• Blogs
• Forums
• Tradeshows
• Partners
• White Papers
• Events

Review: Apple Final Cut Studio 2

Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By D. W. Leitner

Juggling a juggernaut.

           

To import 25Mbps Sony XDCAM EX images into FCP 6, you must strip their MP4 wrappers and replace them with QuickTime wrappers so that FCP 6 can import the files as ordinary HDV. You can accomplish this with Sony's XDCAM Transfer plug-in for FCP 6, shown above as beta software, which will be available when the PMW-EX1 ships.

I installed Final Cut Studio 2 on three machines: a PowerMac Dual 1.8GHz G5 workstation with 4GB RAM, a 15in. MacBook Pro 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM, and a Mac Pro 2x3GHz dual-core Intel Xeon workstation with 8GB of RAM. All were running the latest version of Tiger, OS X 10.4.10.

In the case of the PowerMac G5, I knew of an HDV feature being edited as HDV in FCP 5.1.4 with many layers of greenscreen and keying. Cutting was 50 percent complete. While it's risky to change horses in midstream by upgrading any NLE in mid-edit, the benefits were alluring: A trip to FCP 6.0.1's Effects menu shows a little item called SmoothCam (Effects > Video Filters > Video >SmoothCam), which replaces FCP 5.1.4's so-so Image Stabilizer. SmoothCam is no less than a nondestructive Shake algorithm that analyzes shakiness in a clip (in the background, while you're doing other things), and then allows you to experiment and view degrees of scaling and smoothness without having to re-analyze or rerender. SmoothCam improved several shots jittery from a weak tripod head or uneven tracking, to the great delight of the director (also the editor).

I'm happy to report that the complex 5.1.4 timeline survived the upgrade process intact with only a few easily restored render files missing. Since then, FCP 6.0.1 has run more smoothly on the PowerMac G5 than had FCP 5.1.4, which seemed to occasionally trigger an overheating condition that would automatically shut down the PowerMac G5 in the middle of a long, tedious render (not unknown to HDV projects), causing bouts of violent frustration. Hasn't happened with 6.0.1.

On the 15in. MacBook Pro, I cut a 3-minute promo and a prospective :60 commercial for a SoHo jewelry company. The scratch/render disk was a 1TB Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition connected by FireWire 800. In this case, a shaky camera was central to the aesthetic concept, as were quick cuts and glimpses of SoHo streets featuring a model. Most of it was shot in HDV (a sign of the times?), but one video track — sidewalk shadows of bustling pedestrians at sunset — had been shot in standard-def DV. This abstract, high-contrast DV imagery was intended to flow, collage-like, over the glamour shots.

FCP 6's new open-format timeline architecture enables you to drop clips from assorted codecs onto the timeline and edit instantly without rendering. This freedom made our mixing HDV and DV an afterthought, in that we didn't tinker with settings when importing mixed clips. (We even exploited the vertical black bars of DV's 4:3 pillarbox as a graphic gesture, a set of thick parentheses.) In truth, our interleaving of 1080i60 HDV with 480i60 DV hardly put FCP 6's open-format timeline to the test, because it can also mix clips with different frame rates — a trickier task — in realtime using FCP 6's RT Extreme engine.

The Mac Pro 2x3GHz dual-core Intel Xeon workstation, with its beefy ATI Radeon X1900 XT graphics card, is something else — half an octo, no less a Ferrari. So I've been experimenting with importing to a ProRes 422 timeline a series of 1080i60 clips from three innovative camcorders:

1. Panasonic's minuscule AG-HSC1U, which uses AVCHD (MPEG-4/H.264 codec) to record 1440×1080, 4:2:0 HD to a tiny SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) card — a high-capacity version of the common SD card. Final Cut Pro 6.0.1 adds support for AVCHD through its Log and Transfer interface, a new function located in the File menu beneath Log and Capture. (Formerly the P2 Import window, it was rechristened Log and Transfer in FCP 6.) After recording a series of clips to an SDHC card, I connected the HSC1U to the Mac Pro by USB cable and opened the Log and Transfer interface. Clips were immediately available for review, logging, and ingest. Couldn't be simpler.

   I also captured live images through the HSC1U's HDMI port, which outputs uncompressed 1920×1080, 4:2:2 HD. (Images captured by the HSC1U's three 1/4in. 16:9 CCDs are internally processed as 1440×1080 but upsampled for HDMI output. More about HSC1U in an upcoming review in Digital Content Producer.) This was accomplished using a standard HDMI cable and Blackmagic Design's excellent (and cheap) Intensity HDMI capture card. Ingest into FCP 6.0.1 was done on-the-fly using the Capture Now button in the Log and Capture window.

2. Sony's 3-CMOS HVR-V1U, which records HDV (MPEG-2) to tape. I had recorded rare takeoffs and landings of a WWII Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and I wanted to transfer the best possible images to ProRes 422. I chose the V1's HDMI uncompressed 1920×1080, 4:2:2 output, and Blackmagic's Intensity HDMI capture card. Although the V1's clips had already been subsampled to 1440×1080, 4:2:0 and compressed as long-GOP HDV for recording to tape, I reasoned that Sony's own hardware codec would likely do the best job of uncompressing and restoring them. Again, ingest was on the fly using the Capture Now button in Log and Capture. The results were superb.

3. Sony's 3-CMOS PMW-EX1 XDCAM EX, which records MPEG-2 to “S×S” (Sony and Sandisk) flash memory cards, essentially fast versions of the Express Card/34 standard. XDCAM EX offers two data rates: 25Mbps and 35Mpbs. The first is 1440×1080 — functionally equivalent to HDV — and the second is 1920×1080 or 1280×720. Both are 4:2:0. Final Cut Pro 6 can already import XDCAM HD files using a built-in codec, but XDCAM EX files differ in key respects: they use an MPEG-4 file wrapper (even though they're MPEG-2) instead of XDCAM HD's MXF wrapper, and while XDCAM HD images are 1440×1080, the 35Mbps XDCAM EX images are 1920×1080. At present, there's no FCP 6 codec that can import 1920×1080 MPEG-2 images, although this will certainly be rectified by Apple as the EX1 camcorder becomes available in late November.

It is possible, however, to import 25Mbps XDCAM EX images into FCP 6 if their MP4 wrappers are stripped and replaced with QuickTime wrappers, enabling FCP 6 to import these files as ordinary HDV. To do this, I obtained a beta copy of Sony's XDCAM Transfer plug-in for FCP 6, which will be available from Sony as a general release (non-beta) version when the EX1 ships. It is located under “File,” then “Import” in FCP 6 and appears as “Sony XDCAM” (File>Import>Sony XDCAM). I attached the EX1 camcorder by USB cable to the Mac Pro. Both 8GB and 16GB SxS cards were recognized. The 25Mbps files were imported automatically into my project.

The pièce de résistance? All clips ran smoothly in the same ProRes 422 timeline. (Coming from different camcorders, they didn't look the same. Ah, but that's a different article.)

Want to use this article? Click here for options!