,

I believe FCP will detect your frame rate etc., it does from my A1. Note in my article I said an easy setup is not required, device control and capture settings are all you need to worry about.

Steven,

This tutorial was done on a 2 year old G5 2 Gig with 4.5 gigs of RAM.

Sam,

In my experience, FireWire capture of HDV demands more pre and post roll on shots in general. A painful lesson I learned when I started using my Canon A1 last Spring. Does this ProRes thing exacerbate the situation? I don't know, but you should add time to the front and end of shots just in case.

Andy,

I didn't know renaming clips in the browser would change the name of the QuickTime clips in the capture scratch folder, is that what you mean? The method I describe does not take any (or much) more time, and anal me goes to bed knowing my manual media management is correct. And I sleep great.

Thank you all for your comments, this is a brand new procedure, all of your concerns and suggestions will only help perfect it. Thanks!

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Lee Berger

Opps, sorry. It does work on my G5 2.0! I forgot to turn off the down convert function on my V1U.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Lee Berger

It doesn't seem to work on my G5 2.0 and Sony V1U. The capture window comes up, the tape plays, but no video ever appears. At the bottom is says Cueing Tape (press 'esc' to stop). It played all the way to the end of the recorded tape about eight minutes without capturing anything.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Michael Escher

I'm running a dual core 3ghz intel machine with a kona LHe card (not that it matters much capturing via firewire) and found that after each tape that I needed to re-boot the computer otherwise I got a "you have reached the end of the tape" error message when I tried to capture a second tape. This is coming from a canon camera with material shot at "24" frames a second.

I have one problematic tape that I am trying to capture for the third time that when it gets close to the end of the tape final cut just quits and when I look at the capture scratch folder it didn't get anything from that tape. I'm baby sitting and watching the tape through the whole capture now to see if there is a time code break.

Has anyone else had this sort of problem? What happens with this sort of capture strategy when the computer encounters a time code break?

Michael Escher

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by NickM

hey, chris

"It will be around 30% or so behind the camera, but this is normal."

what does this actually mean?

if i capture an hour long tape,
will the capture window stay open 20 minutes after the tape runs out?

nick

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by steven

Chris,

was this done with a G5 or a MacPro?
has anyone tested this with a dual 2 GHz G5?

thanks.

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Sam Zimman

When I tried this feature a week ago (or whenever it was that 6.0.2 came out) I was very excited, but I quickly noticed that at the points where the camera was stopped and started again (i.e. the beginning of a new clip) capturing in this manner missed some footage. If you captured just as straight HDV you will not miss a frame of video footage, but using this HDV->ProRes feature I was missing quite a few frames. I just chalked this up to a problem because I have a 2.3 Dual Core G5 and not an Intel machine. Does anyone else have this issue? Does this problem exists on Intel machines?

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by Andy Mees

Chris, Good of you to take the trouble to write this up. I think the "toss the master clips, open the capture scratch folder, view and rename the files, then reimport them to the project" routine all sounds a bit unnecessary tho. It would seem more sensible to rename the clips, as captured, directly in the browser, then (if really needed) you can use FCP 6's ability to rename the master clips according to the clip names. (And you can delete any unwanted clips directly from the browser window by using the Make Offline command. Just a thought. Andy

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Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!
by CATWALK

Hi!

I have a question from PAL, 25fps country.
Can I use this feature with 1080i 25fps HDV video?
I've found setups only for 30p footage...

regards
ARTI

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